Lawrence R. Spencer's Blog, page 118
December 27, 2021
REALITY IN FLATLAND
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Here is some interesting food for thought from Thomas Campbell’s My Big TOE (Theory of Everything):
“If you have read
Flatland,
it will be clear that the ordinary residents of a given reality can only observe and understand interactions within their own reality and the interactions of residents of realities that are more highly constrained than their own. Residents of a more constrained reality cannot comprehend a less constrained reality because it lies beyond the limits of their normal perception.
Each dimension of reality has its own rules that define its objective science. Additionally, each dimension of reality experiences the next higher (less limited) dimension as subjective and mystical. Consequently, your mysticism may be another’s science: It depends on how big a picture you live and work in, and the degree to which restraints limit your perception. The perspective from the next higher dimension provides a bigger picture with a more complete understanding. This more comprehensive, complete, and less restrictive knowledge is only accessible to lower dimensional beings (those with a more constrained awareness) through the experience of their individual locally-subjective mind.
Consequently, a mystic could be a scientist from a higher dimension, or a delusional fool hopelessly caught in a distorted web of belief. How do you know which is which? A good question! ”
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Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions is an 1884 satirical novella by the English schoolmaster Edwin Abbott Abbott. Writing pseudonymously as “a Square”,Abbott used the fictional two-dimensional world of Flatland to offer pointed observations on the social hierarchy of Victorian culture. However, the novella’s more enduring contribution is its examination of dimensions.
TOUCHING SOULS
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December 26, 2021
CRAB MENTALITY
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Individually, crabs about to be boiled alive in a pot could easily escape from the pot, but instead, they grab at each other in a useless “king of the hill” competition (or sabotage) which prevents any from escaping and ensures their collective demise. Human mythology says that when you put male lobsters into a boiling pot, they try to form a pyramid and help one escape. Female lobsters, however, will pull each other down as they try to escape.
As for male lobsters being so helpful to one another, one of the reasons their claws are rubber-banded is because they can be fairly cannibalistic – given a chance they’ll eat each other. A study of the stomach contents of lobsters determined that a good portion of a lobster’s diet is other lobsters.
SO, WHAT ABOUT THE ASSHOLES WHO PUT THE LOBSTERS INTO THE POT IN THE FIRST PLACE?!
REMEMBERING PAST LIFE IDENTITIES
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During the past 10,000 years on Earth the average life span of a human being was between 25 to 40 years of age. That’s assuming that you survived child birth. Infant mortality rates were about 30 percent! To survive to adulthood (14 – 18 years) you had to avoid dying from one hundreds of infectious diseases, starvation, freezing, accidental injuries, wars and plagues. Just as in modern life, 99% of the population are “normal” people, i.e. uneducated peasants, soldiers, workers, homemakers, etc.. Far fewer than 1% were famous persons like kings, pharaohs, Genghis Khan, Shakespeare, Napoleon, or Alexander The Great (who died at the age of 32). So, if you have trouble remembering your IDENTITIES (amnesia) as a human being during the past 10,000 years or more don’t worry about it. Chances are you lived a short, tedious, miserable, painful, illiterate existence and died in anonymity – not very pleasant lives to remember!
PUBLIC LIBRARIES
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The public library system is one of the best ideas ever created to ensure a free, egalitarian society.
“In 1731, Benjamin Franklin and his friends, sometimes called “the Junto”, operated the Library Company of Philadelphia partly as a means to settle arguments and partly as a means to advance themselves through sharing information. Franklin’s subscription library allowed members to buy “shares” and combined funds were used to buy more books; in return, members could borrow books and use the library. Today, the Library Company continues to exist as a nonprofit, independent research library.
Recently, a general change in attitude regarding libraries has become apparent, especially in younger generations. Students now enter college with a much different idea regarding libraries and how to go about finding information they need. A study of around 2,000 American college students showed that 93% felt that finding information online “made more sense” than going to the actual library. Furthermore, 83% stated they were frequently unable to get the information they needed due to library hours and another 75% said they just didn’t have time to go to the library.
This study follows a trend found elsewhere in the nation during this current economic recession. More people are relying on their public libraries during tough economic times. It really underscores the importance of public libraries, especially when the economy declines and unemployment rises.” The study looked to measure the increases in six categories from June 2008 until November 2008 in comparison to previous years. The categories considered were attendance (patron visits), circulation (material checkouts), virtual visits, reference transactions, percent of time public Internet computers are in use, and number of public internet computer users. The percent increases from the previous year are as follows:
Attendance (patron visits): 7.5%Circulation (material checkouts): 11.22%Virtual visits (such as to a library Web page): 20.21%Reference transactions: 4.41%Percent of time public Internet computers are in use: 9.74%Number of public Internet computer users: 13.77%.As can be seen from this data, all aspects of library use have significantly increased compared to the previous year.
Unfortunately, as library usage grows during a recession, the ability to fund public libraries declines.
(Source: Wikipedia.org)
December 25, 2021
ILLUSIONS OF SENTIENCE
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In the philosophy of consciousness, “sentience” can refer to the ability of any entity to have subjective perceptual experiences. This is distinct from other aspects of the mind and consciousness, such as creativity, intelligence, sapience, self-awareness, and intentionality (the ability to have thoughts that mean something or are “about” something). Sentience is a minimalistic way of defining “consciousness“, which is otherwise commonly used to collectively describe sentience plus other characteristics of the mind.
