All Spirit is Matter

[Ahab]

Good questions. But I am using information in a quite open ended sense. For example, I suppose that if the information needed to copy my brain, memories and body where actually used to make a copy of me in case I were to meet with an accident, then the new me would still have the same personality, moral failings and strengths, same freedoms and moral responsibility. It would be me (according to a closest continuer theory of identity).

The information in your brain and memories and body is not you, in itself, though.

That information may be something that is needed to create you, but the information, itself, isn't you. About you, yes, but not you.

The other thing I had in mind was "ideas" of the kind that can be transmitted in newspapers, books, music and poetry.

What is transmitted? Not matter I suppose.

My point included the idea that if an idea was about something that wasn't real, in reality, then it wouldn't be about something that was real, in reality.

There are ideas that are grounded in reality, though, and those ideas are the ideas we refer to as truth.

Truth is reality.

[CV75]

The other thing I had in mind was "ideas" of the kind that can be transmitted in newspapers, books, music and poetry. What is transmitted? Not matter I suppose.

If material media represent ideas in order to transmit/convey them, and ideas are themselves representations of deeper, finer ideas and so serve as the media for the coordination, integration and transmission of these ideas, it may well be that they are all material after all, in some form or fashion. An idea is the medium for more fundamental ideas, and so on.

...also thinking of how ideas can generate physical changes in neurons, resulting in their material expression or manifestation by putting together their own media.

[CV75]

...also thinking how all ideas in their most fundamental form come from God in the form of intelligence/light/truth, and we process such light with varying filters to come up with bad ideas.

[blackstrap]

When we create a solution of salt and water so that the salt completely dissolves in the water,it can be said that the salt and the water occupy the same space ie. the container. Yet within the solution they are still separate and can be returned to their original form.No?

[TAO]

How do we understand spirit in this context? Something physical that exists in a parallel dimension? I'm just thinking of the spirit and physical bodies occupying the same space at the same time.

The way I understand it, it either A) inhabits the same space as regular matter, but effects it in ways we do not understand (like neutrinos) or B) it is linked to a parallel existence (like super-partners). However, it could also be something else entirely.

[asbestosman]

Uh. I was referring to what are called "real" numbers in mathematics, as opposed to what are called "imaginary" numbers in mathematics.

I used imaginary numbers to refer to real things back in college days. I used imaginary numbers to help calculate the response of circuits to a signal. As far as I'm concerned, imaginary numbers are just as "real" as real numbers are.

Please let me know if you see this number: 1

... and this one, too, in reality: 2

Now please tell me what is real (or what isn't real) concerning those numbers.

I see the symbols which represent the numbers one and two on my computer screen, but those symbols aren't the numbers themselves. The numbers are simply a concept which exists in our minds--same as with imaginary numbers.

Sure, I can count two apples and not the square root of -1 apples. But -2 is also a real number and I can't count -2 apples. However, I can have a credit card account with a negative balance. I can have an object with a positive or negative electric charge. But what of imaginary numbers? Imaginary numbers arise naturally for waves.

I like an interesting story of fiction too, now and then, but I prefer the very best of reality while knowing the difference between what is real and what isn't real.

Imaginary numbers are just as real as real numbers.

[Ahab]

I used imaginary numbers to refer to real things back in college days. I used imaginary numbers to help calculate the response of circuits to a signal. As far as I'm concerned, imaginary numbers are just as "real" as real numbers are.

And yet, you said you agree with the idea that real numbers are imaginary, and by that I suppose you mean those numbers don't exist in reality. I don't agree.

I see the symbols which represent the numbers one and two on my computer screen, but those symbols aren't the numbers themselves.

Yes they are. All numbers are symbols, with some symbolizing what is real and some symbolizing what some people imagine while thinking they might be real but which in reality don't really exist. Theoretical physics, for example, using numbers as symbols for things that don't really exist.

The numbers are simply a concept which exists in our minds--same as with imaginary numbers.

No, all numbers are real, but some numbers represent things or concepts which are true, or real, while some others represent or symbolize things or concepts which are not true, or real, in reality.

Sure, I can count two apples and not the square root of -1 apples.

