Emotional Dualisms and Harmony of Opposites

Death and Life

The human animal, manimal, is a base creature, no different than a domesticated dog or cat.  Manimals function on two primary emotions, Fear and Hope.  Fear is a representation of death instinct.  Hope is a representation of life, or survival, instinct.  All forms of stimuli, through the senses, lean into one primal emotion or the other.  Hope or fear, life or death.

Hope is split further into two emotions: joy and rage.
Fear is split further into two emotions: grief and horror.

Joy is happiness.
Rage is anger.
Grief is sadness.
Horror is hopelessness.

As Aristotle posited 4 primary elements of the universe, so too are there 4 primary emotions of all organisms, as represented above.

Earth is rock, ground.
Water is liquid, oceans.
Air is gas, skies.
Fire is plasma, sun.

The 4 primary material elements can be compared to the 4 primary emotions.

Earth = Horror
Water = Grief
Air = Joy
Fire = Rage


The First Emotional Dualism:
1. Fear = Death
2. Hope = Life

The Second Emotional Dualism:
1. Hope = Joy
2. Hope = Rage
3. Fear = Grief
4. Fear = Horror

Modernity

Modernity represents "western" culture, mainly referring to the u.s. and western european countries, west of the berlin wall after the defeat of nazism in germany. Modernity is dominated by judaeo christian ideals, newspeak for "secular humanist". Some of these ideals immediately translate into: liberalism, egalitarianism, humanism, secularism. Many so called "atheists" are just jews or christians, minus god. They keep all the other 99% composition of judaism and christianity, but attempt to deny god and take "Him" out of the equation. There are many reasons for this.

But the most readily apparent marker of western degeneracy and hedonism, modernity, are the emotions of depression and horror. Depression is apparent in u.s. as pharmaceutical companies begin drugging young children at early ages. The population is drugged chemically. The second proof for this depression is the widespread use and promotion of marijuana. These chemical abuses represent the widespread attitude of the era of this society. The age of the society, the generation, is marked by depression.

Quote :

Tyler Durden: Man, I see in fight club the strongest and smartest men who've ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off.

The second emotion dominating western culture, or specifically the u.s., is horror. This leads to distrust of strangers and neighbors, as the individualist mentality makes the young generations more and more autistic and selfish, solipsistic. This also connects to the spree shooter, school shooting phenomenon. People are afraid of and fear the "oddballs", the socially illiterate, autistic, emotionally stunted, retarded, loner, outcast, recluse. This forces all younger people into a do or die situation. You must become popular and outgoing. You must don a social mask. Because the choice not to....is disappearing. You must engage lies. You must reintegrate into popularity, modernity, and superficiality. Eventually outsiders will simply be charged with liberal "thought crimes", and taken away without committing crimes at all.

Both of these dominant social emotions represent a Fear Culture instead of a Hope Culture. So depression, melancholy, sadness, fear, hopelessness, despair, horror, paranoia (Alex Jones, infowars), and distrust permeate western culture, led by the u.s.


Here is the point of this response.

Because the u.s. is dominated by Grief and Horror (Fear emotions), this creates a need, want, desire, and extreme demand for authentic joy and rage. The whole social society is out of balance emotionally. So individuals with great joy, and great rage, are required to re balance the overall society.

I liken this to the depression evoked by christianity and Nietzsche's proclamation "The Death of God". Christians are depressed that god has disappeared, vanished, gone, or died. No longer necessary. So christians are spiritually grieving for the loss of their god, their christ figure, which is also the symbol of their ideals and mastery.

This overwhelming need for joy, or rage, marks the average manimal. Don't you ever see it odd, that everybody must be "happy" all the time? That if you are unhappy, then "something is wrong with you"? This is the overall cultural attitude of the u.s. Everybody must be happy all the time, or, something is wrong with you.

I disagree, something is wrong with society, with culture. And this overwhelming need to be "happy all the time", proves the reality. It proves that u.s. is in a great depression, overwhelmed by grief as the permeating emotion of the era.

As a whole society, these emotions change, slower than they do in any individual. Speaking for myself, personally, my emotions can change daily or weekly. For females, their emotions tend to change monthly coinciding with their menstrual cycle and hormone balance. But for a whole society, a change in overall emotion can take a year, decades, maybe even a century.

The era of nazi germany is pretty obvious, which emotion dominated Germany then? Was it not rage? Was it not contempt against all the outsiders, mischlings, jews, and enemies of aryanism, that wanted to invade and destroy nazi germany? Was their rage, anger, and contempt justified or not?

Four Seasons

Summer is the hottest, representing fire: June, July, August
Autumn is the driest, representing air: September, October, November
Winter is the coldest, representing earth and ice: December, January, February
Spring is the wettest, representing water: March, April, May

The season flow from hot (Summer) to cold (Winter), and from dry (Autumn) to wet (Spring).


The four seasons represent the four emotions represent the four elements.

