Topic: I now have IRREFUTABLE PROOF that the world's final year is 2012!

[Scyphi]

...think about it for a moment; what CAUSED the big bang? Well, the universe started with this explosion...

Actually no, the universe didn't really "explode" into existence, it just sort of "expanded" at a relatively rapid rate into it's present state. At no point during this whole course of it's (theoretical) history did it go "bang." The term "Big Bang" actually came from scientists using it to demean and ridicule the theory (back when it was still new and not all scientists had accepted it) and it ended up sticking, ironically enough.

...then when EVERY star turns into a black hole, they suck each other all in together, causing the great collapse, and then the impact from that collapse causes... ANOTHER big bang!

Not necessarily, that is only one potential (and theoretical) fate for the universe, and is actually at present not one of the more likely theories, seeing the universe is presently not only expanding still, but accelerating. More likely it will either keep expanding infinitely, or eventually expand too much too quickly for space-time to handle and tears it apart, assuming our understanding of the universe is even correct. Also worth noting is that even if the universe does eventually collapse again, that doesn't necessarily mean it will ever "bang" again. It could just as easily remain collapsed and in whatever state it ends up in after that collapse.

Not to rain on your parade of course, Alieo. While I don't agree with all of what you're saying with it, I can agree with the general idea of most of what you're saying and state that I think you're on the right track.

This could also be my way of saying that one should, above all, keep an open mind always and consider ALL the possibilities. As Sherlock Holmes was well known for saying, "when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth" but to do that, you also have to consider all the possibilities, of course.

EXTERMINATE!

Better keep my sonic screwdriver handy, then.

[Alieo]

Oh, yeah, of course it's theoretical. That's just my take on everything. As far as the subconscious goes, check out Carl Jung's theory of the collective unconscious. It's fascinating. I'm just tying in the spiritual end of it to what he has to say.

[Kaiaatzl]

Yeah, most psychologists consider Jung to be only slightly more credible than Freud.
I don't particularly like ideas that are based on what a scientist thinks should, in an ideal world, be correct, because those ideas are unscientific and generally, even if they're somewhat correct some parts of them are wrong.  And psychology is full of them.

Personally I also think that a scientist developing a theory and then not bothering to test it is cowardly :cough:Maslow:cough:

[Canceler]

disclaimer: the following response to Alieo's post represents no bigotry or ill will towards Alieo himself, only an intellectually-oriented criticism of his proposed philosophical ideas. edit: oh look, i'm not unique after all

Bottom line, you have to look at what's right and what's wrong. Sure, not every religion is 100% pure and do deviate into immoral areas (extremists exist in every creed), but 100% of them ALL lead to a single deity or deities of worship.

except for hinduism, buddhism, other belief systems recognized as religions that either identify with multiple deities or make the question of deity irrelevant. edit: oh i see you actually did say "deitiES", never mind about hinduism then

That is why I don't discriminate on who's right or who's wrong, but rather live by a standard moral code of right and wrong. I am more spiritual than religious.

standard moral code of right and wrong..as defined by what exactly? probably just your sentiment, feelings on an issue, etc; which can't be trusted by itself because either 1) you have an intuitive sense of morality built into you buy a moral author, to whose instruction we must refer before being able to say anything is ACTUALLY in alignment therewith, or 2) nobody outside yourself forged your opinions, sentiments, feelings on an issue, except determinism, which doesn't necessarily lead to a moral conclusion, only a survival-oriented one.

I don't just believe in the afterlife, I know, and I know we are all connected through deep roots in the subconscious river that flows and connects ALL of us. Most of us are just not in tune with these deeper levels of consciousness because of the fog we live in. What you see now and feel around you as you read this doesn't seem like a fog, but it is, because we're not in tune with our roots on the other side.

Imagine, if you will, an island. What is an island? All it is is an underwater mountain whose peak breaks the ocean surface. Now imagine the crest of that mountain/island; that's where we are. If you go deeper down the slope of the mountain, you go underwater. What happens when you go underwater? Your reality changes; sounds are different; you can't breathe. Anything below the surface is the subconscious. You can't LIVE in that world because you don't have gills, but you can visit it for short periods of time (meditation, sleep, drugs, etc). That's what shamans do. Our spirits, however, are from there. They HAVE gills. All this is figuratively, of course. In a sense, our spirits are in a "reverse diving suit" and are visiting this realm to better themselves spiritually.

all of this is an invented pile of assumptions. i'm interested in the source of your 'knowledge' of these assumed premises. where did you come up with this idea? if it's a referencible source(s), then it should stand up to criticisms of validity. if it's just your intuition, nobody, not even you, can trust it because you might just be plain dead wrong.

But my point is, sometimes, people are so caught up in individual religions, they neglect the spirituality involved WITH their religion. They, along with atheists, have been on land too long, and think that the "above surface" world is the only plane of existence. That doesn't make them bad people. Hey, ignorance is bliss, right?

if by "above surface" you mean the idea that individual consciousnesses remaining mutually independent, i'd point out the fact that you have zero evidence that there really is any connection, and i guarantee any kind of evidence a person of your disposition could propose would be either pseudoscience, or purely assumed and foundless ideas repeating the same statements without sound reasons to establish them.

