The Valiancy of Trees, revisited. Progress of Intelligences, Brigham Young

[Calm]

There was a book that had a massive impact on my views of Satan**** called A Wrinkle in Time.  Sadly there are probably more who saw the movie than read the book as imo the book was so much better imagined in my mind than it was on screen. Especially the ball bouncing scene. 
 

Quote

"As the skipping rope hit the pavement, so did the ball. As the rope curved over the head of the jumping child, the child with the ball caught the ball. Down came the ropes. Down came the balls. Over and over again. Up. Down. All in rhythm. All identical. Like the houses. Like the paths. Like the flowers."

I felt it as if all movement down to heartbeats were tied together and there was nothing more stagnant in existence.  You need to read the book and not just that section, but what leads up to it to get the sensation. It’s not just weird. It’s evil. It’s death.  And not death that leads to life by decomposition or resurrection. It’s death that is truly nothing.  Not nothing that is peace after turmoil. But a nothing that oppresses, smothers. Not silence because sound is resting or even just not wanted, but silence because sound/life has been strangled, dismembered, and stamped on and then buried under a ton of solid rock. 
 

So anything that suggests eternity is us doing the same thing as everyone else sends me there to “that’s hell, not heaven”.
 

****Though now I know I believe Satan never was about forcing people, but was about removing law as that was the easy thing to do to ensure all humanity passed go without any effort on anyone’s part.  But the result is there is nothing of value.  No order means no progress. A life without limits of any sort is a life that can go nowhere.  You need something to push against to move.  You need structure to build. 

Edited June 4, 2024 by Calm

[manol]

54 minutes ago, Calm said:

So anything that suggests eternity is us doing the same thing as everyone else sends me there to “that’s hell, not heaven”.

Agreed!  I think that "eternal progression" is "eternal change", and is probably the opposite of "eternal stasis."

I don't know what oneness looks like, but doubt that it's a hellish stifling sameness, otherwise Jesus wouldn't have advocated it.  I'll venture this much:  I think it feels like Home.

54 minutes ago, Calm said:

I believe Satan never was about forcing people, but was about removing law as that was the easy thing to do to ensure all humanity passed go without any effort on anyone’s part.

I think we're accountable for our actions, our words, our thoughts, and even our perceptions.  But I do not equate "accountable" with "punishment".  Imo we're here to learn and to progress (the easy way or the hard way), not here to accumulate punishments.

Edited June 4, 2024 by manol

[Stargazer]

15 hours ago, Calm said:

Here are some examples…

https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/entertainment/g28438966/mandela-effect-examples/

https://www.stuff.co.nz/oddstuff/85258775/nz-and-the-mandela-effect-meet-the-folks-who-remember-new-zealand-being-in-a-different-place

Why people feel more secure to believe they have slipped unknowingly to an alternate dimension rather than just believe memories can get right and truly mucked up, I do not understand.

I wouldn't say I feel more secure. In fact, it doesn't affect me in any such way at all. I just found it perplexing, to have heard the blood pressure measurement being said in that way for my entire life (whenever it happened to come up), and then suddenly it was backwards. 

But I know memory can be "right and truly mucked up." This just seems so real to me.

[Stargazer]

12 hours ago, Calm said:

Though now I know I believe Satan never was about forcing people, but was about removing law as that was the easy thing to do to ensure all humanity passed go without any effort on anyone’s part.

In my case, I believe Satan's plan was to let people keep their memories of the pre-existence so that they never needed faith, but knew as clear as day where they had come from, and so behaved accordingly, knowing full well that Father was watching. Very few would ever disobey in that case, and those few could be handled by suffering for their own sins and being shuffled off to the Telestial Kingdom. No need for a savior, and everything tidied up nice and neat. And of course, never having been tested, nobody would be worthy of exaltation, because they couldn't be known to be trustworthy to be righteous for righteousness' sake.