FYI, the square root of -1 apple is 1 apple, and if you don't get it, someone else will.

But -2 is also a real number and I can't count -2 apples.

Think of the negative sign as someone taking something away, rather than giving it or adding to it. Negative numbers basically serve a "subtraction" function.

However, I can have a credit card account with a negative balance. I can have an object with a positive or negative electric charge. But what of imaginary numbers? Imaginary numbers arise naturally for waves.

Imaginary numbers are used to represent things that exist only in someone's imagination, otherwise they would symbolize something real and correspond to a real number.

Imaginary numbers are just as real as real numbers.

But things that are imaginary are not anything real, while real numbers symbolize things that are real.

[mfbukowski]

Not another mathematical thread hyijack.......?

[Ahab]

Not another mathematical thread hyijack.......?

Somebody said somethin about Joseph Smith "formulating" somethin in the title of the thread, and here we are formulating about whether or not he did any formulating.

You do the math.

[D-Bear]

deleted

[tana]

Physical objects are not in space, but these objects are spatially extended (as fields). In this way the concept 'empty space' loses its meaning. ... The field thus becomes an irreducible element of physical description, irreducible in the same sense as the concept of matter (particles) in the theory of Newton. ... The physical reality of space is represented by a field whose components are continuous functions of four independent variables - the co-ordinates of space and time. Since the theory of general relativity implies the representation of physical reality by a continuous field, the concept of particles or material points cannot play a fundamental part, nor can the concept of motion. The particle can only appear as a limited region in space in which the field strength or the energy density are particularly high. (Albert Einstein, Metaphysics of Relativity, 1950)

A human being is part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from the prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty

[mfbukowski]

An eddy in a river is unique unto itself, but still one with the river.

I have often wondered what the world would be like today if Heraclitus had written less cryptically and if he had laid the basis for western civilization instead of Plato and Aristotle.

It would be a vastly different place.

[tana]

I have often wondered what the world would be like today if Heraclitus had written less cryptically and if he had laid the basis for western civilization instead of Plato and Aristotle.

It would be a vastly different place.

Could you elaborate a little on that MFB....I am not learned in such matters....but it sounds like it might be something I'm interested in.

[mfbukowski]

Could you elaborate a little on that MFB....I am not learned in such matters....but it sounds like it might be something I'm interested in.

Your river analogy- I thought you got it from Heraclitus who is famous for saying that "you cannot step into the same river twice".

Plato, through Pythagoras and Parmenides, had the idea that the only thing which was "real" were unchanging forms- basically ideas of which things in this world were mere shadows. From that we derived the notion that to be perfect, God had to be unchanging, and that idea permeated western civ and apostate Christianity- and is at variance with Biblical Christianity in which God is our father who hears and answers prayers, and who himself progresses through the progress of his children- progresses eternally.

Heraclitus on the other hand saw reality as ever changing- but in certain ways always the same. His metaphysical view was that things were like a river- imagine the Mississippi which in certain ways is "eternal"- in one sense in its power and majesty it is always the "eternal Mississippi" but yet from moment to moment- every swirl and eddy of the river, every leaf floating downstream is different- it is never exactly the same, and yet it is eternal in its very changingness. The only thing that doesn't change is change itself.

So the LDS view of God is more like Heraclitus than Plato- God is always interacting with us and progressing, but yet eternal.

Few people understood Heraclitus because he spoke almost poetically- he spoke in analogies and riddles, and because of that much of what he wrote has been lost. But my comment was that if he had been more specific in explicating his views, and his views of metaphysics took hold- we might have discovered quantum mechanics earlier. This goes hand in had with the view that "All Spirit is Matter" as well.

The view that everything is made of energy ultimately is much closer to Heraclitus than it is to Plato. Had western civilization followed Heraclitus paradigm rather than Platos, the apostasy might have never happened, and Catholicism would look a whole lot more like Mormonism today

That was the point I was making.

[elguanteloko]

I'm sure MANY people before Joseph also had that idea, too.

The alternative would be... what?

The idea that "spirit" is nothing at all. What intelligent person would accept an idea like that?

