How does one "choose" a Belief System?

[Pavlos Maros]

Not the best way to encourage conversation. If that is what you are hoping to find here.

Do you think time doesn't exist?

 

[chansen]

I'll answer for myself later.

 

[Pavlos Maros]

That's okay, I believe he just called Einstein an idiot indirectly too.

Einstein never said time doesn't exist, He didn't even say it was an illusion What he actually said was "The distinction between the past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion. "

 

[Pavlos Maros]

Agreed @P3. Pavlos, time certainly appears to be linear, but modern physics suggests that it might not be quite that simple; you seem very dismissive of any sort of intuitive sense. Have you never had an inexplicable/mystical/intuitive experience?

Several times I just don't put them down to woo.

 

[Kimmio Laughterlove]

Lunchtime doubly so.

People can say what they want. Doesn't mean we can not observe time.

And here's the thing - this is a conversation with people who think God is a real thing, some of whom are suggesting time may not be. We've jumped the shark.

Time is a real thing. We may not experience it as it really is. That's the illusory part.

 

[Delightful Life]

From another thread, quoting myself,

"...A more interesting question, to me, is "can you choose your belief system"? I don't think it's possible. I believe what I believe, not because I chose it, but because this is the vision that life has unfolded before me, based on what I have received via my senses in the past, and how my brain has organized that information. And I'm not entirely talking about our five physical senses. I believe we have at least one more sense - call it intuition, spirit, inner vision - that also informs this logical process in my brain."

Also, if I use the words BS in this particular thread, I'm usually referring to belief system...that is not the case everywhere.

Huzzah! Another thread up me particular aisle-equivalent :3

"can you choose yer BS?"
Short answer: yes.
Slightly less short answer: yes, with training.
In our kulture here we aren't taught this.
Thus the importance of, when coming across someone with a different BS, and that includes people who believe homosexuality is a sin or there is a patriarchy or climate change won't kill us all, to not try to beat them over the head or shun them or make them outcast unclean or make laws banning their BS because just like you, they have their BS that they didn't choose and aren't trained how to try on different BS.

Not everyone shares the same values. Not every BS has the same things that are considered good or sacred not every BS has the same things that are considered blasphemous or bad or even unimportant. For each BS, certain aspects of reality become tuned in, some aspects of reality become tuned out.

And yes, within all BS there is a bit of bs ;3

Taa daa!!!

Carry on, fellow convivial sentients, carry on.

 

[Ritafee]

What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe....

Why does the universe go to all the bother of existing?

 

[Delightful Life]

The Universe was a damned silly place at best… but the least likely explanation for its existence was the no-explanation of random chance, the conceit that some abstract somethings "just happened" to be some atoms that "just happened" to get together in configurations which "just happened" to look like consistent laws and then some of these configurations "just happened" to possess self-awareness and that two such "just happened" to be the Man from Mars and the other a bald-headed old coot with Jubal himself inside.
No, Jubal would not buy the "just happened" theory, popular as it was with men who called themselves scientists. Random chance was not a sufficient explanation of the Universe — in fact, random chance was not sufficient to explain random chance; the pot could not hold itself.
--Stranger in a Strange Land

"It from bit symbolizes the idea that every item of the physical world has at bottom — at a very deep bottom, in most instances — an immaterial source and explanation; that which we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes-no questions and the resistering of equipment-evoked responses; in short, that all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and that this is a participatory universe."
--John Wheeler


we arise from the ground of being which arises from our observing it etc etc etc
Image Source: google image search.

"The sum total of all minds in universe is one"
--Erwin Schrodinger

a taxonomy of Grand Unified Theories (theories of Everything)

 

[Kimmio Laughterlove]

I think if things like caring about others, about equality, about justice, are priority values in values centred people - then belief systems can change, but the values do not. In which case, the beliefs don't matter as much as the values the beliefs are built around. Some people do not have central values related to compassion equality and justice. Those people might be sociopaths. Values centred people cannot "try on" belief systems that do not line up with their core values. At least not without eventually coming to the conclusion that they're wrong.

 

[Mendalla]

I think if things like caring about others, about equality, about justice, are priority values in values centred people - then belief systems can change, but the values do not. In which case, the beliefs don't matter as much as the values the beliefs are built around. Some people do not have values. Those people might be sociopaths.

Are beliefs built around values or are values built around beliefs? If the latter, then the beliefs very much matter. Or are values just another set of beliefs?

Not actually disagreeing with you, just pointing out an obvious question that arises from your statement.

 

[revsdd]

Some physicists believe that time is actually "slowing down." So time exists, but perhaps is not a constant.

And, as Stephen Hawking among others noted, time has not always existed. Time had a beginning, usually tied to the Big Bang. Although, in fairness, I think what Hawking meant was that time as we know it would have begun with the Big Bang. Before the Big Bang, the laws of physics would have been entirely different just because of the nature of whatever "universe" existed in those conditions. Whether time as we know it has an ending is, as I understand it, still an open question in the world of physics.

Where we venture out of physics and into the realm of faith perhaps is if we begin to discuss "eternity" - which I would define not as "forever" but as a place (or dimension, or whatever) in which there is no time - no past, no present, no future; or perhaps where past, present and future overlap. Where something exists that goes beyond the limits of time. Here is where discussion of God begins, I would suggest.