[Stargazer]

14 hours ago, manol said:

Maybe there's only one of us, and all lifetimes are simultaneous or quasi-simultaneous lives of that one?   Maybe doing unto others is doing unto ourself?  Maybe "love your neighbor as yourself" is actually a teaching about who we and they really are, in addition to being the second great commandment?  Maybe Joseph Smith was right, and we without them cannot be saved, nor they without us, because we are actually one? 

I think we are all connected, and that connection may look like "entrainment".  Maybe the injunction to "be one" is about a paradigm shift that starts with scattered individuals, and gains traction through the ensuing entrainment. 

 

 

13 hours ago, Calm said:

The above is entrainment. I prefer becoming fully aware of the patterns/rhythms around us rather than adopting them. One drumbeat played by a million drums vs a million instruments playing the ultimate harmony. I believe I know which one I would prefer.  

ENTRAINMENT DEMONSTRATED:

 

[rodheadlee]

22 hours ago, Stargazer said:

 

ENTRAINMENT DEMONSTRATED:

 

I'm the one on the left trying to catch up

 

[manol]

On 6/3/2024 at 8:59 PM, Calm said:

I prefer becoming fully aware of the patterns/rhythms around us rather than adopting them. One drumbeat played by a million drums vs a million instruments playing the ultimate harmony. I believe I know which one I would prefer.  

Yes, I absolutely believe it's a harmony!  I think the fact that we are all different is a feature, not a bug.  Paul's "the body of Christ" analogy comes to mind. 

Maybe the word “entrainment” isn't as good a fit as I was thinking, as the word can imply that the thing(s) or person(s) entrained have no choice in the matter. So let me try to describe what I have in mind:

Suppose you encounter and interact with a person who is experiencing hopelessness. Maybe intermittent, maybe chronic, but for whatever reason hopelessness seems like the logical conclusion to them. And suppose you genuinely see far more in that person, and far more in their future, than they see through their lens of hopelessness. Maybe you tell this to the person outright and maybe you don't, but your attitude and your presence radiates something uplifting to them whether spoken or unspoken. And this can shift or help shift their perception IF they allow it to.

But they have to agree to what you are offering them at some level before it can help their paradigm begin to be shifted upwards. If they choose to view you with suspicion, “this person is not to be trusted, my hopelessness has always been there for me”, then they will stay where they are until they decide that hopelessness no longer gives them what they want.

Even if their personality self rejects your offer, I think their higher self – their soul, if you will - accepts and appreciates it. Their soul might say something like this: “Thank you for the love you offer. My personality self has not yet learned everything that hopelessness has to teach them, so I will save the love you offer until my personality self is ready to receive it.”

So what I have in mind might be called “voluntary entrainment”, in that there is choice and responsibility involved, otherwise there would be no genuine progression. I think we are supposed to lift one another up, but it is the responsibility of the one who is offered the lifting-up to receive it and choose to align themselves to it, or at least to shift towards a more uplifting direction.

 

Edited June 5, 2024 by manol

[mfbukowski]

On 6/3/2024 at 5:58 PM, manol said:

Maybe there's only one of us, and all lifetimes are simultaneous or quasi-simultaneous lives of that one?   Maybe doing unto others is doing unto ourself?  Maybe "love your neighbor as yourself" is actually a teaching about who we and they really are, in addition to being the second great commandment?  Maybe Joseph Smith was right, and we without them cannot be saved, nor they without us, because we are actually one? 

Fabulous!   This is essentially IT for me, insofar as there IS an "IT"!

There is only one word I might debate and that word is "really"   We cannot know "reality" while looking through a dark mirror of all we think we know- it's like using consciousness to speak about consciousness.  Using implanted sunglasses to talk about All of "reality" being kind of brown 😉

"But then face to face" happens only after we drop these dang bodies and their senses that limit "real" perception.

The central argument against the Correspondence Theory of Truth is that we CANNOT step out of OUR reality to see the true reality as it would be if we had no filters to our perception, AND then we would have to have a perfect language to express what is now inexpressible --  except no one has ever been unfiltered while alive, to report back what "true reality" even is, and a perfect non-symbolic language to express it!!

