QuakerInfo.com Forum

[james]

[DavidT]

"sigh" NOW you say that!!!!! I deleted a way to long of a reply sort of pointless actually. getting past the notion of the spirit or mind being somehow separate from the physical is harder to do explain than one would think it should be. but that is natural.

[james]

[Anthony]

[Anthony]

[Anthony]

James, I guess you claim that spirit cannot be separated from the physical by looking at the physical and declaring that it is reality and stands and ends by itself - which of course does to our sensory perception - but here you make a dogmatic assertion. I would find it more acceptable if you had claimed that in your understanding spirit cannot be separated from the physical.

I can only assume what you mean when you say it would be 'life denying' to try and separate spirit from the physical. Who of us can truly claim that something cannot happen when this can't be proved only by a negative or lack of prove. Lack of prove proves nothing.

I am full agreement with what you say about Christian tradition except how do you KNOW that the survival of the energy of consciousness would be without substance? What is substance? I guess you would answer the physical, what you can see and touch, but what comes first, the mind and then form or form and then the mind? If the mind, then how much of our reality is of the mind? Not only this, but how much of our outside world is simply a projection of the mind? How much of our world and experiences are holographic and that which we see not being what we think it is - or how much of what we see is our own construction or perception?

I don't understand your use of the work spiritual when you say it is entwined with the mind. I can agree with this statement but I feel sure we would not be in agreement on what we mean.

I claim that the mind and spirit are the same but that they are not the brain anymore than the hardware of my computer is its software.

I acknowledge we are speaking of living beings but you seem to limit mind, life, energy and spirit to physical matter and form. It is your right to do that if that is your understanding - as I said in another post - I feel that you are constrained my matter. There are those who are the doubting Thomas' of this world who deny the possibility of the numinous or transcendent unless it is proved scientifically and evidenced by the five illusory senses. This will never be possible by Newtonion physics but quantum physics, although still in its infancy, promises much that mechanical physics does not.

Unintentionally, James, you may have touched on a truth: you rightly say that any claim to consciousness contained in a stone is an assumption without evidence - yet, you are willing to accept that consciousness and life is contained in matter in the form of the physical body: flesh, bones chemicals, etc.

I think we need be willing to either look outside the box or admit that there may be something outside of it - something that others may have percieved and experienced, something that is different from or norm.

Sorry if this is a digression. Infinity simply is...

[DavidT]

Anthony,

[ deleted my post ignore it. sigh...I actually didn't mean to post it here is a new one.

I was going for a smarmy reply Anthony, I started down that road and you know what, you don't deserve a smarmy reply, and it's not right to give them. Forums are too easy to get frustrated in and it's far too easy to bleat out stupidly which I have done on more than one occasion.

Are you right no, we don't ever actually leave the physical, even when we die we don't leave the physiol. The Universe did not pop out of nothing, but emerged from the physical. That's right the physical emerged from the physical as unbelievable as that is.

I swear I am going to keep running into this until those with spiritual tendencies get a solid sense of a foundational cosmology of their own rather than from science or "intelligent design or what ever. In order to do that you have to have a developed sense of logic. In order to do that it must first start with spirituality and common sense just sitting in nature talking and in dialog with others. Maybe I'll go teach Socratic logic somewhere. Maybe that is what I should do except I want to farm as well. Maybe Farming. Socratic teaching, Cob Construction, friendship, fellowship , a bit of beer and wine good food, mutual respect for each other and profound of profound respect for what is around us a celebration of a simple life As Tolkien said, that indeed is no bad thing.


So to answer your question respectfully, thoughtfully, with a a sense of spiritual kinship, Stop being so GD dull witted, it's habit forming. HA!!!!!!

[DavidT]

James we see eye to eye on ton's but unfortunately due to the limitations of the format (writing) we can't carry it further. When I set my farm up in Oregon you will have to visit. You can help hoist cob... I'll pay you in good food, drink and lots of stuff about farming.




BTW.

I highly recommend David Abram "Becoming animal" if you love nature and have a sense of connection through nature as a spiritual and it's intrinsic logic you will love it. It will challenge your view on Rocks being consciousness because he approaches the question from a completely out from left field angle that is I think just brilliant.You won't get an Answer from David, he's way beyond giving you simplistic answers. He is deeply logical and deeply creative in his writing.