Aristotle had not been "surpassed" or "bettered" or "advanced upon" for over two millenniums. Science has not "improved" on his ideas. This represents the power and timelessness of original, first philosophy.

There are two primary energies in the cosmos.

Gravity, or attraction, and its opposite, friction, or repulsion.

Gravity brings things, and certain sorts of things together, resulting in a more anentropic state of affairs, and friction tears things, and certain sorts of things apart, resulting in a more entropic state of affairs.

Therefore, we may say the cause of entropy is friction, and the cure, if you will, is gravity.

However, friction and entropy itself aren't anymore beneficial for life and nonlife than gravity and anentropy.

Too much friction causes life and nonlife alike to disintegrate and explode, and too much gravity crushes life and nonlife alike.

Therefore, what is required, is the right balance of entropy and anentropy.

The cosmos itself isn't hostile to life, it has no intent, and to suggest it does, is to anthropomorphize/personify it, rather, all we should say is that life has to exert itself, in order to live, and there are things in the cosmos that're relatively beneficial, things that're relatively detrimental, and it is up to life, to attain the former and avert the latter.

It's difficult to say whether gravity, and the forces that unite, exceeds friction, and the forces that divide. What we should say is they're relatively equal from our vantage point. Rather than perceiving gravity and friction as a case of, you either have one or the other, typically what we observe is you have both or neither, which is why the sun, for instance, is both very gravitational and fiery simultaneously.

The way the cosmos tends to operate, is gravity tends to gather things in the beginning, or in other words, gravity is dominant in the beginning of a things lifespan, and friction tends to scatter things in the end, or in other words, friction is dominant in the end of a things lifespan. However, in the middle of a things life span, we see a kind of harmonizing of these two forces, in all their various, innumerable manifestations, and that is what holds our solar system for example, together. If either force were to win out, it would mean the death and destruction of our solar system as we know it, and the death and destruction of life all or most life within it. Life is made possible by the harmonization of these dual forces, neither one is more favorable to it, it can exist because of this relative balance, and the stability it affords.

The stability cannot last for various reasons. The solar system, and things in general, either end up exploding or imploding, gradually, incrementally, or all at once.
The objective is the neutralization of these two forces, relatively speaking, of course complete neutralization wouldn't be good either, but a relative neutralization, a kind of gentle swaying, to and fro.

What is good for the cosmos from the POV of life as we know it, is neither attraction nor repulsion, neither order nor chaos. The question can then become - is the cosmos ultimately heading towards a balancing of these two forces, or one dominating the other, rather than which one will dominate the other, because either would spell doom for life as we know it. Of course it's difficult to say for certain, all we can do is observe the cosmos, and make educated guesses. My hypothesis is the universe isn't heading anywhere, towards more order/disorder, or harmony.

Mainstream science tells us space is expanding because of the "big bang" or spontaneous generation of energy, but I find such a scenario implausible, because it's so counterintuitive and empirical, not only from daily experience and common sense, but even astronomically, our universe is clumping together, more than the big bang would suggest. There is no solid evidence to suggest space is expanding, and I find it funny how scientists tend to ignore gravity and the forces that collect and arrange molecules and matter, in their conception of things, makes me wonder, is there a reason they're pushing this narrative, misleading us?, or have they just gotten so lost in their models and top/down thinking, they've forgotten what's been right in front of their faces all along?

Well said

Thank you.

You're more than welcome to question, comment or critique.

Divergense wrote:

There are two primary energies in the cosmos.

Gravity, or attraction, and its opposite, friction, or repulsion.

I think of this rather as two directions of energy, positive which is toward gravity and accumulation, negative which is decentralization and repulsion.

Toward mass or away from mass.

Divergense wrote:

Gravity brings things, and certain sorts of things together, resulting in a more anentropic state of affairs, and friction tears things, and certain sorts of things apart, resulting in a more entropic state of affairs.

Therefore, we may say the cause of entropy is friction, and the cure, if you will, is gravity.

I define entropy differently, such that the state of existence and the universe is "dissipating" and expanding rather than accumulating and contracting. Modern day science, whom Satyr advocates for, has the authority currently. In state schools and the public education system, children are taught the primacy of entropy. In religious institutions and churches, there are alternatives, such as the universe is not in entropy, not decaying, and not changing shape or size.

Divergense wrote:

However, friction and entropy itself aren't anymore beneficial for life and nonlife than gravity and anentropy.

I completely agree, objective forces or what Satyr calls "reality", are neither pro or anti life. Neither one applies, therefore, objectivity is unbiased toward life. There are circumstances which favor life, like ecological environments. And there are circumstances which disfavor life, like dead space between planets, or the surface of the sun.


T

Divergense wrote:

Too much friction causes life and nonlife alike to disintegrate and explode, and too much gravity crushes life and nonlife alike.

Therefore, what is required, is the right balance of entropy and anentropy.

