The answer is right in front of your face, it's everywhere...

[Nick]

Does anyone else feel if we were to meet with our makers/ unimaginable intelligence race/ creators of the universe... the questions we might have... the biggest questions,. they'd tell us, "we made it so painstakingly easy, so any evolved intelligent sentient species, at any time period, would see it".


Now I know this is broad, wider then anything,.. maybe this is why some INTPs like to try and develop a 'grand theory of everything'.

\Does this post have a point, hopefully you can add a thought or two.

 

[Proletar]

Isn't that the case with anything we've ever learnt?

Take for instance the advent of the light bulb. Since forever, man had been restricted light to that which the sun and the spinning earth would create for the hours of the day. No one had an idea that this could change but the inventor. So he spent much of his time developing the idea, and to finally manufacture a functioning lightbuld.

And once he did, it's not a secret anymore. Now there are thousands of manufacturers out there and even children can understand how the invention works. The same goes with the propeller, the combustion-engine, the concept of desinfection, and so on. Once anyone popularizes anything, it's childs play for the rest of us to figure it out.

 

[Da Blob]

Yeah! the old cliche' comes into play "hindsight is 20/20'

One thing that I have noticed is that thought is not always a good thing.
The only things that one can think about are problems and some of us actually manufacture problems as an excuse to think, in order to avoid those intimidating states of mind that are wordless/blank.

However, if one can get used to the novelty of having a blank mind on occasion and view it as opportunity as often as threat, it can be quite amazing what nature will fill that vacuum of a mind with - as nature really does hate vacuum. In fact one can consider some of the Eastern techniques of meditation as a means to create a vacuum that will provoke nature into supplying the 'Good Stuff' of life.

Some Poet once remarked that thought was like the symptom of a disease, somewhat like a fever, it should be a temporary defense discarded when the crisis is over.

So, yes ,everything is right in front of us, but we will never see it as long as we think about seeing it, for thought occludes our Sight....

 

[snafupants]

The ordeal of life is much more easily negotiated openheartedly than from ego-mind division.

 

[AlisaD]

I've had the same feeling for a while now, it's both annoying and reassuring.

 

[Nissa]

I don't feel that way. Maybe I would, but I believe in God (horrors!) and he's generally pretty cool about understanding how flawed we are. Y'know, "for we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away". All that 1 Corinthians 3 good stuff. Actually, I highly recommend all iNtuitives read 1 Cor 3. It appeals very well to the intuitive mind.



Maybe you don't like that I believe in God, but whatever. He got me half a sub and a trip to Korea, so say what you like. Don't worry, I won't be a Bible thumper. However, I can't promise that I won't be a The Gulag Archipelago thumper, because that book is great and a lot more people should read it. Besides, my Bible's only a softcover, and I've got the three hardcover volumes of Gulag. Hardcover is much better for thumping.


Anyway, back on topic, I think we're being too hard on ourselves. Right now we're clearly just normal little mortals, and any logical being would have to conclude that we're not going to get everything right the first time. Besides, such a question implies that humans are progressing toward something. Progressing toward what, exactly?

 

[Cognisant]

I neither currently support nor decry suicide, at the moment I think I agree most with Kim from the second "Ghost in the Shell" movie, specifically that enlightenment can only be seen through the eyes of a doll, or a corpse, because the truth of the universe is so profoundly nihilistic that any conscious being is incapable of perceiving it, or to put it another way the distinction of self is a separation of oneself from the rest of the universe and in the oblivion of death the matter of which we are comprised is freed of this delusion, returning from whence it never left. If you too perceived absolute truth your mind would be so utterly unbiased that even if you had a brain you wouldn't function as a conscious being, and thus you would be just like a doll or a corpse.

From another thread.

 

[Da Blob]

I believe that few would disagree that the quest of every human is to become Whole. Although there are any number of egotists who consider themselves to be whole and superior to Others, the fact that this attitude is shared by children and idiots, would seem to discount ego as the route to becoming fully human.

One has to wonder many few humans have actually fulfilled their design parameters. Maslow searched history for those he termed 'Self Actualized" and could find just a few handfuls of such.

According to the Bible there have only been two whole, Adam and the 2nd Adam, Jesus. However, it does appear that the rest of us can occasionally perform as we were designed. See as we were meant to see, hear as we were meant to hear and do what we are meant to do. In such moments, we are whole and we are enlightened.

It seems a shame that enlightenment is such a fleeting experience, but the Light burns and none can withstand it for long. Just ask the Prophets...

 

[Cognisant]

Indeed the human condition is wretched, we are not whole by design for if we were why would we need others and without the mutual need of each other how could this monstrosity we call civilized society form?

Perhaps there is some symbolic meaning in it being a serpent that tricked the grandest mother and grandest father into consuming the fruit of knowledge, perhaps it took pity on us. Y'know a snake needs nothing more than its next meal and even for that it can wait many weeks, an ideal every minimalist must envy, for what are we if not hoarders forever bound in servitude to the things we own, always oppressed by our possessions and yet always wanting more. Not just things either, no the greatest possession a person can have is another, if not directly by slavery then by contract of employment, institutionalised faith or a gold band around their finger.

What wretched needy creatures we are that our utmost comfort is that we need not be alone in our wretchedness, there really is no better explanation for the feeling of loneliness than this old adage: misery loves company.

