Donnadogsoth

Any killing of an unborn child is murder, and therefore unlawful and immoral. The only solution is that a pregnant woman, or her legal guardian if she be incapacitated, has the right to, at any time and for any reason, have the zygote, embryo, or fetus removed. However, she does NOT have the right to KILL the unborn child; rather, the child once removed is to be either placed in cryogenic stasis, or, if too old for that, placed in a premature infant ward in a hospital, or, where feasible, placed into the womb of a willing alternate mother.

Imagine an equation, such as a2+b2=c2. Now, draw a right triangle with sides 3,4,5. Presuming all sensations and thoughts are associated with brain states, we can't say a percept is more "outside" of your brain than a thought is. So, the equation is "inside" your brain just as the percept is. Is whatever is generating the equation the same as, or the same kind as, whatever is generating the perceptual triangle? Mathematics is said to be the language of nature--could both it and perceptual nature be coming from the same source? What do they have in common? Their common quality is that they are both involved in mankind's search for Truth. Empiricism and mathematics are both key to discovering scientific principles. The Universe is so set up as for it to obey man when he discovers and employs said principle. This nature is built into the human mind, so that the human mind contains all Truth in an obscured fashion. Full comprehension of that Truth is possible only in principle, not in practice—in practice man can only grasp the Truth fractionally in terms of universal principles or shards of the Truth. When we interact with the Universe, then, what we find are either “shards of Truth” (principles), or conscious beings (humans, dogs, possibly insects), or else “shadows” of the interplay of the Truth on what our minds identify as our nervous systems. Principles, individuals, and the amorphous totality of Truth. What is the ontological status of the Universe? I propose the Universe is the thought of God, in the sense that the Universe is creative astrophysically, microphysically, and bio-evolutionarily, but does not have consciousness of any kind in of itself, any more than the Platonic archetypes have consciousness. It is all in the mind of God. What we experience day-to-day through our perception and thoughts is how our minds approach the thoughts of God, and the overall impression of space, solidity, colour, vividness, immediacy, logicality, and so on is a convenience for us but only represents a shadow, “through a glass darkly” (1 Cor. 13:12).

Before listening to his definitions, I'll try to predict what he thinks "multiculturalism" and "diversity" are euphemisms for: They are euphemisms for the host culture, the majority culture, being deficient, lacking, impoverished, and generally unsatisfactory and in many cases wrong, evil, and bad, and in need of being diluted, colonised, and replaced by those outside majority culture. This in turn is a way of saying that the West is too European, too male, too straight, and too Christian and that all of those four things need to go. Hey hey, ho ho. Let's listen in and see how well I guessed...

The sensorium is part of the mind, just as the emotions, conceptions, and will are parts of the mind. Scripture doesn't go into an exhaustive metaphysical analysis of God. That falls to the philosophers. So, yes, I refer to the God of the Christians, albeit one explained more thoroughly.

I'm not taking about soliipsism, I'm talking about how a person's sensorium is a product of their mind. Other people are intuited as lurking somehow "behind" the loci of their manifestation in my sensorium. I speak to a person face to face and intuit there is a person invisibly associated with said face. So the same with any sense impression associated with that which is not part of oneself. God here is the origin of the scheme, also accessible to intuition.

Rock = Christianity (cross the fingers) Scissors = Islam (crescent shaped hand gesture) Paper = Atheism (A-okay sign)

I think you nailed it.

The problem with all this is, the magnitude of the number of monads it calls into being. Take a collection of pennies. Is the collection ontologically real? If so, what about the collection minus one penny? And what about the collection minus another, different penny? And so on for all the pairs, triplets, quadruplets, and other groups that can be formed. Apply the same to all apples in the world, all stars in the sky, all atoms making up everything. The number of monads rises towards infinitude. And how are we to explain what it is like to be these monads? Is a collection of disparate stars half a universe away from each other any different from asking what it is like to be the colour red? Or be any other archetype? Yet, if groups are not monads, then what about groups of copper atoms forming a penny? And if not that, what about the copper atom composed of 29 protons, 34 neutrons, and 29 electrons? An alternative to these infinities of very-difficult-to-imagine monads is that only things which we consider conscious in our ordinary lives are monads. That would exclude the nonliving things, but still include the dust mites and diatoms. Even this feels problematic, and we are tempted to shrink the circle to encompass only the visible things, such as worms and lizards and so on all the way up to us. We seem caught between having way too many monads, and having way too few.