 

[paradox3]

Do you think time doesn't exist?

No, I wouldn't say that. And that was not my point.

I was suggesting that calling others "idiots" is not the best way to encourage conversation around here.

 

[Waterfall]

Einstein never said time doesn't exist, He didn't even say it was an illusion What he actually said was "The distinction between the past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion. "

Time is NOT real: Physicists show EVERYTHING happens at the same time

 

[Kimmio Laughterlove]

Are beliefs built around values or are values built around beliefs? If the latter, then the beliefs very much matter. Or are values just another set of beliefs?

Not actually disagreeing with you, just pointing out an obvious question that arises from your statement.

Maybe at certain points in human existence, it was the latter. But the more we learned, I think the poles shifted, in a sense, and it became the former. I don't think values are just a set of beliefs. I think we find the core ones to be central to every major religion. I think they are an intrinsically human need and trait, more necessary to survival and human thriving than competitive hierarchy. At least, I think there are a vast number of humans, and there always has been, who are intrinsically wired that way, and are very unhappy with a world that doesn't support that sort of intrinsic wiring. And, sooner or later we figure that out. I would call that my "come to Jesus" moment. I recognize that not all who figure out the same thing will automatically call it that. They may have completely different belief systems, and they will find language and symbolism for it in their own belief systems. I don't think Jesus would mind. Because he's an embodied essence, whether literally or symbolically - and I think what he lives and dies and lives again for - allegorically - is to spread love and bring about equality, justice and peace. He wasn't about making himself an idol. So coming around to those values is one and the same as believing, essentially, in what Jesus was about. Some will say he's symbolic of it, others will say he is it - and others, like me, will say "both". But what matters are the values.

This is where I think Greta has it backwards. Getting rid of the beliefs will not change the values. The human problem right now - maybe that's always what we've allowed to work against us - is a value problem, not a belief problem.

 

[Delightful Life]

So yes, anyone who says that time doesn't exist is like someone who says the Earth is flat. "Idiot" seems charitable.

Actually...
Not idiot a'tall
Lots of different theories of time out there
Some held by credentialled scientists
B-theory of time: all of time is one big now. A giant loaf of time that we move through.
Julian Barbour, physicist, has a theory of time that it is an illusion. Timeless Physics
There's also Biocentrism (thot of by not an idiot): Robert Lanza » Biocentrism / Robert Lanza’s Theory of Everything

Also an xperiment that seems to show that time is an emergent phenomenon Quantum Experiment Shows How Time ‘Emerges’ from Entanglement

Physicist Max Tegmark

These r just some of the stuff and ideas out there
Bon appetit
(i agree that people get confused as to terminology...even scientists...and some of them have had to invent their own terms when talking aboot this stuff; thus "space" and "time" become "spacetime" and "space-like seperations" and "time-like seperations")

 

[Kimmio Laughterlove]

Maybe at certain points in human existence, it was the latter. But the more we learned, I think the poles shifted, in a sense, and it became the former. I don't think values are just a set of beliefs. I think we find the core ones to be central to every major religion. I think they are an intrinsically human need and trait, more necessary to survival and human thriving than competitive hierarchy. At least, I think there are a vast number of humans, and there always has been, who are intrinsically wired that way, and are very unhappy with a world that doesn't support that sort of intrinsic wiring. And, sooner or later we figure that out. I would call that my "come to Jesus" moment. I recognize that not all who figure out the same thing will automatically call it that. They may have completely different belief systems, and they will find language and symbolism for it in their own belief systems. I don't think Jesus would mind. Because he's an embodied essence, whether literally or symbolically - and I think what he lives and dies and lives again for - allegorically - is to spread love and bring about equality, justice and peace. He wasn't about making himself an idol. So coming around to those values is one and the same as believing, essentially, in what Jesus was about. Some will say he's symbolic of it, others will say he is it - and others, like me, will say "both". But what matters are the values.

This is where I think Greta has it backwards. Getting rid of the beliefs will not change the values. The human problem right now - maybe that's always what we've allowed to work against us - is a value problem, not a belief problem.

Or maybe where the UCCan and Greta are both going wrong is in not recognizing the human problem to be one of values rather than beliefs - and that they have more intrinsically in common, than not.

 

[Ritafee]

The simplest explanation is usually the correct one ....

• the laws and conditions of the universe allow for the observer because the observer generates them

• underlying unity with nature and the observer - with all of the implications - chief among them the unreality of death

Sciences assumption of a dumb random universe in which life arose by chance (@chansen) has the effect of isolating us from nature consciousness.

This has led to a sense that in a cosmos ruled by accidents we need to exploit the environment and grab what we can - an antagonistic man against nature.

Not only has the current paradigm proven incapable of producing any picture of reality that makes sense - it has fundamentally alienated us from nature.

OUR consciousness is co-relevant with nature - all one.

Natures justice is inescapable and absolute. Believe it or Not!

 

[Ritafee]

I'll answer for myself later.

So now is not the time?

 

[Delightful Life]

S'more schtuff on time

 

[paradox3]

This is where I think Greta has it backwards. Getting rid of the beliefs will not change the values. The human problem right now - maybe that's always what we've allowed to work against us - is a value problem, not a belief problem.

I see values and belief as completely interdependent. One of my major points of disagreement with Vosper. (Why are we talking about her again?)