I don't have anything against atheists. I'm not going to say they're going to burn in eternal damnation for not knowing. That's not for ANYONE to judge. The higher power lives within them, along with every person, plant, animal, fungi, protozoa, and within the energy signatures of non-living objects. They'll get their chance, whether it's this life or the next.

Remember the big bang? Okay, this is just my theory, but, think about it for a moment; what CAUSED the big bang? Well, the universe started with this explosion, and eons later, galaxies form, planetary systems are made, etc. I theorize that this big bang has happened SEVERAL times. It's a cycle. You have a big bang, the universe grows, and then when EVERY star turns into a black hole, they suck each other all in together, causing the great collapse, and then the impact from that collapse causes... ANOTHER big bang! Over and over.No matter what level of life forms you look at, plants die and are reborn, people die and are reborn, planets die and are reborn, the universe dies and is reborn, all the same elements in an eternal yo-yo effect; Yin and Yang eternally oscillating.

1) when the universe experiences heat death and becomes a wasteland of black holes, they will not coalesce since the universe is expanding increasingly faster. even as black holes, the pieces will not suck each other back together. 2) even if they DID, we have NO model of physics that allows that final singularity to expand again. it will remain a perpetual singularity. 3) an eternal cycle implies this has happened an infinite number of times before now. but in order for any event with temporal significance to occur an infinite number of times, it takes an eternity. to say that it takes an eternity for something to happen is to say it will never happen. if there had been an infinite number of iterations before this one, it would have taken an infinite amount of time to get to this one; ie, the universe will have never reached its current iteration. we can observe that it has, thus there could not have been an infinite cycle going on. it had to start with an initial big bang. and since we know of NO model of physics to allow a collapsed universe to expand again, the most reasonable conclusion is that this universe is not a product of a former "big crunch" and that the big bang that we observe is the first, and only, to have ever occurred in this universe, be there other universes or not.

But WHY the eternal cycle? What exactly IS this universe? I believe there is no boundary to the universe... in a sense. I believe it has a border somewhere. Think of a cell in a microscope. If you zoom in enough, you'll see that it has it's own little universe in there. That cell IS a universe. Especially a brain cell. A brain cell looks like our universe. Observe the second picture. There IS no boundary between the microscopic and macroscopic. It's all parts of a whole.

slices of potatoes look like Jesus, therefore Jesus is made of potatoes and vice-versa. plus, no evidence of anything as complex as a universe, solar system, or even a star has been observed within molecules, atoms, or subatomic particles; it is a fantasy. lastly, there is no citation on either of those images so we can't tell whether that "universe" picture is not simply some artist's creative rendition, or a photoshop.
and about your other picture depicting the islands and analogy of consciousnesses, the premises of where each point lies on those pedestal-like structures is completely made up and assumptive. there is NO solid reason to believe that drugs or dreams reveal anything to us except an ontologically insignificant pyre of distorted sensory information, rather than true "insight".

[Alieo]

Yeah, this is all theories combined with personal beliefs. As far as moral system goes, it's simple. Just treat others how you want to be treated. I respect everyone's opinion, and I'm just putting mine out there. To clarify, what I mean by "I KNOW that an afterlife exists" means I have daily encounters with the paranormal, and have had some wicked vivid experiences in the past. Since I have personally witnessed various occurrences such as SEVERAL orbs in various locations including the house, getting tapped on my head, thumps in the back of my hearse that thump back when being thumped to (only if the thumper initiates the thumping) [LOL], AND one full blown specter of my grandma shortly after she passed on when I was a little kid. That's why I say I "know" an afterlife exists because there has to be a different dimensional plane these entities reside. It's kind of like how we can't see ultraviolet, but it's still there.

Just because I have WITNESSED something that I can't prove doesn't mean it doesn't exist, it just means I can't prove it! If a tree falls in the forest, does it make a noise? If you're the only one there, yes it did... in the middle of your trek through the Amazon Rainforest. But did you buddies back at home in the states hear that tree? Hell no! That doesn't mean the tree didn't make a noise when it fell. No one else was around to hear it.

=D=I=F=F=E=R=E=N=T===S=U=B=J=E=C=T=

Oh, and it didn't take long for someone to make one of these (see pic). lol

[Kaiaatzl]

@Canceller: Dude, take a look at evolutionary psychology before you go criticising inherent moral senses.

