Very prudent but if it’s ‘seen’ that you actuality don’t exist and that you actually are the world then acceptance or denial really have no meaningful place?
To deny something is to accept that it is not. To deny something that I do not understand is a form of confusion. So hopefully no one is denying the scientific consensus regarding Abiogenesis - we are merely saying that we don’t understand the models.
Putting aside my questions about our psychological dependance on the known - some questions about your actual position regarding abiogenisis might help shine a light :
If life did not arise from non-life (which you argue is an unreasonable hypothesis) - did it appear ex-nihilo? or did it always exist?
How is life different from non-life? We must at least have some idea of the terms we are using for our questions to have some meaning.
And (as I continue to suspect that Christianity is playing some part in this question) the bible seems to suggest that Abiogenesis does sometimes occur : humans (organic) were initially created from dirt (inorganic).
Doug,
I’m not denying abiogenesis. I’m also not accepting it as the “truth” because an authority, scientific or otherwise, tells me it’s true. To conform to authority is something that K and others warned about, isn’t it? Is acceptance the path to truth? Is acceptance understanding?
Do you accept abiogenesis as fact because you understand it, you see it for yourself? (Do you have a more current report than the one I saw stating that abiogenesis was actually produced in the lab?)
To me, abiogenesis does not answer man’s fundamental questions. If it answers them for you, then what is it that draws you to K and to others and to this forum? Read K more closely. He repeatedly talked about the “Eternal” and other similar expressions. What do you think he meant by it? He also talked about “the created” (the 2nd meaning of it that I quoted) and about Creation. What do you think he meant by it? As I see it, “Everything” IS infinite and eternal. I’m not saying I’m right, I’m not saying it’s true. It is not my belief. That is my sense of it.
Personally, I was not born a Christian, nor have I been a born-again Christian, nor have I ever adhered to any religion, including the one I was born into.
My concern is not out of prudence. As I see it, accepting someone else’s truth does not lead me to seeing the truth, meaning the question of acceptance or denial is irrelevant. My understanding is that acceptance and denial are false in terms of explaining man’s fundamental questions. Maybe there is no truth, or truth cannot be understood by man. It still remains, as I see it, that if there is such a thing as understanding the truth, mere acceptance cannot lead to it.
Without space to occupy, can any form of lifeless matter arise or BE? Did space, matter, energy, love, beauty, time, eternity always exist or did they appear from nothing? Is there eternity or can there be an end to the existing whole, leaving “nothing”, not even space? Can nothing even be conceived of imagined, thought about? Can something arise from nothing?
Space itself is something, isn’t it? Can there be such a thing as absolute “nothing” — not even empty space? Can there BE any matter, matter particles, life or non-life, without space to occupy, to be in? How does nothing become space?
Do the birds ‘understand the truth’? Is it a silly question? Or is it that the only brain complex enough to come up with such a question is the human brain? It can ask it because it can. Which doesn’t mean that it has any validity? But it may be this brain alone that can “participate in the Immensity “ as JK and DB put it in one of their talks. Which as I ‘understand’ that is that this complex brain CAN find ‘peace’. Not the unquestioning peace of the animals but a conscious understanding of what we are not? A negation of the ‘conditioned creation’ we believe (have accepted) ourselves to be and the great sorrow, strife, violence, cruelty, fear etc, that that belief has caused. And that our belief that we are separate from the world is false which JK stated as: “the observer is the observed”?
What interests me currently is what you are saying. Because I think its important to see what we are saying. With any luck, the closer we look at what we know (which is possibly the ultimate authority that binds us) the more confused it becomes.
There seems to be various equivocation fallacies that might be confusing the issue. For example, the fact that I accept that my mechanic knows more about mechanics than me, or that cosmologists know more about cosmology, is just being reasonable. For practical purposes.
The fact that humanity has a huge library of practical knowledge about electricity, biology, physics etc has nothing whatsoever to do with absolute truth, humanity’s psychological confusion, or our relationship to the fundamental mysteries of existence.
Science just creates models that are the best representation of the available facts - this is a practical issue.
The issue of not being able to trust outside data, or of only being able to believe in my own psychological conditioning might actually be the real issue. Our fundamental dependance on the known.
PS. my understanding of Abiogenesis is that chemical reactions are capable of producing increasingly complex structures that we eventually can define as being alive. Alive because they have a self organising structural system; they can extract energy from their environment in order to grow and self replicate; they are able to maintain a stable internal environment regardless of external conditions and stuff like that.
My friends, I am pausing, at least for now. Although the points you all are now mentioning ARE important to enquire into in my view, and they do beckon to me, I feel that we (including me) are helplessly caught up in fruitless mental activity which cannot help us understand the facts.
Can we observe and understand the human predicament, if that is the right word, without seeking an answer, without following a particular direction? Is it necessary? I still don’t know. It seems to come naturally to some of us, and ridiculous to others. As long as we are alive, we live. What are we seeking?
