Posted: September 22nd, 2010, 8:33 pm
It is a way too miserable life to believe that logically derived knowledge is the pinnacle of human evolution.
'Knowledge' of Newton's laws of Thermodynamics, for example, can very effectively predict the path of a bullet. These laws become inadequate to describe or predict the chaotic movement of air around the bullet and the resultant physical damage to it on impact. These laws then have nothing to say about effect on the life of a person it hits. You see here that a formula to describe and categorise phenomena is just a formula. Real life in the ever-changing present can only be seen or experienced without the glasses of logic, or any other glasses for that matter, including belief.
That is not to say that logic isn't essential for knowledge. We can even use logic to demonstrate that everything changes. But there is no logic that can underpin the absolute knowing of everything, since everything that knowledge describes is subject to change. Even our most previously treasured constants, like the speed of light, we now know is subject to changes with relative conditions.
As soon as we reference knowledge, we undermine direct experience.
So we, the human race, could theoretically have a vast logically derived knowledge base that superficially describes almost everything, subject to continuous change. This knowledge could be stored on computers for our reference but will still undermine our personal experience in the present. The same can be said for historical belief in a god/creator/designer undermining experience in the present.
So for a hundred billion people since the dawn of mankind to mask their present experience with borrowed stories of gods, born of fear of death and the unknown, only shows their stage of evolution, not any indication of any truth. Some have since evolved to shed light on the unknown with logically, scientifically formulated knowledge. But the present reality remains masked as long as we think those formulas, categories and names are indistinguishable from the things they describe. For example, resorting to knowledge to define a Daisy keeps the mind engaged in those past formulated references and masked from the essential (Daisy)ness in the moment. No knowledge can describe the endless detail of it's appearance.
A further evolution would be to understand knowledge to be just reference for communication and creativity and to be as unfixed and changeable as reality itself. Knowledge then is not the goal, but the successor of a dying God, and a game we play to communicate and share the indescribable richness of perception.
To go as far as to empirically identify the Higgs Boson, the God particle, or to prove a unified theory is not the end that will make us all happy and right. It will just mean we have finally killed the old God and replaced him with a benign umbrella of information (that might feel a little like a god) and we can dedicate our resources to our own identity and to dissolving fear, so making life fun again.
'Knowledge' of Newton's laws of Thermodynamics, for example, can very effectively predict the path of a bullet. These laws become inadequate to describe or predict the chaotic movement of air around the bullet and the resultant physical damage to it on impact. These laws then have nothing to say about effect on the life of a person it hits. You see here that a formula to describe and categorise phenomena is just a formula. Real life in the ever-changing present can only be seen or experienced without the glasses of logic, or any other glasses for that matter, including belief.
That is not to say that logic isn't essential for knowledge. We can even use logic to demonstrate that everything changes. But there is no logic that can underpin the absolute knowing of everything, since everything that knowledge describes is subject to change. Even our most previously treasured constants, like the speed of light, we now know is subject to changes with relative conditions.
As soon as we reference knowledge, we undermine direct experience.
So we, the human race, could theoretically have a vast logically derived knowledge base that superficially describes almost everything, subject to continuous change. This knowledge could be stored on computers for our reference but will still undermine our personal experience in the present. The same can be said for historical belief in a god/creator/designer undermining experience in the present.
So for a hundred billion people since the dawn of mankind to mask their present experience with borrowed stories of gods, born of fear of death and the unknown, only shows their stage of evolution, not any indication of any truth. Some have since evolved to shed light on the unknown with logically, scientifically formulated knowledge. But the present reality remains masked as long as we think those formulas, categories and names are indistinguishable from the things they describe. For example, resorting to knowledge to define a Daisy keeps the mind engaged in those past formulated references and masked from the essential (Daisy)ness in the moment. No knowledge can describe the endless detail of it's appearance.
A further evolution would be to understand knowledge to be just reference for communication and creativity and to be as unfixed and changeable as reality itself. Knowledge then is not the goal, but the successor of a dying God, and a game we play to communicate and share the indescribable richness of perception.
To go as far as to empirically identify the Higgs Boson, the God particle, or to prove a unified theory is not the end that will make us all happy and right. It will just mean we have finally killed the old God and replaced him with a benign umbrella of information (that might feel a little like a god) and we can dedicate our resources to our own identity and to dissolving fear, so making life fun again.