Matter is a concept which points to a set of experiences. Outside those experiences you can conceptualize many different combinations of perceptions (imagination) and give them names. To say it is either matter or nothing (even granting some concept of "matter" and of "nothing") is nonsense.

[elguanteloko]

Well, okay, yes, they did have some intelligence, but it doesn't really take a whole lot to realize that idea is just plain silly.

If "spirit" is not some form of matter, however small the matter may be, then the only alternative is that it is nothing at all, as in: "It doesn't exist."

The fact that "spirit" is matter can easily be seen in seeing that a spirit is something that is real, and if real, then it consists of something, rather than not existing.

So, real now equals matter? A question for you, Ahab: is "nothing" ever real under any circumstance?

Even "light" is made out of something, called light "particles". And so is gas, as well as everything else that exists.

It's all real, hence, it's all matter.

If "nothing" is real somewhere, then it is made of matter... correct?

[elguanteloko]

ops!

[mfbukowski]

Matter is a concept which points to a set of experiences. Outside those experiences you can conceptualize many different combinations of perceptions (imagination) and give them names. To say it is either matter or nothing (even granting some concept of "matter" and of "nothing") is nonsense.

HUH?

I am feeling a little sick. I could have said that.

[elguanteloko]

There are ideas that are grounded in reality, though, and those ideas are the ideas we refer to as truth.

We refer to as truth to that which we have sufficiently justified. Would you agree that nothing non-real exists? For example, I can imagine a unicorn and what would be in existance is the fact that I'm imagining a unicorn but the unicorn does NOT exist outside those boundaries. Thus, everything which we imagine exists only in the limits of imagination and everything we experience exists only in those limits of experience. Both of these, though, are real since there can't possibly be something non-real. Because of this, saying something can be grounded in 'non-reality' makes no sense. Then, everything is grounded in reality... in different ways of existance (in my mind or in the outside world as animals, in the unicorn example) but there are no non-real things.

Truth is reality.

If truth is reality then something false is non-real.. which is not possible since we can have such concept and, thus, is real (although in our minds as concept only).

[elguanteloko]

Ahab, I find your usage of "reality" and "truth" and "existence" rather reckless but I think your views can be easily refuted with one question:

How do you know what reality (or "Truth") looks like first, so that when you find an idea or concept or feeling sufficiently justified you can say it is getting you closer to it (to reality)?

[mfbukowski]

Uh, what happened??

[volgadon]

Uh, what happened??

I wish I knew.

[tana]

Your river analogy- I thought you got it from Heraclitus who is famous for saying that "you cannot step into the same river twice".

Plato, through Pythagoras and Parmenides, had the idea that the only thing which was "real" were unchanging forms- basically ideas of which things in this world were mere shadows. From that we derived the notion that to be perfect, God had to be unchanging, and that idea permeated western civ and apostate Christianity- and is at variance with Biblical Christianity in which God is our father who hears and answers prayers, and who himself progresses through the progress of his children- progresses eternally.

Heraclitus on the other hand saw reality as ever changing- but in certain ways always the same. His metaphysical view was that things were like a river- imagine the Mississippi which in certain ways is "eternal"- in one sense in its power and majesty it is always the "eternal Mississippi" but yet from moment to moment- every swirl and eddy of the river, every leaf floating downstream is different- it is never exactly the same, and yet it is eternal in its very changingness. The only thing that doesn't change is change itself.

So the LDS view of God is more like Heraclitus than Plato- God is always interacting with us and progressing, but yet eternal.

Few people understood Heraclitus because he spoke almost poetically- he spoke in analogies and riddles, and because of that much of what he wrote has been lost. But my comment was that if he had been more specific in explicating his views, and his views of metaphysics took hold- we might have discovered quantum mechanics earlier. This goes hand in had with the view that "All Spirit is Matter" as well.

The view that everything is made of energy ultimately is much closer to Heraclitus than it is to Plato. Had western civilization followed Heraclitus paradigm rather than Platos, the apostasy might have never happened, and Catholicism would look a whole lot more like Mormonism today

That was the point I was making.

Thanks MFB....