[Canceler]

@Canceller: Dude, take a look at evolutionary psychology before you go criticising inherent moral senses.

i already covered that when i said determinism will leave you with "moral" inklings. but they are not indicative of something truly being right or wrong, they would, in that case, be merely survival-oriented. the only beings that give half a damn about "murder" are people who want to live. the instinct to feel that it's "wrong" is a survival instinct, not a "moral" instinct. the idea that you deserve what you earn and that a thief "ought" not take away something of yours is NOT indicative of an actual moral reason not to steal, it's just something that you feel to be wrong as a defense mechanism to motivate you to keep things for yourself, which in the long run is beneficial to survival. these feelings are broadened to include the ideas of society and the group, since that's even more helpful towards survival. everything is about survival. but that doesn't mean things that promote human (or other) survival are "right". you may disagree, but you'd just be dead wrong. survival in itself is not some kind of ultimate objective. unless it was intended to exist by some conscious creator, then it was just a fluke, accident, happenstance, a series of matter-states that result in complex biological machines. they don't need to be there. every "moral" inkling that it's wrong to whimsically destroy these things, walking hunks of blood and meat, is not reflective of any kind of natural law of the universe. the universe doesn't give half a damn if the matter composing your body is intact or if it gets violently broken apart by someone's machete. other people might care, but they're just reacting out of an ingrown instinct to favor that which promotes existence. before you try saying that morality has any relevance to a natural universe, look into existentialism.

[Kaiaatzl]

No, if you had actually read about evolutionary psychology, and not the pop-culture dumbing-down of it which most evolutionary psychologists hold to be false, you would not be saying that.  That's why I told you to read it.
I've taken more than one college-level course on this, and I'm even considering making it my major.  I'm not pretending to be an expert but unless you can say the same or better, please don't tell me I don't understand it as much as you.  It's only insulting my intelligence, and that isn't the way to win an argument .  Well, maybe if you're a politician I might let you off the hook ...

I'll give you a hint.  Humans evolved to survive by living in groups.  Living in groups is just as much an evolutionary pressure as lack of food, or predators, or disease, or any of the things you're thinking about.  Evolutionary psych is a whole lot more complicated than you're making it out to be, unless you're a lizard who lives by himself and survives by eating flies, in which case, you're excused... but you'd better run away before I eat you.

[Canceler]

Humans evolved to survive by living in groups.

yeah, that's what i said. "morality" is the mechanism that makes that work well. here's where you need a dose of existential truth: while "morality" may be necessary for survival, survival itself isn't necessary. its importance is merely assumed. there's no natural and universal truth that it's desirable for something to survive and undesirable for something to extinguish. so murder isn't breaking any law, beyond what human societies have invented as a defense mechanism. it's just contradictory to the assumed goal: survival of the human species, which actually isn't a necessity, just a desired outcome--desired by those who wish, by instinct, to survive.

[Kaiaatzl]

You're still ignoring my actual point.  If you actually read some actual scientific literature on evolutionary psychology you would not be saying that.  Never mind reading, take some university courses on it like I did and then we can resume this debate if we still have one.  If you're not willing to spend the time and money actually aquiring knowledge rather than pop-culture before you accuse me of ignorance, I don't see any reason to try and defend my point to you.
Agreed?

No I am not an expert.  But after trying for four years to get a degree in evolutionary biology before finally accepting that labs were not my thing, I think I understand the concept of "survival and reproduction of the fittest" better than someone who argues that survival isn't important to evolution -- if you're even still talking about evolution.
I could paraphrase the basic concepts of evolutionary psychology straight from my textbook, but first you need to prove to me that you'd actually listen to them.  Otherwise I have better things to do.

You know what, when neither of us can make an argument that the other considers valid, I think it's time to call it quits!  I give up.  That does not mean that you win, it means that this debate is officially postponed until each of us actually understands the other's position.  When one of us starts falling into logical fallacies and the other either can't or won't connect his argument to his opponent's, all it accomplishes is making both of us look incompetent.
/flamewar

Wow.  Look at how far this thread has come.  I'm so proud of it!  Especially without losing one iota of the sarcasm! :teary eyes:
Hang that lampshade anywhere.

[VANGUARD]

You know what, when neither of us can make an argument that the other considers valid, I think it's time to call it quits!  I give up.  That does not mean that you win, it means that this debate is officially postponed until each of us actually understands the other's position.  When one of us starts falling into logical fallacies and the other either can't or won't connect his argument to his opponent's, all it accomplishes is making both of us look incompetent.
/flamewar

I agree. I've been there, like anyone else. With both sides are dead set on what they believe, no one will think differently.

[Alieo]

*NOM NOM NOM*

[Matthew]

I was going to make an on-topic post... But I figured I'd better not ruin the thread.

[Kaiaatzl]

Great plan.

[Canceler]

I think I understand the concept of "survival and reproduction of the fittest" better than someone who argues that survival isn't important to evolution

it's the other way around. you're missing MY actual point. you know why i accuse you of ignorance is because you are demonstrating zero understanding of existentialism and philosophy in general. and no i'm not talking about evolution. i never argued survival wasn't important to evolution. i point out the irrefutable fact that there is zero importance for any living thing to exist, it isn't important that things evolve, it's not a goal of the universe to produce life. give me one good reason why life in general OUGHT to exist. not just what makes living "better", but what in the universe demands that life ought to be. i'll give you a hint: nothing.

You know what, when neither of us can make an argument that the other considers valid, I think it's time to call it quits!

i do consider your arguments valid. you just never addressed the point of my statements which makes your valid arguments only relevant if we assume your premise that evolving, even existing, is demanded. and once again, the reason you can't understand the validity of my statements is because of your lack of philosophical education.