The cosmos itself isn't hostile to life, it has no intent, and to suggest it does, is to anthropomorphize/personify it, rather, all we should say is that life has to exert itself, in order to live, and there are things in the cosmos that're relatively beneficial, things that're relatively detrimental, and it is up to life, to attain the former and avert the latter.

Agreed, and in the context of this forum, Satyr has made this mistake numerous times over the years, revealing his own subjective opinions and perspective, instead of an objective overview of reality and existence. Anthropomorphizing objects is usually a logical fallacy, applying human traits to other species, or to non life and objects.

Divergense wrote:

It's difficult to say whether gravity, and the forces that unite, exceeds friction, and the forces that divide. What we should say is they're relatively equal from our vantage point. Rather than perceiving gravity and friction as a case of, you either have one or the other, typically what we observe is you have both or neither, which is why the sun, for instance, is both very gravitational and fiery simultaneously.

The way the cosmos tends to operate, is gravity tends to gather things in the beginning, or in other words, gravity is dominant in the beginning of a things lifespan, and friction tends to scatter things in the end, or in other words, friction is dominant in the end of a things lifespan. However, in the middle of a things life span, we see a kind of harmonizing of these two forces, in all their various, innumerable manifestations, and that is what holds our solar system for example, together. If either force were to win out, it would mean the death and destruction of our solar system as we know it, and the death and destruction of life all or most life within it. Life is made possible by the harmonization of these dual forces, neither one is more favorable to it, it can exist because of this relative balance, and the stability it affords.

Humans take gravity for granted, as the premise and starting point, because this is the environment from which we spring up. Gravity is the norm, here, on earth. Gravity is not the norm elsewhere throughout the universe. And on different planets, there are different levels of gravity, some more or less crushing.

Humans, like all life forms, begin life solipsistically. We believe that our environment is common, rather than rare. We believe that our gravity on earth is common, rather than rare. We believe that other humans, strangers, are like us, rather than every individual a rare exception to the rule. Anthropomorphication and solipsism represent an immaturity of cognitive development, an infantile stage. I would say solipsism is infantile, and anthropomorphizing is childish. Adolescence reflects a more objective approach to ideas. Biases begin to be cross examined and refuted. An adolescent mentality ought to test ideas and adapt ones that withstand the stringent tests.

Divergense wrote:

The stability cannot last for various reasons. The solar system, and things in general, either end up exploding or imploding, gradually, incrementally, or all at once.
The objective is the neutralization of these two forces, relatively speaking, of course complete neutralization wouldn't be good either, but a relative neutralization, a kind of gentle swaying, to and fro.

What is good for the cosmos from the POV of life as we know it, is neither attraction nor repulsion, neither order nor chaos. The question can then become - is the cosmos ultimately heading towards a balancing of these two forces, or one dominating the other, rather than which one will dominate the other, because either would spell doom for life as we know it. Of course it's difficult to say for certain, all we can do is observe the cosmos, and make educated guesses. My hypothesis is the universe isn't heading anywhere, towards more order/disorder, or harmony.

These claims represent a human fear of a change environment, like becoming too cold or too hot for survivability. Analogous to the claim that a too entropic or too static universe would also disrupt humanity, survivability, and the environment on earth.

These claims are based on fear of extreme change of environment, hence the correlated fears of "global warming" or "a new ice age".

Does science actually have legitimate evidence for one direction or the other? Is the earth going to, randomly, burst into a ball of fire? Or freeze into an ice cube? Randomly?! Of course not... science wants to understand the direction, and acceleration, of change of environment.

Divergense wrote:

Mainstream science tells us space is expanding because of the "big bang" or spontaneous generation of energy, but I find such a scenario implausible, because it's so counterintuitive and empirical, not only from daily experience and common sense, but even astronomically, our universe is clumping together, more than the big bang would suggest. There is no solid evidence to suggest space is expanding, and I find it funny how scientists tend to ignore gravity and the forces that collect and arrange molecules and matter, in their conception of things, makes me wonder, is there a reason they're pushing this narrative, misleading us?, or have they just gotten so lost in their models and top/down thinking, they've forgotten what's been right in front of their faces all along?

I liken the "big bang theory" as the statist interpretation of the roman catholic "creationist theory".

Both essentially focus on the "starting point" of the universe. Essentially, they are the same claim. Both focus on "the beginning", teleology, except the state society claims that it just blew up for no reason, and the church claims that god did it. Both are different (per)versions of the same underlying ideology. I believe that these also represent a populist, democratic ideology.

It is a core component of the social, cultural, civilization wide, meta narrative.

Aeon wrote:

I define entropy differently, such that the state of existence and the universe is "dissipating" and expanding rather than accumulating and contracting.

That's basically what I'm saying.

Quote :

Modern day science, whom Satyr advocates for, has the authority currently.