Science itself now at least recognizes this at least in the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.

But you is raht on de money fo this fully filtered dude!   Hey man, it be da best we can do!

"All men are created equal and endowed with certain unalienable rights, namely life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness..."

Show me the "truth" of of that statement and evidence for it, please?

Can't do it?   Well I guess that must mean that we can regard "inspiration" as HOPE FOR THE UNSEEN as "TRUE".

The idea sure sounds "sweet" to me- Alma 32.

So ok let's CALL it "true" - for all PRACTICAL purposes - ok?  😉

Sermon over.

What other symbols can we come up with and declare "true" because they are "Sweet" ??  

Edited June 6, 2024 by mfbukowski

[ZealouslyStriving]

Maaaaybeee.... the Elohim are just us from the future traveling back through time to help ourselves along. 😱

[mfbukowski]

On 6/2/2024 at 3:33 PM, nuclearfuels said:

Pls correct me if I'm wrong here. My reading of this suggests:

 

1. Like us, plants, animals and materials have some level of intelligence

2. Like us, they may possess more intelligence

3. Like us, they may increase in their intelligence

Good stuff, but what makes it "true" in your book?

And how do you define "intelligence"?

[manol]

 

4 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Fabulous!   This is essentially IT for me, insofar as there IS an "IT"!

There is only one word I might debate and that word is "really"   We cannot know "reality" while looking through a dark mirror of all we think we know- it's like using consciousness to speak about consciousness.  Using implanted sunglasses to talk about All of "reality" being kind of brown 😉

"But then face to face" happens only after we drop these dang bodies and their senses that limit "real" perception.

The central argument against the Correspondence Theory of Truth is that we CANNOT step out of OUR reality to see the true reality as it would be if we had no filters to our perception, AND then we would have to have a perfect language to express what is now inexpressible --  except no one has ever been unfiltered while alive, to report back what "true reality" even is, and a perfect non-symbolic language to express it!!

Science itself now at least recognizes this at least in the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.

But you is raht on de money fo this fully filtered dude!   Hey man, it be da best we can do!

"All men are created equal and endowed with certain unalienable rights, namely life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness..."

Show me the "truth" of of that statement and evidence for it, please?

Can't do it?   Well I guess that must mean that we can regard "inspiration" as HOPE FOR THE UNSEEN as "TRUE".

The idea sure sounds "sweet" to me- Alma 32.

So ok let's CALL it "true" - for all PRACTICAL purposes - ok?  😉

Sermon over.

What other symbols can we come up with and declare "true" because they are "Sweet" ??  

Thank you!

Must admit that my "default mode" has not yet caught up... the jerk who cuts me off in traffic might be me-on-another-timeline, but all too often my reflex is still to acknowledge him with a one-finger salute.

 

4 hours ago, ZealouslyStriving said:

Maaaaybeee.... the Elohim are just us from the future traveling back through time to help ourselves along. 😱

Could be!  Could very well be!  One implication is arguably this:  We have nothing to fear, BUT we DO have a lot of work to do! 

Apparently there is a realm where all things, past present and future, are continually manifest (D&C 130: 5-8).   I've come across a few near-death-experience accounts that describe such a "place".   The following is not from a near-death-experience account but it might be relevant:

Some years ago I read Robert Monroe's three books about his out-of-body explorations.  In the first book he describes one of his early experiences where he found himself out-of body and under attack by two small demons.  He was terrified and kept frantically trying to pull them off but they kept jumping back on him.  He was in extreme distress when two hands appeared and lifted the demons off of him. He was extremely grateful, and the experience left him shaken and disturbed.

Then in his third book, written about three decades later, Monroe describes another experience in which he saw a man who was out-of-body and two of his cats who had passed on recognized the man and were so glad to see him that they jumped up on him.  The poor man didn't recognize them and was terrified, and kept twisting and struggling and frantically trying to pull them off.  The man was obviously in distress so Monroe stepped in to help, reaching out and gently lifting the cats off the man, who was relieved and grateful.

