(Niels Bohr quotes from http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Niels_Bohr
Two sorts of truth: profound truths recognized by the fact that the opposite is also a profound truth, in contrast to trivialities where opposites are obviously absurd.)


One

I am nothing in the larger scheme of time and space. This is a realistic assessment from a logical left brain point of view. I exist in a universe that is estimated to have more stars than there are grains of sand on all of the earth’s beaches. I exist in a universe where about 96% of the energy and mass postulated to be out there can’t even be detected by the best of scientific instruments. I am one among billions of humans with a life span around 7x10-13 of that of the universe.

Two

I am everything. Hallaj put it this way, “I am God.” and was killed for his proclamation. This is not logical but experiential when a person can silence the left brain chatter. It is what Sam Harris experienced through meditation. It is a dropping away of ego boundaries. Rumi put it this way:

There You Are
You're inside every kindness. When
a sick person feels better, you're

that, and the onset of disease too.
You're sudden, terrible screaming.

Some problems require we go for help:
when we knock on a stranger's door,

you sent us. Nobody answers: it's
you! When work feels necessary, you

are the way workers move in rhythm.
You are what is: the field, the players,

the ball, those watching. Someone
claims to have evidence that you do

not exist. You're the one who brings
the evidence in, and the evidence

itself. You are inside the soul's
great fear, every natural pleasure,

every vicious cruelty. You are in
every difference and irritation.

Someone loves something; someone else
hates the same. There you are.

Whatever eyes see, what anyone wants
or not: political power, injustice,

material possessions, those are your
script, the handwriting we study.

Body, soul, shadow. Whether reckless
or careful, you are what we do. It's

absurd to ask your pardon. You're
inside repentance, and sin! The wonder

of various jewels, agate, emerald.
How we are during a day, then at night,

you are those moods and qualities.
The pure compassion we feel for each

other. Every encampment has a tent
where the leader is and also the wide

truth of your imperial tent overall.

I posted the following in http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,1520207,1520207#msg-1520207
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Piaget studied human development and came up with 4 stages that people go through. The third stage is concrete operational stage. Seen from the concrete stage a prison is a place of cells that are locked at night, surrounded by barbed wire, electrified fences that can electrocute a person, eating mystery meat that comes in containers marked ‘NOT FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION’ and guards that tell them when to get up, when to eat, and when they can go out of the dorm. Piaget’s final stage is formal operational which features abstract thinking. The following from http://www.mind-development.eu/stages-development.html discusses formal operations:

**
The fourth stage, that takes place from age 12 (given sufficient IQ, education and stimuli) to adulthood, is Formal Operations. This is a more objective way of perceiving the world with the ability to focus simultaneously on several aspects of a problem - this is 'decentration.' Even adults, before they obtain the full abilities of formal operations - or if (as is common) they do not develop that far - continue with a centrated, single-minded point of view, intolerant of alternatives. Adult centration is the rule rather than the exception. The centrated person has tunnel vision when it comes to the world of ideas; the decentrated person is open to considering new ideas from all directions.
Typically, a person of average intelligence (which is only 100 by definition) would remain below the sub-stage 1 of Formal Operations, predominantly using Concrete Operations. A higher level of mental maturity would only be manifest in emotionally neutral situations or in a domain specific manner, perhaps in the context of work requiring concentrated problem solving. When "off duty" or when under emotional pressure most people would tend to regress to the level of Concrete Operational thought, and under severe pressure to the Pre-Logical thinking of Stage 2.
Only about 17% of the population, those with an IQ above 110, uses Formal Operations on an everyday basis. And only about 5% of the population reaches the final stage of Formal Operations, true formal thought, and probably about 2% continue to develop at the Postformal Level. Of them, about 0.1% go on to complete this process. This is mainly because a person needs to be in an educational or otherwise stimulating environment, until he or she is about thirty. Most university students leave university after gaining a first degree at between the ages of twenty-two to twenty-four, so the process of Postformal development all but ceases, unless they continue to work in an intellectually stimulating environment.
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Lacking the abstract ability to hold the conflicting truths of ‘I am nothing’ and ‘I am everything’ in mind leads to much suffering and neurotic mental gymnastics. Just look at how seriously people take their ideas about reality, how trigger happy most people are to defend their concrete views of existence. The reason for the drive to defend is obvious, a defense against the thought worm that, while eating the guts of the person, whispers ‘You are nothing.’