He'll add mutually compatible philosophy to mainstream science but he won't subtract from mainstream science.
Alternative science doesn't seem to interest him.
Science is far less unanimous than people suppose.
There's plenty of competing theories out there, I've stumbled across some throughout my research, and incorporate them into my philosophy, the ones I believe have value.

Quote :

In state schools and the public education system, children are taught the primacy of entropy. In religious institutions and churches, there are alternatives, such as the universe is not in entropy, not decaying, and not changing shape or size.

If I were in charge, I would emphasize mainstream science in state schools, but I'd teach philosophy and competing scientific theories as well, and allow students to select from among them, which are most credible, and give reasons for their selection, but of course, that would encourage thinking, and we can't have that.
Then again, if I was in charge, perhaps I'd run things like the elite, since I would have nothing to gain from empowering the multitudes, if I wasn't one of them.
Difficult to say, since I've never been in such position.

Quote :

I completely agree, objective forces or what Satyr calls "reality", are neither pro or anti life. Neither one applies, therefore, objectivity is unbiased toward life. There are circumstances which favor life, like ecological environments. And there are circumstances which disfavor life, like dead space between planets, or the surface of the sun.

Agreed.

Quote :

Agreed, and in the context of this forum, Satyr has made this mistake numerous times over the years, revealing his own subjective opinions and perspective, instead of an objective overview of reality and existence. Anthropomorphizing objects is usually a logical fallacy, applying human traits to other species, or to non life and objects.

Yes it seems he wishes to spin things in an overly harsh way.

Of course the cosmos can be a harsh place, there's no denying that, but there's no need to emphasize unpleasantness over pleasantness, like he does.
The way he puts things, almost makes him sound like more of a misotheist than an atheist, sometimes, like he thinks the universe is out to get us.
Even if that's not his intent, and it almost certainly isn't, the language he uses can give that impression, and cloud perception.

Quote :

Humans, like all life forms, begin life solipsistically. We believe that our environment is common, rather than rare. We believe that our gravity on earth is common, rather than rare. We believe that other humans, strangers, are like us, rather than every individual a rare exception to the rule. Anthropomorphication and solipsism represent an immaturity of cognitive development, an infantile stage. I would say solipsism is infantile, and anthropomorphizing is childish. Adolescence reflects a more objective approach to ideas. Biases begin to be cross examined and refuted. An adolescent mentality ought to test ideas and adapt ones that withstand the stringent tests.

This is a very interesting observation.

I agree, but I would add, that life forms are more conscious of their immediate environment, than they are of their own consciousness, and they're more conscious of their own consciousness, than they are the consciousness of others, and then they project, they use both their immediate surroundings and their own consciousness to gain insight into otherness.
I agree that advanced minds empathize more, empathize more accurately, and are more able to put their cognition, emotion, morals and dogma aside when doing so, when need be.
Sympathy is a mark of cognitive/emotive sophistication as well, but of course, so is sadism, its respective opposite, and sympathy is, and ought to be, discriminating.

Quote :

These claims represent a human fear of a change environment, like becoming too cold or too hot for survivability. Analogous to the claim that a too entropic or too static universe would also disrupt humanity, survivability, and the environment on earth.

These claims are based on fear of extreme change of environment, hence the correlated fears of "global warming" or "a new ice age".

Does science actually have legitimate evidence for one direction or the other? Is the earth going to, randomly, burst into a ball of fire? Or freeze into an ice cube? Randomly?! Of course not... science wants to understand the direction, and acceleration, of change of environment.

According to mainstream science, ultimately the universe is going to freeze, until it reaches "absolute zero", if such a state exists (I'm inclined to believe that it does not, and that absolute zero really means - motion is slower than our instruments can presently detect, but then I'm open to the possibility of absolutes, just not wide open, as they're a contradiction of everything we've experienced so far.
I don't think science has any legitimate evidence the universe is ultimately going to freeze, a lot of it is based on mathematics totally abstracted from empiricism, that contradict empiricism even.
I think they may have an agenda they're peddling.
As for the earth, that I believe will ultimately be destroyed, like all particulars, and I think there's scientific evidence and common sense substantiating that, and it won't happen randomly, but causally, like everything else.

Quote :

I liken the "big bang theory" as the statist interpretation of the roman catholic "creationist theory".

Both essentially focus on the "starting point" of the universe. Essentially, they are the same claim. Both focus on "the beginning", teleology, except the state society claims that it just blew up for no reason, and the church claims that god did it. Both are different (per)versions of the same underlying ideology. I believe that these also represent a populist, democratic ideology.

It is a core component of the social, cultural, civilization wide, meta narrative.

Yes, the Christian and Scientific creation myths are very similar, both espouse an absolute beginning of all things, and both begin instantaneously and miraculously, yet both believe the cosmos operates causally post-creation, especially the latter, which is contradictory, to say everything is causal, has history, a past, which we can use to approximate the future, except the universe itself.
If the universe began ex nihilo, who's to say it won't end miraculously too?