Here's a good commentary text: G.W. Leibniz's Monadology: an edition for students

Monads have been treated earlier, they comprise extensionless, partsless loci of perception and desire. A simple substance. Phantoms are sensory illusions (e.g., parallax) or cognitive illusions (e.g., psychosis). A volume is a collection of monads which don't in of themselves comprise a monad. Examples are the contents of a glass of water, a handful of sand, or an animal body. Remove the enveloping monad—the glass, the hand, the mind--and the volume begins to disperse. In some cases, as with a tractor, to remove the envelope is identical to dispersing the volume, as the envelope is not physically different from the volume. A volume, in other words, is a composite of several monads. Are volumes are always associated with a single monad? Is a pile of sand a mere volume, or is enveloped by a monad? To this question I suggest that we view the matter in terms of language. An enveloped volume is akin to alphabet letters. An enveloping monad is akin to a word. A pile of sand that can be distinguished from nearby sand in some way can be considered such a word. Kick the sand, dematerialise the enveloping monad, and its volume instantly disperses. This philosophy creates an infinity of monads or substances overlapping and nested within each other, each manifesting or not to our senses at any given time. Divide the pile of sand in two and one manifests two new monads whilst demanifesting the original pile's monad. And so on until the original volume has been separated into its individual grains. Increasing in scale, now, we see that groups of people form monads of their own. A rampaging mob forms its own entity enveloping the volume of the people involved. What is it like to be this mob in of itself? Not being alive or sentient it must be akin to being a boulder in motion down a hill, or an electron orbitting an atomic nucleus. These groups overlap and nest until we reach the entirety of humankind past, present, and future taken as a single entity. This would likewise be akin to an orbit, albeit the most sophisticated of all orbits.

All of these are good ideas. My contribution is merely this: Discover principles! Principles of metaphysics, art, economics, morals, science. Not just facts but what we might call laws of nature, which are fragments or splinters of the Æternal Law. That is, there is only one Law, but we can discover facets of it by which we understand how the world works. The more such principles we discover, the more clearly we will see the world, and in turn the more clearly we will see the problems facing us as Westerners. E.g., Kepler's universal gravitation, Fermat's principle of least-time, the principle of sufficient reason, the principle of least action (maximum-minimum), the principles of simple machines, and others.

No logical system can explain all phenomena. Whatever stage of knowledge we have, there will be things which our current logical system cannot explain. Logic is derived from the principle of identity or A=A. This is a valid principle, but is useless without other principles. Imagine the universe governed solely by the principle of identity. It would have an identity, and not be not-itself, but what of it? What reason would purely logical universe have for phenomena? Why should metal act rigid when cold, or raindrops reflect light to form rainbows, or, for that matter, why should consciousness exist? Logic can explain none of this, and is therefore incomplete. What we face, therefore, is that logical systems should be thought of as I term them "logic grids". A logic grid is an axiomatic system explaining phenomena. When encountering the activity of a principle outside of its purview, a paradox appears. Either the paradox is ignored or hidden, or it is resolved through the introduction of a new creative hypothesis, a non-logical hypothesis about how the universe works in terms of this imagined new principle, which is tested by appropriate empirical experiment and if successful leads to a new principle. This new principle joins the others known hitherto. The old logic grid is broken, and replaced by a newly built-up one incorporating the new principle. So, on the grounds that the world would have no identity other than mere glassy Existence, and on the grounds that the world is discovered through non-logical means, the principle of identity cannot be the foundational principal of the universe. It, like the principle of sufficient reason, or of gravitation, is one principle of many which has been created and employed by the Origin or God the Creator, in creating the universe. That is, the Origin transcends all principles, is the origin of all principles, just as it is the origin of all archetypes, monads, and material things. The Origin is neither logical nor illogical but precedes both. Its identity is slippery while remaining concrete. It is paradoxical yet transcends paradox. As we are made in its image, we find that in a sense, we are the Origin, that our minds operate in the same or similar fashion to the Origin's mind, and thus we are not logical ultimately but a-logical and creative, capable of discovering new principles about the mind and the universe, thus altering both.

