(OT) The universe...

[RolandOfGilead]

Ok, I'm going to through out a complicated idea and see what kind of responses I get here. Please don't mistake what I'm doing here as preaching; it is sharing. (Heh).

Ok throw out all your old concepts of the nature of the universe, yourself, religion, science, everything.

Now we'll start with a vast void. We'll populate the void with an uncountable number of Omnipotent, omnipresent spirits. (infinite, boundless). They all exist everywhere at once. Unfortunately, they cannot relate to one another, because they ALL can be everywhere at once. How can you be sure you arent talking to yourself? They cannot experience contact with each other because they overlap! Finally, one day, one of the spirits, we'll call him (Edit) Frank Zappa (End edit), gets this wonderful idea in his head. This Thought, becomes a reality within (Frank Zappa). He creates the universe within himself... and invites us to explore this universe.
we see what (Frank Zappa) has done, and realizing it is a good work, we replicate his thought within our minds, making the reality expand and encompass us all. In order to do this, we LIMIT ourselves, our perceptions, to this reality. In essence, we cut ourselves off from the infinite so that we can see the individual.

Now I know you're thinking -- wacko! heh. but think about it:
(Frank zappa) left us a set of instructions on getting your modem dialed in to the right protocol. 8 bits, no parity, or you arent contacting (Frank's) reality. You see, you can control and influence your reality unknowingly. If your version of reality no longer matches the mutual version of reality we share with the first infinite spirit, (Frank Zappa), you no longer exist in the same reality.. (you're no longer close to Frank)... You can see reflections of this idea in the (Edit) Book of good farming (End edit) its kind of like reading the code words: Made in his image.. (Well, in order to be in his reality, you have to be in his image per say).. and when (Edit) Dweezil (End edit) asks (Frank) "what shall I tell them is your name?" he responds, "I am"...
Lets examine "I am..."... really, its an incomplete statement.
"I am" is really a statement of "I exist".. and that statement
has a presumed "I exist (in the same reality as he who hears)"
or, "I exist (Just like you)'
...
there are more thoughts, but I am tired. if this stirs up a hotbed of controversy, I'll elaborate more.. hehe

 

[DanMcS]

Ok, I'm going to through out a complicated idea and see what kind of responses I get here. Please don't mistake what I'm doing here as preaching; it is sharing. (Heh).

Hah. Hah hah. See how you cleverly slipped a disclaimer in there? That makes it all better, right?

It's preaching. Don't.

 

[tleilaxu]

bible schmible... this thread is gonna get closed

 

[RolandOfGilead]

Bah You're wrong!

Lol.
Some people cant take the free exchange of ideas.
Tell it to someone who cares! hehehe. Sharing the
intellectual idea of mutual responsibility for the universe
is far from calling someone a sinner or saying jesus is
the way. grow up!

 

[RolandOfGilead]

Another thing you should think about is that this idea is heretical
and would get you killed in the middle ages. It is certainly not a christian idea to say that "You are an equal to the being that created the universe"...

Basicly, all physical laws exist because WE AGREED THEY SHOULD.
If we didnt, our mutual reality wouldnt work. Suffering, evil, joy, sex, all exist because we must have thought it was a good idea. so stick that in your pipe and smoke it!

 

[jgbrowning]

sounds a bit like my religion actually... minus the jehovah part... that's a big 'ole loaded word.

just add that all the spirits are actually one spirit in a contradictory multiplicity and you're a lot closer.

but, don't be surprised if "I" close the thread that "I" started..

joe b.

 

[RolandOfGilead]

Hmm I'm afraid I have to disagree with your "Shattered singularity" Take on consciousness. Because it would take
away the meaning of making a world wherein we could live as inviduals. the whole thing would be a prop to fool himself (the singular entity).. and I think the infinite side would be rather bored. hehe. It's impossible to tell from WITHIN the reality though, isn't it? I guess its a debate best left untouched.
As for why I use "Jehovah".. its just an example.. It actually has nothing to do with established notions.. even the biblical references are just support for the idea that reality is function of our acceptance and we can change it at a whim...

 

[jgbrowning]

Hmm I'm afraid I have to disagree with your "Shattered singularity" Take on consciousness. Because it would take
away the meaning of making a world wherein we could live as inviduals. the whole thing would be a prop to fool himself (the singular entity).. and I think the infinite side would be rather bored.

its not really shattered. it is single, it is separate. both at the same time. meaning? what meaning? i breath.

*the sound of one hand clapping up side yo head* hehe

wouldn't mind talking, but this really isn't the place. Welcome to ENworld though and hope you stick around.

joe b.

 

[Wayside]

Don't see why this would stir up any controversy, unless maybe someone with a specific religious background took it in a bad way, but seeing as they would most likely be a gamer, being here on ENWorld and all, I find it hard to believe that the cosmology you're creating would be any more offensive than that of any rpg setting. It sounds pretty interesting to me, in game terms anyway. You can invent an infinite number of these things though, and unless the specifics of them bear out in an interesting way in your campaign world, they're really just another "insert creation myth here" aren't they?

And so I ask: what would this mean for a world, if it were true?

It sounds sort of like a cross between Mage and predestination (and slightly Gnostic to boot), where you are able to influence the world by sheer will (how psuedo-Nietzschean, or performative, if you want to be semantic about it), and where every individual is potentially the equal of "god" (heavy emphasis on the quotes). The only problem is there are no stakes, no reason to adhere to "god's" original vision of creation. No reason to limit yourself. The reason you could think of it as slightly gnostic is that once you have limited yourself, you obviously lose all memory of anything that came before, any powers you had as a "higher" being, etc. Whether these are recoverable at all is debatable, but if, as you say, the bible in this world is a set of instructions on aligning the image of god's world within yourself to the actual world, then there could be an equally important contrary movement spearheaded by the spirits trying to get out of the world, back to what Gnostics would call the pleroma. The creating spirit could even be evil, and the entire act of creation (ala the demiurge) could have been a ploy to draw the other spirits into a cage that would be impossible for them to escape from. That could certainly make for an interesting game.

oh, 'I am' is not an incomplete statement, and is not predicative of someone spoken too. Even Descartes, who has plenty of problems of his own, doesn't try and take it there...

 

[RolandOfGilead]

I am...

Interesting responses..

regarding "I am", I think that the subject must be relating to something. I exist in reference to x. even if its unspoken, you can't assert existence without further indicating where, or when, or in relation to what -- if that makes sense. hehe.