The difference between the two narratives, Christianity and Science, is the former begins deliberately, intelligently, and the latter spontaneously, stupidly.
Additionally, in the former, the cosmos is centralized, man revolves around God, the earth around man, and the heavens around the earth, where as the latter is acentric.
Also, the latter is grander in scale.
Lastly, the former is positive, the latter negative.
Either way, there's nothing man can do regarding the ultimately destination of things.

You could say the former is more solipsistic, but equally miraculous, so we've made some progress in my mind, but more needs to be made. However, I heard our galaxy is actually ground zero for the big bang, and in that sense, the center, because the red shifts they pick up with their telescopes, indicate that everything in the universe is moving away from the earth, so perhaps we haven't made much progress in that regard, either.

Progress leaves us empty, in many regards, knowledge is burdensome, the more we know, the more determined and inhuman the universe becomes, but then the more we know, the more power we have, which must be used responsibly, which we're not doing, in my estimation.
Knowledge comes with a price, we lose our innocence, and if it's not accompanied by wisdom, the results can be disastrous.
Just because we know more, doesn't mean we should act more, humanity is still infantile, in my estimation, if we're to survival at all, we must exercise a great deal more caution.

As we come to know more and more about the universe, I'm sure it'll have many more surprises in store, although I tend to think uniformly, that the universe is similar (not the same) everywhere, I'm open to the possibility that uniformity mightn't be so, and that as we see farther into space/time, backwards/forwards, the universe will grow ever more alien, probably not instantaneously, but gradually, incrementally, the further from here/now we traverse.

Let's face it, all we have our educated guesses.
If we are to remain honest with ourselves, we can't be dogmatic.
The universe may exist for reasons far beyond our present capabilities of imagining, or our capabilities of every imagining, and these reasons might be more inhuman, and, at the same time, more profound, than anything we, or even an entity billions of times more intelligent than ourselves, can suppose.
In short, we know a bit about our own backyard, but we should not assume the rest of the universe is just a repetition of it, just as it'd be foolish to look out your window, see grass and trees, and think, sure the rest of the world looks just like this.

This is at once both awe inspiring, liberating and terrifying.
If our species survives and progresses (I don't even think we know what progress is yet, we equate science and technology with it, but if our science and tech doesn't serve our species, and/or life itself, then what good is it? Really it's just masturbation), we may look back and laugh, at our present attempts, feeble as they are, to comprehend things, but still, that doesn't mean we should abandon/disregard our present comprehension and conception of things, just that we have to prepared to discard it, should novel information be gathered, if we're to remain rational, but then even reason has its limitations, and cannot rule over passion completely.

Divergense wrote:

If I were in charge, I would emphasize mainstream science in state schools, but I'd teach philosophy and competing scientific theories as well, and allow students to select from among them, which are most credible, and give reasons for their selection, but of course, that would encourage thinking, and we can't have that.
Then again, if I was in charge, perhaps I'd run things like the elite, since I would have nothing to gain from empowering the multitudes, if I wasn't one of them.
Difficult to say, since I've never been in such position.

That is a very philosophical and idealistic approach to education. That was the same ideal in place when Plato began "Academia" and the first form of "higher education" in western history. The academy was the ground for the first colleges and universities which followed. Aristotle was educated in the first Academy with similar principles. Philosophy represents the highest education available to humanity. Rene Descartes was tutor to the queen of Sweden, a coincidence? Who is responsible for teaching and educating the aristocracy? Philosophers, because no other form of education is higher.

Divergense wrote:

Of course the cosmos can be a harsh place, there's no denying that, but there's no need to emphasize unpleasantness over pleasantness, like he does.
The way he puts things, almost makes him sound like more of a misotheist than an atheist, sometimes, like he thinks the universe is out to get us.
Even if that's not his intent, and it almost certainly isn't, the language he uses can give that impression, and cloud perception.

Bacteria and single cell organisms thrive throughout the universe where humanity does not. Even in dead space, scientists theorize that bacteria and other cells float around frozen in meteors and asteroids. If bacteria and single cells are the rule and evidence of life, then Satyr is typically wrong, the universe is overflowing and brimming with life, not devoid and empty of it. Instead, what is meant by the harshness of the universe, is harshness compared to the human, subjective standard.

Just because the universe is unwelcoming to the human specie in particular, doesn't mean the universe is unwelcome to all other lifeforms. Humanity represents a very small fraction of life, a specific type, referring to the concept of specie. A specie is literally a type. And the human type is the evolution on earth that most dominates and changes the environment on earth. Intelligence reflects a level of evolution and change of environment. As a specie becomes more and more intelligent, it changes its environment to better suit its overall survival chances. In the case of humanity, survival is increasing, not decreasing. Despite the worst scenarios possible on earth, the chance that all humans die, all 7 billion, is almost impossible. It simply will not happen. There most certainly would be some survivors in the worst case scenario. Maybe 99% of humanity would die, but 100%? Life doesn't work that way. When a seriously threatening situation arises, species revert to instinct, and bind together by type. Humans all work together.