Sorry, neeeel, missed your post. No, Leibnizianism is not pantheism. What passage gave you that idea? Although Cusa tells us God is everything in everything and nothing in nothing, that is not pantheism either but a way of describing how everything bears God's stamp, even the things we ourselves create were thought of first by God.

Suppose God is the source of Logic, Reason, and Evidence. Then what should we value more, the created thing or the creator?

No, I am not. People are not dominoes. Free will is neither determined nor chaotic. It is a third option. Naturally. But in what I would presume are your terms, the forces of nature are what allowed me to steal them. Incorrect. God is the one that makes our wishes real. Wrong, only the mode of actualisation is different. Wrong, all choices are the responsibility of the individual person. God merely turns those wishes into physical consequences. No. Leibniz et al and my own cogitations. No, because the world is not a “deterministic circular logic fallacy,” as I have said.

We are puppets of ourselves, for it is our free choices that God uses to craft the seamless whole of the world. All that is lacking is our ability to create action, rather we can will action which God, being good and unable to deceive, then correlates to our willing. Thus if I steal your shoes, the actual action of theft is God's, who is honouring my will-to-steal. Pairwise interaction happens as if through direct causation, but in fact all pairwise interaction occurs in terms of each particle's relationship to the universe as a whole as determined by God. You are not a puppet, but a star, who is the fate of yourself. You decided to do what you are doing in æternity and are living out the consequences of your own decisions in the temporal world. You are not helpless, a leaf in the wind, so long as you situate yourself in terms of æternity and not fall into the trap of fatalism. God is not to blame. God is merely giving you the consequences of what you have willed, which is all you can, ultimately, do. Thus, your real existence is not in the temporal world, but in the aeternal, as a willing soul, akin not to a fish but to an angel. . .

The thing to remember is perspective. From my perspective, everything I see is part of my mind, including my body. From your perspective, everything you see is part of your mind, including my body. The human body is the phenomenological locus of the human mind My brain in particular is the material expression of, or metaphor for, the activity of my mind. What is happening if we change the brain? The change in the brain represents the activity of God on the mind. That is, any willed action whatsoever involves an attempt at changing the material world, possibly including the brain of another person. That intention is submitted to God who then decides whether to grant it in full, in part, or not at all. If granted in full or part, the material world changes. In the case of the brain, the brain changes, and the change manifests within the mind of the person whose brain has been so changed. In this process there is no pairwise causation. My action did not cause your brain to change. My action was an intention submitted to God in “potentia space” prior to Creation, who in turn decided whether to create me in such a way as to be as if changed by my action. Then God created us both in this preëstablished harmony. Intention by monad A in potentia space. Decision by God to create monad B as if monad B were changed by intention A. Creation of monads A and B by God.

He giveth more grace when the burdens grow greater, He sendeth more strength when the labors increase; To added affliction, He addeth His mercy; To multiplied trials, His multiplied peace. When we have exhausted our store of endurance, When our strength has failed ere the day is half done, When we reach the end of our hoarded resources, Our Father’s full giving is only begun. Fear not that thy need shall exceed His provision, Our God ever yearns His resources to share; Lean hard on the arm everlasting, availing; The Father both thee and thy load will upbear. His love has no limit; His grace has no measure. His power has no boundary known unto men; For out of His infinite riches in Jesus, He giveth, and giveth, and giveth again! --Annie Johnson Flint

“We are living at a time when G. K. Chesterton’s dictum has proven to be true. Meaninglessness does not come from being weary of pain, but meaninglessness comes from being weary of pleasure. We have exhausted ourselves in this indulgent culture” --Ravi Zacharias

Aha! Aristotle also believed in entity comprising form plus matter. In fact I'm not sure if Plato ever spoke of matter.