So a stage 4 personality would take much of what Piaget says with a large grain of salt, since his conclusions came from a very small sample. This post is a little too smug for my taste, "if you don't agree with my conclusion you are at a lower level of development ".



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/26/2015 01:05PM by ladell.

ab Wrote:
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> Just look at how
> seriously people take their ideas about reality,
> how trigger happy most people are to defend their
> concrete views of existence. The reason for the
> drive to defend is obvious, a defense against the
> thought worm that, while eating the guts of the
> person, whispers ‘You are nothing.’

Or, perhaps, it could just be that some rational people are quite tired of made-up, ignorant, superstitious nonsense being passed off as "fact," and causing harm in the world by so doing. I mean, there's more than one reason to "defend" things, not just the one you mentioned :)

It's really easy for me to hold both ideas; "I am nothing" and "I am everything." It took e 60 years, but I made it.

Sweet.

Nice post. I liked that your pointed out that people under emotional duress are likely to revert to/stay in level 3 and might even possibly revert further back, depending on the amount of distress the individual is feeling.

Most people in the church are indeed under emotional duress due to the strong need they have to fulfill their roles and meet the expectations placed on them by their own self and by others. It is no wonder that most do not search out the facts and find it easier to accept the spin.

Regarding being nothing and yet being everything, isn't that similar to a theorum in the field of quantum computing? That is, because of the use of binary, the potential is to be either a 0 or a 1 but the quantum computer can be both a 0 and a 1. In this way, because being both things at once, a quantum computer would be able to process all possibilities instantly because it can be both things at once.

(scary thought - are we mere algorithms in the matrix of 'reality'?)

Quantum consciousness - interesting analogy that could be useful adjusting consciousness left and right brain - flick back and forth and then moving strongly to one side as needed.

I slipped into a level 3 state today with a tech support representative. ouch

Good video on left vs right - http://www.ted.com/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight?language=en

Georg, is zat you?

So the "I am everything" people who are mystical and have their heads floating in the clouds are superior to the "I am nothing" people who view the world in a logical, rational, scientific way?

I am not sure who could really decide this issue because all the "I am everything" people would claim to be superior, just as all the "I am nothing" people would claim to be superior.

I am not even all that sure that claiming one's own group to be superior over others is all that healthy and desirable.

People with only "I am nothing" are susceptible to feeling disconnected and without meaning. People with only "I am everything" are susceptible to a demigod complex that is also disconnected. Most people operate in a dichotomy/duality. For example I could be outwardly smug, defensive and superior, driven by an unconscious feeling of being nothing and meaninglessness. The ideal self-actuated person transcends the dichotomy of nothing/everything, left brain right brain approaches. It is like a scientist that hold the conflicting ideas of light is a wave and light is a particle in their mind at the same time.

Take rationalist01 as an example - "It's really easy for me to hold both ideas; "I am nothing" and "I am everything." It took me 60 years, but I made it."
This requires more, much more than just rational left brain understanding which is as useful (useless) as a left brain understanding of love.

Is the concept of God really a concept of a quantum consciousness? Alpha and omega, beginning and end, everywhere yet nowhere, seeing the past, the present and the future all at once. If you want to find evidence for His existence you will find it everywhere, yet to disprove His existence is just as possible if that is the intention.

Only observable when being monitored and behaving in the way you expect it to behave through quantum entanglement, perhaps? Just like the light wave/particle.

Just a thought.

Oh, if you get off balance feeling arrogant and know it all watch this:
http://www.wimp.com/universeperspective/