There are political theories about this too, to create false fears and dangers, to stimulate the human instinct to work together. This is achieved through propaganda and commercial advertising.

Divergense wrote:

I agree, but I would add, that life forms are more conscious of their immediate environment, than they are of their own consciousness, and they're more conscious of their own consciousness, than they are the consciousness of others, and then they project, they use both their immediate surroundings and their own consciousness to gain insight into otherness.
I agree that advanced minds empathize more, empathize more accurately, and are more able to put their cognition, emotion, morals and dogma aside when doing so, when need be.
Sympathy is a mark of cognitive/emotive sophistication as well, but of course, so is sadism, its respective opposite, and sympathy is, and ought to be, discriminating.

The idea of consciousness pointing "outward" or "inward" needs a lot of deconstruction and investigation. These terms can mean a lot of things. How does anybody know which direction a consciousness is pointing, whether a person is psychopathic or sociopathic? To me, psychopathy appears as introversion and solipsism. Sociopathy appears as extroversion and sadism.

Divergense wrote:

According to mainstream science, ultimately the universe is going to freeze, until it reaches "absolute zero", if such a state exists (I'm inclined to believe that it does not, and that absolute zero really means - motion is slower than our instruments can presently detect, but then I'm open to the possibility of absolutes, just not wide open, as they're a contradiction of everything we've experienced so far.
I don't think science has any legitimate evidence the universe is ultimately going to freeze, a lot of it is based on mathematics totally abstracted from empiricism, that contradict empiricism even.
I think they may have an agenda they're peddling.
As for the earth, that I believe will ultimately be destroyed, like all particulars, and I think there's scientific evidence and common sense substantiating that, and it won't happen randomly, but causally, like everything else.

For scientists proper, it's more "bias" than an agenda. All theories ultimately must represent some small degree of subjective bias, as no human is totally, completely, absolutely detached from biology. The mind is not detached from the body. They are unified, even when the mind attempts its greatest feat of objectivity. And so the best scientific, or even religious theories, both must represent that underlying bias or "suspicion", gut feeling, direction by which they throw darts at the dart board.

The greatest theories represent the greatest biases.

Objectivity is only achieved through degree.

Divergense wrote:

Yes, the Christian and Scientific creation myths are very similar, both espouse an absolute beginning of all things, and both begin instantaneously and miraculously, yet both believe the cosmos operates causally post-creation, especially the latter, which is contradictory, to say everything is causal, has history, a past, which we can use to approximate the future, except the universe itself.
If the universe began ex nihilo, who's to say it won't end miraculously too?

The difference between the two narratives, Christianity and Science, is the former begins deliberately, intelligently, and the latter spontaneously, stupidly.
Additionally, in the former, the cosmos is centralized, man revolves around God, the earth around man, and the heavens around the earth, where as the latter is acentric.
Also, the latter is grander in scale.
Lastly, the former is positive, the latter negative.
Either way, there's nothing man can do regarding the ultimately destination of things.

You could say the former is more solipsistic, but equally miraculous, so we've made some progress in my mind, but more needs to be made. However, I heard our galaxy is actually ground zero for the big bang, and in that sense, the center, because the red shifts they pick up with their telescopes, indicate that everything in the universe is moving away from the earth, so perhaps we haven't made much progress in that regard, either.

Progress leaves us empty, in many regards, knowledge is burdensome, the more we know, the more determined and inhuman the universe becomes, but then the more we know, the more power we have, which must be used responsibly, which we're not doing, in my estimation.
Knowledge comes with a price, we lose our innocence, and if it's not accompanied by wisdom, the results can be disastrous.
Just because we know more, doesn't mean we should act more, humanity is still infantile, in my estimation, if we're to survival at all, we must exercise a great deal more caution.

As we come to know more and more about the universe, I'm sure it'll have many more surprises in store, although I tend to think uniformly, that the universe is similar (not the same) everywhere, I'm open to the possibility that uniformity mightn't be so, and that as we see farther into space/time, backwards/forwards, the universe will grow ever more alien, probably not instantaneously, but gradually, incrementally, the further from here/now we traverse.

Let's face it, all we have our educated guesses.
If we are to remain honest with ourselves, we can't be dogmatic.
The universe may exist for reasons far beyond our present capabilities of imagining, or our capabilities of every imagining, and these reasons might be more inhuman, and, at the same time, more profound, than anything we, or even an entity billions of times more intelligent than ourselves, can suppose.
In short, we know a bit about our own backyard, but we should not assume the rest of the universe is just a repetition of it, just as it'd be foolish to look out your window, see grass and trees, and think, sure the rest of the world looks just like this.

