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Icelander
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Horrifying in it's vastness.
#7400657 - 09/12/07 01:03 PM (16 years, 6 months ago) |
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Having had the time to let things sink in over fifty some years it has become apparent to me that whatever constitutes the whole of reality is vast beyond anything I can contemplate.
When I was a kid life seemed somewhat simple and straightforward although confusing, but with the solid belief that everything would come clear with time.
I listen to the posts here of those who struggle with day to day living and keeping heart and mind together. Everyone wants definitive answers to the problems and questions of life but they never seem to come up straightforward as we would like. There is a murkiness to our ability to understand the meanings and purpose for everything. Truths change as awareness grows but the ultimate knowledge we seek stays just out ahead the same distance, unknowable and expanding exponentially with our ability to contemplate life.
The fact that each of us are ultimately alone as far as being able to share our innermost experience accurately with others and the fact that we will at some time experience loss and death leads many to quiet desperation at times. Plus growing, and for those not too afraid, having to give up tightly held beliefs such as God, country, purpose, ultimate meaning, and realizing that we do not know answers to seemingly important questions, leaves one, at moments of clarity, confronted with the magnitude of the immensity of whatever it is that is happening in this unknowable experience.
"The unknowable is the indescribable, the unthinkable, the unrealizable. It is something that will never be known to us, and yet it is there , dazzling and at the same time horrifying in its vastness." -don Juan Matus
One may at one time realize the futility of trying to understand the unknowable. Yet something in our minds or programs cannot let go and we continue in overt or covert ways to daily strive to have an answer as if that could somehow save us from how infinity in it's horrifying vastness makes us feel.
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
Edited by Icelander (09/12/07 02:48 PM)
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backfromthedead
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Re: Horrifying in it's vastness. [Re: Icelander]
#7401172 - 09/12/07 03:43 PM (16 years, 6 months ago) |
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"One may at one time realize the futility of trying to understand the unknowable."
What, in your opinion, designates something as unknowable?? Why??
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Icelander
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What, in your opinion, designates something as unknowable?? Why??
Something you can't know. Why? Cause you and nobody else can figure it out.
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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backfromthedead
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Re: Horrifying in it's vastness. [Re: Icelander]
#7401266 - 09/12/07 04:14 PM (16 years, 6 months ago) |
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"Cause you and nobody else can figure it out."
We will always be standing at the threshold if nobody takes on the task of figuring the next 'thing' out because it is 'unknowable'. Technology is now moving at quite a whirl, no?? Science has developed quite an arsenal of gadgets and instruments of measurement, yes?? I refuse to believe that anything is unknowable. We know more and more everyday if into making progress. I think we are.
(Ecclesiastes 1:9-14 NIV) "What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun."
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Icelander
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You can believe anything you want but IMO there is a vast difference between the unknown and the unknowable.
With a mind that works to a finite scale the infinite is a little difficult. Except maybe for you.
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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backfromthedead
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Re: Horrifying in it's vastness. [Re: Icelander]
#7401324 - 09/12/07 04:35 PM (16 years, 6 months ago) |
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"You can believe anything you..."
You're kidding.
"Except maybe for you."
The vast difference is simply: where you label something unknowable I choose to view it as though we haven't made it there yet.
"With a mind that works to a finite scale..."
Oh, dang. Nevermind.
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OrgoneConclusion
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Re: Horrifying in it's vastness. [Re: Icelander]
#7401366 - 09/12/07 04:48 PM (16 years, 6 months ago) |
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Something unknowable is something you can't know.
I come here regularly to pick up little jewels like this.
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Icelander
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I had to explain it in understandable terms.
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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OrgoneConclusion
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Re: Horrifying in it's vastness. [Re: Icelander]
#7401400 - 09/12/07 04:56 PM (16 years, 6 months ago) |
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Something understandable is something you can't stand.
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backfromthedead
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Re: Horrifying in it's vastness. [Re: Icelander]
#7401403 - 09/12/07 04:56 PM (16 years, 6 months ago) |
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Ya'll are so GOOD.
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OrgoneConclusion
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Boredom + drugs is a powerful catalyst.
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PhanTomCat
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Quote:
OrgoneConclusion said: Something unknowable is something you can't know.
I come here regularly to pick up little jewels like this.
>^;;^<
-------------------- I'll be your midnight French Fry.... "The most important things in life that are often ignored, are the things that one cannot see...." >^;;^<
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OrgoneConclusion
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Re: Horrifying in it's vastness. [Re: PhanTomCat]
#7401458 - 09/12/07 05:10 PM (16 years, 6 months ago) |
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Its what keeps us coming back for more - to fill that inner hunger for knowledge and wisdom.
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dblaney
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Quote:
backfromthedead said: I refuse to believe that anything is unknowable.
This isn't really a question of belief or disbelief. Beliefs (or disbelief, there's not really a difference) only reinforce the walls on the box that we have put ourselves in.
If you refuse to consider the question of if there is an unknowable or an unconditioned, then there really is no point in me typing this, or you reading this. But whatever. It is said that mind cannot know itself anymore than fire can burn itself or a sword cut itself. But you can't just accept that. That would be foolish. So you've got to investigate. Find out! That's what I'm doing. I'm investigating. Can the mind know the mind? Can I know who I am? Who am I? What is this? These are all essentially the same question.
So don't merely believe that nothing is unknowable, investigate!