Thoughts on Leibnizian monads, God, and the Universe: Everything that exists is either a soul (monad), a trick of the senses (e.g., double vision) or trick of the mind (e.g., pantheism), or the sum of all unknown souls and tricks. I call the latter sum "the firmament", which exists inside the mind and is not separate from it. There is nothing outside of souls, meaning souls' respective experiences which are built into them. Thought-objects (knowledge) are not souls as spiders or cats are souls, but are rather imprints in the mind from the mind of God and so are located in the firmament, as I've named it. We live and walk within the mind of God, who has created everything through impressions of the archetypes into matter. Thus the individual soul is material (in a special sense of the term) fused with form, those forms of which are God's ideas. Even man-made tools are God's ideas which man has discovered and brought into existence. Think of a soul as a clear glass marble into which character is shot in the form of metallic dyes. The questions "Where are souls?" or "What's in between souls?" misunderstand. Souls are non-extended and non-local and therefore cannot be located. An infinite number of souls can therefore exist at the same time with room to spare. Similarly, there is nothing in between souls, not even space or a medium of any kind. Since souls are non-local the problem of them consequently "bunching up" is not a problem. Everything you experience is the mind of God, expressed in terms of the phenomenological manifestations of, and relationships between, souls other than yourself. You cannot escape the mind of God, but are defined by it and your own choices. Souls manifest through one's experience, and they pass away out of manifestation. Hear that "CHOO CHOO" sound? A thought from God and discovered and built by man is coming towards manifesting. Are you standing on parallel steel rails? If so, this is knowledge you might like to know. The most complicated number is 1, because there is 1 Universe, which encompasses all that number is capable of encompassing. Number is not capable of encompassing God who is the source of Number. The most complicated part of the Universe is the human economy, composed of the noösphere comprising the human race, its knowledge (thought-objects) plus its prostheses (tools) and capital. This comprises a unity that transcends time, connecting all human beings, past, present, and future into a single instant Lyndon LaRouche terms the "simultaneity of eternity". When one first encounters such a statement one, coming from the perspective of naïve materialism (even fundamentalist materialism), one is incredulous. How can the past have any connection with the future except in mechanistic, even Marxist terms? Yet, if one denies that the Sun is circling Earth then it is possible to see things in the light that time is, not an illusion, but a secondary aspect to an æternal reality of what Terence McKenna termed the “ecology of souls”. Our loved ones are not dead but passed away. Their bodily monads have scattered and their soul continues to exist in whatever terms God has seen fit to carry them to. We live in a plenum of souls. Even the emptiness of Outer Space, the closest thing we can get to nothingness, the most rarified thing we know of, is still part of the Universal Monad, not a part of God but its own indivisible unity in which all pairwise interactions relate primarily to the Universe itself and secondarily to each other. The Universe is a-causal. No thing causes any other thing to occur, but all is the will of God applied in terms of the choices individual souls make, Providence, and predestination. When one cuts the pear with the knife, one merely wills the event to happen, in terms of the magical instruments one has, knife, plate, table, time, hand, etc.. God grants the intention that the knife moves, the knife's monad so experiences motion, the pear's monad experiences division. The Universe is a-logical. No thing logically follows from anything else. The sky could have been green and foliage blue. The entire arrangement of the Universe is granted by the fiat of God. What we call logic is a temporary grid or pattern we overlay onto a part of the Universe. This logic grid grants us power to act and to predict...up to a point. Gödel blew apart the the notion that a single self-consistent logic grid could adequately account for the entire Universe. The Universe is emotional. That is, all monads are defined by perception and desire (appetition). What we call intuition is a bubble of emotion, itself shaped by the monads and one's personal firmament, which has a certain shape that can be “read” and used to act and predict...up to a point. The refinement of this intuitive power is akin to witchcraft. The human prosthesis-potential comprises a single master archetype associated with the single archetype of the human body, which expands to fill the entire Universe. Human destiny is “be fruitful and multiply” and fill the entire Universe for the glory of God. Not understanding these things has led to great confusion and vulnerability in the population to drift from Christianity into heresies and heathenism, weakening the West.

Putting it into an essay in defense of the West. Literary crusading?

Personal thoughts that might become useful some day.

Excellent, just what I was looking for. Thank you, Siegfried.

The Thirty Years War (1618-48) was a nasty and weakening affair for Europe. It couldn't have helped Europe in its ongoing contest with the Ottoman Empire. Thirty-five years after the signing of the Treaty of Westphalia based on the principle of "advantage of the other" which allowed that beleaguered Europe to rebuild and replenish itself, the Ottoman Empire besieged Vienna. They were repulsed by the Christian defenders, but I ask, would that repulsion have occurred had the peace of Westphalia not been secured? If Europe had remained convulsed with war for many more years, never having a chance to rally itself to the degree of unity needed to fight off the Turks, would it have fallen? Did the Treaty of Westphalia save Christendom?