This is at once both awe inspiring, liberating and terrifying.
If our species survives and progresses (I don't even think we know what progress is yet, we equate science and technology with it, but if our science and tech doesn't serve our species, and/or life itself, then what good is it? Really it's just masturbation), we may look back and laugh, at our present attempts, feeble as they are, to comprehend things, but still, that doesn't mean we should abandon/disregard our present comprehension and conception of things, just that we have to prepared to discard it, should novel information be gathered, if we're to remain rational, but then even reason has its limitations, and cannot rule over passion completely.

Exactly, and these are great observations made about the scientific and religious biases. One presumes the premise of "intelligence", the other an absence of intelligence. One begins with the "positive", the other with the negative. All these indicate the underlying biases and motivations of the respective theories. It's where they merge and overlap that the metanarrative is formed.

Society believes in either the big bang theory or creationism, not neither. It's only a philosophical mind that goes so far outside the system and society, outside the biases, that a true critique and inquiry of these theories can begin.

Why must there be an absolute beginning or absolute end?

Aeon wrote:

Bacteria and single cell organisms thrive throughout the universe where humanity does not. Even in dead space, scientists theorize that bacteria and other cells float around frozen in meteors and asteroids. If bacteria and single cells are the rule and evidence of life, then Satyr is typically wrong, the universe is overflowing and brimming with life, not devoid and empty of it. Instead, what is meant by the harshness of the universe, is harshness compared to the human, subjective standard.

Excellent point.

I think there's a lot of things the government isn't telling us about.

If knowledge is power, then esotericism is monopolization of power.

That's why they want us to believe in fairytales like spontaneous generation of nonlife and life, as opposed to history, causality.

They found what almost certainly was bacteria in meteor fragments already, uncontaminated by terrestrial life.

If they found such things in terrestrial rocks, they would've concluded they were bacteria. Then there was that blood rain in India.

Astronauts and other government employees have come forward and spoken about extraterrestrial spacecraft.

I think it's probable that life, or something like it, has always been, and will always be.

Quote :

Just because the universe is unwelcoming to the human specie in particular, doesn't mean the universe is unwelcome to all other lifeforms. Humanity represents a very small fraction of life, a specific type, referring to the concept of specie. A specie is literally a type. And the human type is the evolution on earth that most dominates and changes the environment on earth. Intelligence reflects a level of evolution and change of environment. As a specie becomes more and more intelligent, it changes its environment to better suit its overall survival chances. In the case of humanity, survival is increasing, not decreasing. Despite the worst scenarios possible on earth, the chance that all humans die, all 7 billion, is almost impossible. It simply will not happen. There most certainly would be some survivors in the worst case scenario. Maybe 99% of humanity would die, but 100%? Life doesn't work that way. When a seriously threatening situation arises, species revert to instinct, and bind together by type. Humans all work together.

High civilization is a double edged sword.

The higher you build, the less your foundation can accommodate.

Whites keep building stronger foundations, but every foundation has its limits.

I tend to see things cyclically, even if humanity ends up colonizing other planets, which it may have already done, unbeknownst to you and me, the unwashed masses or the "profane", we'll only be doing what we, or something like us has done many, or even an infinite times before. If interstellar civilzations exist, and I think it's highly likely that they do (I'm just not certain any have visited ours), they're probably subject to the same processes of brith/growth and death/decay that characterizes all life and nonlife.

Although things tend to be cyclical and fractal, I don't think they're 100% so, I think if you go back sufficiently far in space/time, the universe might've looked somewhat different than it does at present, relatively, not necessarily more or less entropic, just different, but there's probably no giant leaps in difference (miracles). What we have is gradual, incremental evolution of life and nonlife from something into something else, which probably has no ultimate origin or destination.

I believe in the eternal return, except I believed no two energies could be identical, since the universe is probably infinite in complexity, merely a relative sort of eternal return, based on the laws of causality, which themselves are probably not subject to change, so that everything cycles and fractals, but imperfectly, and gradually, we wind up with relatively new phenomena, evolving from relatively old phenomena.

I believe this, because I disbelieve in absolute beginnings or endings of anything, the cosmos itself, or the things in I. It's not that I'm not open to the possibility of absolutes, it's just they'd be a contradiction of empirical reality as we know it, which I base my thought on.

So in such thought, there can be no ultimate origin or destination of anything or everything, and while I think that's the best way of conceptualization of things, I am open to the possibility of absolutism, it's just that for me, seeing is believing, it'd be a contradiction of everything we've ever seen.

Quote :

The idea of consciousness pointing "outward" or "inward" needs a lot of deconstruction and investigation. These terms can mean a lot of things. How does anybody know which direction a consciousness is pointing, whether a person is psychopathic or sociopathic? To me, psychopathy appears as introversion and solipsism. Sociopathy appears as extroversion and sadism.