-------------------- "What is in us that turns a deaf ear to the cries of human suffering?" "Belief is a beautiful armor But makes for the heaviest sword" - John Mayer Making the noise "penicillin" is no substitute for actually taking penicillin. "This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it." -Abraham Lincoln
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elbisivni
Registered: 10/01/06
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Re: Horrifying in it's vastness. [Re: Icelander]
#7402885 - 09/12/07 10:23 PM (16 years, 6 months ago) |
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Quote:
Icelander said: Having had the time to let things sink in over fifty some years it has become apparent to me that whatever constitutes the whole of reality is vast beyond anything I can contemplate.
When I was a kid life seemed somewhat simple and straightforward although confusing, but with the solid belief that everything would come clear with time.
I listen to the posts here of those who struggle with day to day living and keeping heart and mind together. Everyone wants definitive answers to the problems and questions of life but they never seem to come up straightforward as we would like. There is a murkiness to our ability to understand the meanings and purpose for everything. Truths change as awareness grows but the ultimate knowledge we seek stays just out ahead the same distance, unknowable and expanding exponentially with our ability to contemplate life.
The fact that each of us are ultimately alone as far as being able to share our innermost experience accurately with others and the fact that we will at some time experience loss and death leads many to quiet desperation at times. Plus growing, and for those not too afraid, having to give up tightly held beliefs such as God, country, purpose, ultimate meaning, and realizing that we do not know answers to seemingly important questions, leaves one, at moments of clarity, confronted with the magnitude of the immensity of whatever it is that is happening in this unknowable experience.
"The unknowable is the indescribable, the unthinkable, the unrealizable. It is something that will never be known to us, and yet it is there , dazzling and at the same time horrifying in its vastness." -don Juan Matus
One may at one time realize the futility of trying to understand the unknowable. Yet something in our minds or programs cannot let go and we continue in overt or covert ways to daily strive to have an answer as if that could somehow save us from how infinity in it's horrifying vastness makes us feel.
That was pretty good
-------------------- From dust you are made and to dust you shall return.
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backfromthedead
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Not full yet?? Should somebody rent a steam shovel?? Dang, what are they backfilling anyway the Dead Sea?? Hunger. Oh, I see it... Its just a big mouth?? Feed it already.
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elbisivni
Registered: 10/01/06
Posts: 2,839
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Quote:
backfromthedead said: We will always be standing at the threshold if nobody takes on the task of figuring the next 'thing' out because it is 'unknowable'. Technology is now moving at quite a whirl, no?? Science has developed quite an arsenal of gadgets and instruments of measurement, yes?? I refuse to believe that anything is unknowable. We know more and more everyday if into making progress. I think we are.
good point
-------------------- From dust you are made and to dust you shall return.
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NiamhNyx
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Quote:
backfromthedead said: "Cause you and nobody else can figure it out."
We will always be standing at the threshold if nobody takes on the task of figuring the next 'thing' out because it is 'unknowable'. Technology is now moving at quite a whirl, no?? Science has developed quite an arsenal of gadgets and instruments of measurement, yes?? I refuse to believe that anything is unknowable. We know more and more everyday if into making progress. I think we are.
(Ecclesiastes 1:9-14 NIV) "What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun."
Good luck with that. How do you know you know what you know, and that you haven't decieved yourself?
How do you know that the foundations of knowledge we have built our entire society on aren't somehow flawed? There are many ways of knowing, of concieving of our world and our relationships to it, some of which have been lost to 'progress.' We can build the most elaborate models we can concieve of to explain reality, but they will never be more than models that help us get around and not be stifled by dumbfounded unknowing. "Don't look at my finger, look at the moon." This is all our knowledge systems are, fingers pointing at the moon. At some point, if we wish to live, we must make some sort of leap, a choice of what we wish to make of ourselves and experience. This leap cannot take away our unknowing, but it is much more authentic than devoting oneself to an ideology that tidily packages answers so that one may avoid facing themselves. Deal with it.
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Icelander
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Re: Horrifying in it's vastness. [Re: elbisivni]
#7404853 - 09/13/07 03:46 PM (16 years, 6 months ago) |
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I thought so. It's exactally what I am facing in my life these days.
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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PhanTomCat
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Re: Horrifying in it's vastness. [Re: NiamhNyx]
#7406963 - 09/13/07 11:04 PM (16 years, 6 months ago) |
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Quote:
NiamhNyx said: Good luck with that. How do you know you know what you know, and that you haven't decieved yourself? . How do you know that the foundations of knowledge we have built our entire society on aren't somehow flawed? There are many ways of knowing, of concieving of our world and our relationships to it, some of which have been lost to 'progress.' We can build the most elaborate models we can concieve of to explain reality, but they will never be more than models that help us get around and not be stifled by dumbfounded unknowing. "Don't look at my finger, look at the moon." This is all our knowledge systems are, fingers pointing at the moon. At some point, if we wish to live, we must make some sort of leap, a choice of what we wish to make of ourselves and experience. This leap cannot take away our unknowing, but it is much more authentic than devoting oneself to an ideology that tidily packages answers so that one may avoid facing themselves. Deal with it.
Nice post....! One could surmise from this that it takes a little "faith" to take part in reality itself....
>^;;^<
-------------------- I'll be your midnight French Fry.... "The most important things in life that are often ignored, are the things that one cannot see...." >^;;^<
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