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We’re seeking self-knowledge, aren’t we?
Dear Huguette, I could be mistaken, but I thought it might remotely have something to do with the question of abiogenesis:
Do you know the book by David Bohm “Wholeness and implicate Order”
From page 245,( document 267 pdf ) title "6 The Implicate Order, Life and the force of overall necessity "?
“In this section we shall bring out the meaning of the implicate order by first showing how it makes possible the comprehension of both inanimate matter and life on the basis of a single ground, common to both, and then we shall go on to propose a certain more general form for the laws of the implicate order. …”
http://www.gci.org.uk/Documents/DavidBohm-WholenessAndTheImplicateOrder.pdf
“All you need is love.” ?
Define “love”.
re: post #26
Dan,
Are the birds causing chaos and evil in the world? Doesn’t every animal spontaneously naturally act according to its inborn nature? Is man causing chaos and evil in the world? Is man acting according to his inborn nature when he questions life or desires inner and outer peace, or desires supremacy and control? Are chaos and evil real or are they part of thought? Has thought somehow gone wrong, been corrupted and can man’s actions be transformed through self-understanding or effort? Maybe thought is unfolding and acting as it should be and the human condition is fine. I don’t know.
As I see it, man has been endowed with a nature and capacity to question and thirst to understand himself, the world, Creation, and so on. Is there any reason to fight against it or try to suppress it?
re: post #27:
Doug,
Without space to occupy, can any form of living or lifeless matter arise, exist or BE? Can there be such a thing as absolutely “nothing” — not even empty space? Can ”something” arise from ”nothing”? Can “nothing“ - not even space - even be conceived of, imagined, thought about? How does “nothing“ become space? What is the process that creates space? Did space, matter, energy, love, beauty, time, eternity always exist or did they appear from nothing through the operation of spontaneously occurring processes? What do spontaneously occurring processes come from? ”Nothing”? Is there eternity (the Eternal) or can there be an end to Everything, leaving “nothing”, not even space? Space itself is something, isn’t it?
Is everything knowable or is there an unknowable, inexplicable mystery underlying Every ”thing” and process?
Re: post #30
Yes, Ute, thanks again. I have not actually read it (except now a very small portion) but I have read talks between Bohm and K. Bohm does provide some insight into the questions of abiogenesis, the source, the ground, the limitations of thought, and so on. The brain in my skull has to work real hard to understand any aspect of physics and advanced mathematics and logic. But it does love looking into it to the extent it can.
What I essentially understand from implicate order (or think I understand) is that Bohm was open to the possibility that the ultimate truth about the infinite, eternal whole of Everything that exists, lies beyond the reaches of thought, knowledge, the brain, science, ideation, mentation — however one expresses our abilities and attempts to understand life.
Bohm, it seems to me, was open to the fact that not Everything is knowable and explicable, and that there is an unknowable ground to all of Creation — to inanimate matter, life, energy, to the visible and to the unseen and unseeable, to all processes, and so on, and this Ground is beyond the Created brain’s limited ability to understand.
Although I do love science, thought, advanced mathematics, logic and technology, I have not been endowed with the capacity to thoroughly understand or think about these things.
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Some thoughts I had today.
What is division?
In general we might feel there is division in fear, sorrow but no division in pleasure. Is this so? We feel generally division is one thought against another thought in form of avoidance or suppression. In pleasure we go along with it and feel there is no division as conflict.
Is this division or there is some deeper division?
Isn’t there division in habit? Is not desire in itself divided? Me and the object of desire. We may not be aware of the division as thought is unaware but blinded. The division of observer and observed image. Just as in hate there is division between observer and observed image. At the moment of thought of hate, that thought is unaware but caught in this process. The observed image as judgement is real for observer. The observer cannot perceive directly. It is caught in the knowledge of hate. As we can see in Manipur, two groups fighting and killing each other. There is division. The perceived projected image of the other is real for observer and there is blindness. The division is real for observer. For third person not caught in that, it is illusion. For this person, there is no observed image and no observer.
What about pleasure?
In pleasure also there is division as there is choice as judgement. Me and my object of pleasure. Here also there is observer and observed image. Movement of desire as thought as choice. Entire entertainment industry and social media is based on it. On choice. On division. On judgement as desire.
So in desire also there is division just as in hate or sorrow there is division of judgement process as thinker.
Then how does division end. How does judgement process end. How does this process of observer separate from observed image end.
There is no how in the ending I feel.
If mind realises that actually all are same, then conflict, division, desire stops.
You are me, so I don’t need to judge you, which is friendship, which is family.
If Kuki and Meitei realise they are just human beings, there is no conflict anymore between them and they will stop. It is not about imposing another identity say Indian for them to stop fighting but realising there is basically no division. That ends the movement of self as thinker.