It's important to be able to distinguish between being antisocial and asocial. Antisocialists are sadists, where as asocialists are neither sadistic or sympathetic, nor are they masochistic or interested in being sympathized with. Antisocialists either want to destroy others, or use them as means to their ends, where as asocialists want little to do with others, positive or negative, they only interact with others of necessity, like working as a janitor, or some other such job, and going to the grocery store, that would be like the extent of their societal interaction, basically. Some critters, like people with Asperger's or Autism, might lack empathy, have little of it, but not sympathy, so they're capable of caring, but have trouble recognizing positive and negative states in others, where as sociopaths and psychopaths, antisocials and asocials, often have empathy, they're just indifferent to the plight of others, or hostile.

Quote :

For scientists proper, it's more "bias" than an agenda. All theories ultimately must represent some small degree of subjective bias, as no human is totally, completely, absolutely detached from biology. The mind is not detached from the body. They are unified, even when the mind attempts its greatest feat of objectivity. And so the best scientific, or even religious theories, both must represent that underlying bias or "suspicion", gut feeling, direction by which they throw darts at the dart board.

The greatest theories represent the greatest biases.

Objectivity is only achieved through degree.

Even rationality, concepts and language, are biased as much products of subjectivity and objectivity, as emotions and sensations. The fact that we need to say X, as opposed to be silent, or to be silent, as opposed to saying X, has as much to do with our peculiar cognition, and our values, our curiosity, as emotion or sensation or anything. We can't escape the subjective, no matter which faculty we turn to, existence is this ambiguous collision between subject and object. However, we can work on our consistency, or strengthen our conscious awareness.

That being said, it could be both, conspiratorial, and sacrificing truth for profundity, grandiosity, having all encompassing theories of everything, it's an interesting observation you make, yes certainty and extremism is more eye and ear catching, than saying, well, it may be a little bit more like this than that. Absolute skepticism is also very mind catching, because it's simple, easy.

Scientists and Philosophers are people, people want to sell you something, so they exaggerate their ideas, their certainty, and they extrapolate them, bloat them, in order to sell.

It's also reactionary, it's like if Christianity proposes one extreme, we'll go in the opposing direction, so instead of things being miraculously good, we'll make them miraculously bad, if Christians were wrong, the opposite has to be right, right? And they avoided the middle, which is more in line with pagan metaphysics, especially Empedocles.

Sometimes, if you go too far in one direction, there's this tendency to go in the opposite direction, to get as far away from that extreme and its repercussions as possible, but then you run the risk of colliding with the wall, on the other side of the road, if you move away to hastily, instead of getting back on course, somewhere in the middle where you need to be.

Quote :

Exactly, and these are great observations made about the scientific and religious biases. One presumes the premise of "intelligence", the other an absence of intelligence. One begins with the "positive", the other with the negative. All these indicate the underlying biases and motivations of the respective theories. It's where they merge and overlap that the metanarrative is formed.

Society believes in either the big bang theory or creationism, not neither. It's only a philosophical mind that goes so far outside the system and society, outside the biases, that a true critique and inquiry of these theories can begin.

Why must there be an absolute beginning or absolute end?

That's an interesting point.

Our society is very dualistic, we have thesis, Christianity, and antithesis, Scientism, but both aren't total opposites, or even if they are opposites, just the fact that they are opposite extremes, makes them similar in that they're opposite extremes.

Yes there is this kind of convergence and overlap between the two.

There is a 3rd way, and even a 4th, a 5th and so on, and you're right, only a philosopher, only a really, truly independent thinker, could see thought both of them, and come up with something wholly new.

It's like left wing and rightwing, Scientism and Christianity.

What Nietzsche and those who've drawn from him like Satyr and Lyssa have done, is rearrange things a little, they've merged the rightwing with Scientism and associate the leftwing with Christianity, to form a variation on an old theme. I do not see their worldview as wholly pagan, especially Satyr's, as Nietzsche believed in the eternal return, which was how pagans tended to perceive things, where as Satyr doesn't. Satyr's thought is more modern, more scientific, in that regard.

Of note, activity and entropy are not necessarily the same thing. You can have the former without the latter, but not the latter without the former.

Notice how bigger things in science, the macroverse, physics, are more causal and comprehendable than smaller things in science, the microverse, quantum physics, just like the past is more orderly than the future? See how consistent the scientific worldview is? I just made that connection now. They're quick to regard the big and the past as orderly and the small and the future as disorderly, but what if small only looked disorderly, because it's moving too fast for the big too catch up?

I am looking for a synthesis between our dualistic, polarized culture, that can encompass ideas and ideals both on the left and the right, Science and Christianity, into a cohesive whole, in opposition to this schizophrenic parsing and compartmentalization we have now, like the synthesis between entropy and anentropy, a synthesis between elitism and egalitarianism, accommodating all that is western civilization and then some, and in so doing, I find it helps to draw on pagan thought, especially Empedocles, who had a much more sophisticated philosophy in my view, than Heraclitus.

I'd like to extrapolate his thought, he is my Presocratic.