Eastern religions including Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, and Jainism recognize non-humans as sentient beings.According to Buddhism, sentient beings made of pure consciousness are possible. In Buddhism, the concept is related to the Bodhisattva, an enlightened being devoted to the liberation of others. The first vow of a Bodhisattva states: “Sentient beings are numberless; I vow to free them.” Sentience in Buddhism is the state of having senses (sat + ta in Pali, or sat + tva in Sanskrit). In Buddhism, the senses are six in number, the sixth being the subjective experience of the mind. Thus, an animal qualifies as a sentient being.
In Buddhism the skandhas (or aggregates in English) are the five functions or aspects that constitute the human being. The Buddha teaches that nothing among them is really “I” or “mine”. Suffering arises when one identifies with or clings to an aggregate. Suffering is extinguished by relinquishing attachments to aggregates.
The five skandhas: “form” or “matter” external and internal matter. Externally, is the physical world. Internally, this includes the material body and the physical sense organs. “sensation” or “feeling”, sensing an objectas either pleasant or unpleasant or neutral. “perception” , “conception”, “apperception”, “cognition”, or “discrimination”, registers whether an object is recognized or not (for instance, the sound of a bell or the shape of a tree). “mental formations” , “impulses”, “volition”, or “compositional factors”, all types of mental habits, thoughts, ideas, opinions, prejudices, compulsions, and decisions triggered by an object. “consciousness” or “discernment”The Buddhist literature describes the aggregates as arising in a linear or progressive fashion, from form to feeling, to perception, to mental formations to consciousness. In the early texts, the scheme of the five aggregates is not meant to be an exhaustive classification of the human being. Rather it describes various aspects of the way an individual manifests.
Understanding suffering: the five aggregates are the “ultimate referent” in the Buddha’s elaboration on suffering in his First Noble Truth: “Since all four truths revolve around suffering, understanding the aggregates is essential for understanding the Four Noble Truths as a whole.”Clinging causes future suffering: the five aggregates are the substrata for clinging and thus “contribute to the causal origination of future suffering”.Release from samsara: clinging to the five aggregates must be removed in order to achieve release from samsara, literally meaning “continuous flow”, is the repeating cycle of birth, life, death and rebirth (reincarnation)— I HAVE EXCERPTED THE TEXT ABOVE FROM VARIOUS ARTICLES AND LINKS FOUND IN WIKIPEDIA.ORG (LRS)
Are You A Spelling Phenom?
CUTENESS COSTUME
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This Halloween, practice being cute….it may be a handy skill to have while you’re dead….
Excerpt from the book 1001 THINGS TO DO WHILE YOU’RE DEAD: A DEAD PERSONS’ GUIDE TO LIVING —
“ATTEND YOUR OWN FUNERAL.
When your relatives or public officials get around to disposing of your used body you may choose to attend the funeral. This can be complicated, tedious and disturbing to yourself and other funeral guests. Or it can be a great comfort to you and your loved ones. It’s up to you.
If you are concerned that the used body is disposed of properly you should definitely attend to make sure your final wishes have been followed. You may also want to check to see who is really grieving over your absence, and who is only pretending so they can get a share of your estate, and who came for the free food and drinks.
Reverence for the dead is very important. Especially if you’re the one that is dead. One thing is certain – you will never think of funerals the same way again. If you care about what your relatives or the undertaker is going to do with your used body you will want to stay to the end. This includes the burial, cremation, sprinkling of the ashes, donation to the “used parts” laboratory, or whatever is supposed to be done with your used body.
If you plan ahead you can have your body buried in a vegetable garden, a forest, a flower bed, or fed to the fishes in the ocean. It’s a shame to let a perfectly good source of nutrition for plants or other living creatures go to waste!
AVOID YOUR FUNERAL.
If you are squeamish about autopsies, embalming, funeral piers, cremation incinerators, worms, bugs or bacteria you may want to stay away until all that messy, bad smelling business is over and done.
However, funeral directors have become quite masterful, over the past 5,000 years, at making a dead body look as good, or better, than it looked when it was alive. A little formaldehyde, a few strategic injections, a little stuffing, nice clothes, cosmetics, a wig and a comfy, silk-lined coffin, your used body can look better than ever!
This is a good reason to stay away as you may be enticed to start thinking about going back. Obviously, it’s too late. Factually, you never were a body and you definitely are not a body now. So stay focused. The future is where the rest of your life will be lived!
PRACTICE BEING CUTE.
If you attended your own funeral you are probably suffering from the loss of having a body. More important, you may be thinking that you don’t really have any identity or personality without having a body. How will anyone recognize you without your body?
Fortunately, bodies are a nickel a million. Five babies are born every second. So, should you succumb to the ungodly urge to get a new baby body in order to feel a sense of personal identity, you will need to practice being cute.
The only reason people have babies – and keep them – is because they think babies are cute. The same principle applies to all living creatures. So, brush up on looking cute, making cute sounds, doing cute mannerisms, cute smiles, cute laughs, etc.. You’ll need to have your cute skills in top form when and if you get a new body.”
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December 24, 2021
CLEANSE YOURSELF
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