You probably guess it:  It was Robert Monroe from 30 years in the future who "rescued" beginner Robert Monroe from his cats, who he did not recognize and mistook for demons!  I don't know how much stock you put in out-of-body experience accounts, but if you give some of them a "maybe", well there's one that aligns with your theory!

Edited June 7, 2024 by manol

[Calm]

I need to say this may be my favorite thread title….it would be perfect for some poem or book (up to the period).  It makes me smile every time I read it.  It just sounds and looks perfect.  And it appears to exist nowhere else according to Google…so something even unique.

Edited June 7, 2024 by Calm

[mfbukowski]

1 hour ago, manol said:

Must admit that my "default mode" has not yet caught up... the jerk who cuts me off in traffic might be me-on-another-timeline, but all too often my reflex is still to acknowledge him with a one-finger salute.

Not sure what you mean here,

Remember if the guy hits you, you will still feel/see it all in colors provided by your mind/brain, if he is from Peoria or Planet Geji-Malak in another timeline, which is "actually" this earth in our reference.

Rorty:

Quote

 

 " To say that the world is out there, that it is not our creation, is to say, with common sense, that most things in space and time are the effects of causes which do not include human mental states.  To say that truth is not out there is simply to say that where there are no sentences, there is no truth, that sentences are elements of human languages, and that human languages are human creations.

     Truth cannot be out there- cannot exist independently of the human mind- because sentences cannot so exist, or be out there.  The world is out there, but descriptions of the world are not.  Only descriptions of the world can be true or false.  The world on its own- unaided by the describing activities of human beings- cannot."   Richard Rorty- Contingency Irony and Solidarity, P 5.

 

And:

https://cognitive-liberty.online/argumentum-ad-lapidem-appeal-to-the-stone/

Even if you drive your car over a cliff, all you will see is what you see.  

But please don't try it.

I was wrong once in 1982, so who knows?  😉

 

 

[nuclearfuels]

On 6/3/2024 at 6:51 PM, Stargazer said:

multiple simultaneous mortal probation theory

I need a sci fi or realistiv fiction or nonfiction story from you just to wrap my head around this theory.

Can you explain it like I'm 5?

[ZealouslyStriving]

3 minutes ago, nuclearfuels said:

I need a sci fi or realistiv fiction or nonfiction story from you just to wrap my head around this theory.

Can you explain it like I'm 5?

"The Best Offer" ?

[nuclearfuels]

20 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

1. Good stuff, but what makes it "true" in your book?

2. And how do you define "intelligence"?

1. Scriptures say plants and animals have spirits, no?

2. I don't define it - if they weren't Intelligences that acted correctly or progressed they wouldn't have a probation on earth, even without free will.

[nuclearfuels]

 

@The Nehor - would love your input on this topic. No wrong answers.

[mfbukowski]

5 hours ago, nuclearfuels said:

1. Scriptures say plants and animals have spirits, no?

2. I don't define it - if they weren't Intelligences that acted correctly or progressed they wouldn't have a probation on earth, even without free will.

These ideas are irrelevant to my beliefs.  I simply don't care about what we can dream up on these subjects, but thanks for asking.

[nuclearfuels]

On 6/7/2024 at 4:40 PM, ZealouslyStriving said:

"The Best Offer" ?

Havent seen it yet but will check it out now that you suggested it. 

Thank you

[teddyaware]

On 6/2/2024 at 6:33 PM, nuclearfuels said:

Brigham Young said: If people understood true philosophy—eternal philosophy, they would understand that there is an eternity of matter. Astronomers estimate that there is between us and the nearest fixed star matter enough from which to organize millions of earths like this. There is an eternity of matter, and it is all acted upon and filled with a portion of divinity. Matter is to exist; it cannot be annihilated. Eternity is without bounds, and is filled with matter; and there is no such place as empty space. And matter is capacitated to receive intelligence.