 

[Da Blob]

And what meaning is not symbolic?

Indeed, it is a good question, "What is it that prevents us from being whole?". IMO, it is not the Serpent of the Garden, it is the fruit in the Garden, knowledge of good and evil is itself the product of a loss of innocence caused by suddenly becoming self aware.

It is a bad enough experience for toddlers when they realize that they are not god, but merely tiny little objects. I can't imagine the horror of that realization, if experienced as an adult, such as Adam or Eve.

The question "Who told you that you were naked (vulnerable)?" is one that still echoes today. And the answer is still the same, Ego did.

EDIT: indeed it does seem that "I" am not whole by design. Those we now know as Adam and Eve, two separate objects each with egos, could have been prior to the Fall, a single subject, adameve.
It would be interesting to follow up Maslow's initial study, the search for Self Actualized Individuals, with a second, the search for Self Actualized Couples (and their progeny). One could hope that the sample group would be much larger than just a few dozen.

 

[Felan]

Does anyone else feel if we were to meet with our makers/ unimaginable intelligence race/ creators of the universe... the questions we might have... the biggest questions,. they'd tell us, "we made it so painstakingly easy, so any evolved intelligent sentient species, at any time period, would see it".


Now I know this is broad, wider then anything,.. maybe this is why some INTPs like to try and develop a 'grand theory of everything'.

\Does this post have a point, hopefully you can add a thought or two.

I think they would say, "We know it was a long, difficult, and frustrating journey. We may have started you off, but we wanted you to be your own selves and we are delighted and proud of what you are."

 

[Nick]

I think they would say, "We know it was a long, difficult, and frustrating journey. We may have started you off, but we wanted you to be your own selves and we are delighted and proud of what you are."

Sounds very human.

I was just thinking, what we need to thrive, survive and expand, without stepping on each others toes or killing ourselves off... is energy. [now this might apply to our only current state of being, but need a source of energy to power ourselves into the next level of the Kardashev scale .]

As for the energy needed to propel ourselves to Type II, we need to stop the petty fighting and look towards bigger pictures, [survival and expansion of the human race], after all, we have to survive and thrive to expand. We want to leave behind something for our kin and I believe we all inherently have a deep desire for exploring the unknown. This all comes down to the ability to do it, and empowering the rest of the world to do so as well...

Back to the original thought, the answer to the question, if the question is unlimited energy for good, would it lay in the cosmos? Something that is visible to all from anywhere [the shape of galaxies, if entropy is constantly increasing, and biological life works towards negentropy, perhaps somehow the reversal of entropy could create power for us]... or the ground we stand on[big rock with a turning metal core creating a magnetic field, or the moon creating tides and shaping the planet, if we can mimic any of these principles on a smaller scale, would we not be able to harness it]?


Again, take everything here with many grains of salt, but we're such a small comic insignificance and I feel that the answers to much could be made from the tried and proven system that works and is still alive, the universe.

 

[Felan]

Sounds very human.

If I were a creator and created something like humanity and largely left them their own devices, it's what I would say to them.

I was just thinking, what we need to thrive, survive and expand, without stepping on each others toes or killing ourselves off... is energy. [now this might apply to our only current state of being, but need a source of energy to power ourselves into the next level of the Kardashev scale .]

Energy is important. I think at this point though more energy would actually make things worse, rather than better. I think in a real sense energy provides a lot of fuel to increasing the distance between polarized positions. The greater the surplus of energy the more vacuous the space between them. Until we can fill that space with something other than rhetoric and prejudice, I don't think we will thrive or expand.

As for the energy needed to propel ourselves to Type II, we need to stop the petty fighting and look towards bigger pictures, [survival and expansion of the human race], after all, we have to survive and thrive to expand. We want to leave behind something for our kin and I believe we all inherently have a deep desire for exploring the unknown. This all comes down to the ability to do it, and empowering the rest of the world to do so as well...

I think giving people a difficult but cooperative goal is probably a good way to fill that space between people.

Back to the original thought, the answer to the question, if the question is unlimited energy for good, would it lay in the cosmos? Something that is visible to all from anywhere [the shape of galaxies, if entropy is constantly increasing, and biological life works towards negentropy, perhaps somehow the reversal of entropy could create power for us]... or the ground we stand on[big rock with a turning metal core creating a magnetic field, or the moon creating tides and shaping the planet, if we can mimic any of these principles on a smaller scale, would we not be able to harness it]?

I think the only we can escape the eventually entropy of this universe is to create a new universe and pass into it, or pass into an existing universe that is less entropied. If such is possible I think it is a very long ways away. In theory there are new universes being created all the time. The actual matter and energy of the universe is apparently quite small, nearly zero. It's nearly zero (as I understand it) because of the split between matter and antimatter. Combine the total of those two and you would essentially zero out the universe and be left with a speck.

Again, take everything here with many grains of salt, but we're such a small comic insignificance and I feel that the answers to much could be made from the tried and proven system that works and is still alive, the universe.

We do need to figure something out before the sun runs out of fuel, some way of moving the Earth further out before the sun gobbles us up, but we have quite a lot of time for that. It would be good to expand to a couple nearby stars just in case, would hate for a surge of cosmic radiation to wipe us out.

I think the technology for Type I or Type II will be easier than the social change for it to be safe to have that kind of power.