If observer sees observed image is same as itself then movement of observer ends. If you are me, I don’t need to judge you. That is love or compassion
I am not saying you are tree. That is physical. I am saying psychological label. If I am same as you, then I don’t need to judge. Mind is then silent. There is no movement of hate or desire or psychological fear. From that silent compassion the mind acts, not in separation
My feeling is that in the self there is deep loneliness. self can try to escape into pleasure to avoid it but it is still insecure due to deep loneliness.
Perhaps in love there is security and meaning.
In separation, division there seems to be no love and no meaning to life.
Do we consider I am you in our relationships?
Do we consider I am you in our family, or there is separation, selfishness.
Do we consider I am you in our friendship or in friendship we don’t really care about the other person and it is about pleasure.
Do we consider I am you in our work, then there is trust, equality, goodness in our work.
I don’t even understand how it would be possible for a lmiited primate brain to comprehend nor even perceive everything in an infinite universe that was not made specifically for the purpose of being able to react with our animal senses.
As for the sum knowledge already collated by humanity, this is already far and away beyong the capacity of any one human to even remember let alone understand. Even the knowledge of one branch of science, chemistry for example, is too much for one person to grasp.
I won’t even try to respond to the philosophical questions on “Nothingness” - questions which were initially provoked by my attempts to show that the alternatives to Abiogenesis brought up more problems than they “solved”. (nb. okay afaik : nothingness is no longer considered a reasonable concept in philosophy, nor a testable state in physics - sorry my brain had to respond 
)
However the question regarding our feeling that we know things is key. The idea that I am in possesion of some actual understanding of reality as it actually is (ie. about the real world “out there”) is a very powerful one. Powerful in terms of “I feel it is true” and in terms of our emotions and actions in the world. And key to understanding what I am - which is about the power of knowledge (aka Narrative)
No Huguette, not as far as I can see here anyway. They have small brains and their energy is used in surviving and replicating themselves. For many of us humans, survival is secondary and we are able to not only survive relatively easily and replicate but also think about things that have little or nothing to do with our security and survival. We can ‘philosophize’ and there is great pleasure in that process for some. ‘Values’ aside, is there any difference, thinking-wise in “why are we here?”, “What does it all mean?” What is the best way to rob that bank?” The ‘bank thinking’ is what we’re calling ‘practical’ thought, the other is ‘psychological’? I think K’s point and I may be wrong is that when there is no ‘need’ to think, the brain can be quiet, empty, silent etc. and something new might be revealed…something that thought as much it might think it can, simply can’t touch?
re: post #36
Doug,
You’re making it sound (to me at least) like the brain is the totality of the human mind, that there is no other aspect to mind at all and that, essentially, there is no difference between the mind of man and primate. Are you saying that? Is science the only reliable means or process for understanding the totality of the truth about life? Maybe I am completely misunderstanding you.
It seems to me that every living thing has its own awareness and that awareness is not identical in all living things. It seems that way to me. Again, I’m not saying it is so. The fox crossing my yard is supremely aware of every sound and movement, as I observe him. He just is, that is his nature. He hears the slightest sound or sees the slightest movement and he instantly stops and observes intently. But is he riddled with inner conflict and contradiction about whether life is as it should be, whether life is fair or unfair, peaceful or a constant battle, whether he dominates others with his mind, and so on? The flower too is aware of the sun and it choicelessly turns its head towards it. That is awareness, isn’t it? They cannot act otherwise. It is their given nature. Is gorilla awareness identical to human awareness? Maybe.
To me it seems that human awareness is broader, that it truly does also include self-understanding, observation of an inner state of mind shaped by physical existence, and so on, which are not merely the awareness of sensory perception. (It’s so hard to put into words.) Does it seem to you that the fox, the flower and other living beings question what is, what should be? That they feel conflict about their condition in the universe? That they question eternity and infinity, mind, time, thought in the same way that man does, and so on?
Anyhoo, I’m really taking a break now.
Dear Huguette,
Coming back on an earlyer reply as well as this one I want to tell my personal story.
Born into a Catholic family, I was, you might say, firmly conditioned. Seeing the misery elsewhere in the world, I even wanted to become a missionary! My health stood in the way of a free entry into seminary and my parents could not pay for it. After several eye surgeries, I ended up studying at evening.
Spiritually more mature, I began to question the church situation. Seeing the huge discrepancy between word and deed eventually led to a schism, much to the chagrin of my parents.
Then I came across books by K and my views were endorsed.
However, due to family events, (birth and funeral) I still came into regular contact with that church and felt resistance.
At a Catholic funeral last week, however, I noticed that resistance was absent.
Without inner dialogue, without commentary pro or con, I accepted the situation as it was.
Looking back, I don’t remember ever consciously working on this.
Although 50 years passed between the schism and this observation, I dare say that time, in the sense of Krishnamurti and Bohm, played no role.
… which is the ending of conflict, division, contradiction, n’est-ce pas? Thanks, Wim.