If we could so understand true philosophy as to understand our own creation, and what it is for—what design and intent the Supreme Ruler had in organizing matter and bringing it forth in the capacity that I behold you here today, we could comprehend that matter cannot be destroyed—that it is subject to organization and disorganization; and could understand that matter can be organized and

brought forth into intelligence,

and to possess more intelligence,

and to continue to increase in that intelligence;

and could learn those principles that organized matter into animals, vegetables, and into intelligent beings; and could discern the Divinity acting, operating, and diffusing principles into matter to produce intelligent beings, and to exalt them—to what? Happiness. Will nothing short of that fully satisfy the spirits implanted within us? No.

(Emphasis added Source: https://journalofdiscourses.com/7/1 and https://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/digital/collection/JournalOfDiscourses3/id/347/)

 

Hi all,

What do you think about this? What's your take-away?

 

Pls correct me if I'm wrong here. My reading of this suggests:

 

1. Like us, plants, animals and materials have some level of intelligence

2. Like us, they may possess more intelligence

3. Like us, they may increase in their intelligence

 

Therefore:
1. Unless the plants, animals, and materials (rocks, etc.) are damned or stopped in their eternal progression, they like us will continue progressing eternally. 

1b - Would God not cease to be God if He arbitrarily damned plants, animals, materials? (2 Nephi 2, Alma 42 etc.)

2. When they reach the highest level of intelligence, they'll obtain a physical body with free agency be born on an earth, live, progress, die, get resurrected, progress to become like our Heavenly Parents.

3. To me, this suggests that we - as premortal intelligences may have had lessons / experiences / births / etc. on other earths where we lived as plants, rocks, animals, etc and progressed to the point of obtaining free will and a physical mortal body. 

I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness. (Max Planck)

[MiserereNobis]

On 6/6/2024 at 5:28 PM, ZealouslyStriving said:

Maaaaybeee.... the Elohim are just us from the future traveling back through time to help ourselves along. 😱

Did you just finish watching Interstellar?

[MiserereNobis]

On 6/3/2024 at 8:10 PM, Calm said:

There was a book that had a massive impact on my views of Satan**** called A Wrinkle in Time.  Sadly there are probably more who saw the movie than read the book as imo the book was so much better imagined in my mind than it was on screen. Especially the ball bouncing scene. 
 

I felt it as if all movement down to heartbeats were tied together and there was nothing more stagnant in existence.  You need to read the book and not just that section, but what leads up to it to get the sensation. It’s not just weird. It’s evil. It’s death.  And not death that leads to life by decomposition or resurrection. It’s death that is truly nothing.  Not nothing that is peace after turmoil. But a nothing that oppresses, smothers. Not silence because sound is resting or even just not wanted, but silence because sound/life has been strangled, dismembered, and stamped on and then buried under a ton of solid rock. 
 

So anything that suggests eternity is us doing the same thing as everyone else sends me there to “that’s hell, not heaven”.
 

****Though now I know I believe Satan never was about forcing people, but was about removing law as that was the easy thing to do to ensure all humanity passed go without any effort on anyone’s part.  But the result is there is nothing of value.  No order means no progress. A life without limits of any sort is a life that can go nowhere.  You need something to push against to move.  You need structure to build. 

I loved those books as a kid. A Wind in the Door was my favorite. 

[MiserereNobis]

On 6/6/2024 at 9:04 PM, Calm said:

I need to say this may be my favorite thread title….it would be perfect for some poem or book (up to the period).  It makes me smile every time I read it.  It just sounds and looks perfect.  And it appears to exist nowhere else according to Google…so something even unique.

I think Tolkien would have loved the phrase The Valiancy of Trees. 

Edited June 9, 2024 by MiserereNobis

[ZealouslyStriving]

2 hours ago, MiserereNobis said:

Did you just finish watching Interstellar?

No. Never heard of it. Should I?

[MiserereNobis]

1 minute ago, ZealouslyStriving said:

No. Never heard of it. Should I?

Absolutely. Great science fiction.