Wheels within wheels.

[Kinser79]

EtI Wrote:The same way anything is investigated

Okay, with what instrument is this mind activity--lets call it consciousness (cause that's where this is going)--measured?  In what units is it measured.  

EtI Wrote:Unless you apply methods of knowledge, it doesn't matter whether the object of your knowledge is held to be spiritual or material in nature.

An object that is material in nature exists outside of my body.  It exists if see it existing or if I've never seen it existing.  I'm sure that there is some xenoplanet out there that hasn't been discovered yet.  It exists but no one has seen it or detected it as of yet.  And that is no great leap of faith since astronomers are finding those every day.

If an object is "spiritual" as you've defined it, I can only know it within the activity of my own mind.  Since my own mind can only know of its own thought processes by virtue of knowing them--spiritual matters are reduced to solipsism.

A still equals 0.

EtI Wrote:Others have investigated many things, and they tell their results to us, so we know them.

Really.  Do they have evidence beyond their mere say so?  I mean I could tell you the sky on earth is hunter orange with blue polka dots (which it never would be anyway since that specific color has never been demonstrated to exist in nature--which is why it was chosen for that application) but I'd be lying.  Do these people have measurements?  Photographs?  Video recordings?  Results of scientific experiments?

If not then how do we know that they are not lying or are not delusional.

EtI Wrote:So, we know other minds when we perceive them. Idealists just call those things "minds," and you call them "material."

No..fools call them minds.  Which is why you do it.  I call material things, material things.  The closest I've ever come to experiencing an other mind is the behaviors evident in my cat, my boyfriend and other people.  But for all I know, for certain, is that my own mind exists.

Idealism always leads back to solipsism.

A materialist on the other hand would say, "X, Y, and Z phenomena are associated with/correlated with consciousness therefore H is conscious".

At no time can a materialist know for certain that said mind/consciousness exists merely that phenomena of associated with consciousness does and therefore it is reasonable to assume that said object is conscious.

Your perverse solipsism is go great as to attribute consciousness to such things as rock, grass, dirt, and trees.  Objects that have demonstrated no phenomena associated with consciousness.  Indeed outside of more complex orders of animals it is difficult to go past "responding to external stimuli" which in no way itself is a associated with consciousness.

EtI Wrote:Yeah, you did.

We going the Kindergarten route?  I know what I said and when I said it.  Just because you can't follow along doesn't mean I can't or that others can't.

EtI Wrote:Solipsism says only my own self exists. Idealism and spiritualism hold that spirit exists and it the only reality. Those are two different definitions. Whatever math you apply to them is irrelevant and incorrect. You can't apply math to it.

1.  Everything can be boiled down to mathematics.  See my signature, good song, you wouldn't like it though.  In fact the 5%ers have a whole theory of numerology which they claim to be the essence of all knowledge.  I've looked into it, it makes sense until they get into the kooky magic stuff though.

https://genius.com/Nation-of-gods-and-ea...-annotated

2.  You've just said in your previous post that idealism and spiritualism are one and the same.  Ergo since we can reduce idealism to solipsism it as a consequence takes spirutalism with it.

After all how does a mind know that it exists?  It knows it exists because it exists.  I think therefore I am, really means, I am therefore I am.  Or to put it bluntly the self can only ever using idealistic precepts know the self.

EtI Wrote:A mystical idealist like myself or Emerson cannot be isolated within the self, because we know that we are connected to everything. That by definition cannot be solipsist.

Emerson can get away with saying such an absurd thing because he was born, lived and died long before the advent of psychology.  You, however, are not so lucky.  To say you are connected to everything--I know you mean spiritually and consciously and not "I'm one part of a giant machine"--is not only arrogant but boarders on the insane.

Indeed were you to not crouch it in semi-religious language you'd be committed.  If I actually thought you dangerous to others I'd seek to have you committed.  But so far as I can tell you confine yourself to fleecing people with astrology and being a run of the mill internet crank.  I guess that's better than mugging people--but not by much.

A non-mystical materialist such as myself cannot be isolated within the self because we know we are a small part in a much larger social whole.  That is to say we have evidence that others exist around us, and that we exist in a society composed of people, and concepts such as laws, and so forth.

EtI Wrote:Awakenings are not about the creation of ideologies.

And yet that is when ideologies are created.  If a political philosophy is an ideology, and a religion is an ideology, and a social concept is an ideology.  When are most of those created?  During an awakening. 

The fact that they are also created at other times too does not negate this as I've not precluded it.

EtI Wrote:f you are discussing Awakenings, it's better to stick to S&H definitions.

I have actually, and far better than you.  After all I'm not the one insisting that all awakenings everywhere are always about spiritual nonsense.

EtI Wrote:No, generalizations like S&H use do not imply "always" or "only" or "no other." It is about trends.

Ugh...reading comprehension again.  I swear I think you're lying about going to college.  I'm writing at most at a fourth grade level and you're having difficulty.  There's no way in hell you went to college and came out knowing less about the language than I assume you did going in having had to graduated high school first.

I said YOU were implying that "always" and "only" happened.  When I use the word YOU I mean YOU as in Eric Allan Meece.

Typically when I mean a group of people I use y'all or you all.  Since in my post I did not modify the word you with the word all I strictly meant you  and not anyone else on the board, the board as a group of persons or S&H specifically.

EtI Wrote:I know scientology only became popular in 1966

Doesn't matter.  If the precept that you propose is that religions are only founded during awakenings then the founding of Scientology in 1956 and the Nation of Islam in 1930 demonstrate this to not be the case.  When it became popular is not of concern here.

EtI Wrote:It's not a UFO cult; you obviously know nothing about it.

Obviously you've not read their books.  I have.  It is beyond crazy the shit that they believe.  And I for one am open to the possibility of extraterrestrial life.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientolog..._practices

Not exhaustive or complete but it's a start.

EtI Wrote:The Nation of Islam is not a religion; it is Islam, founded in 622 AD.

The Nation of Islam is a religion.  It is also not Islam.  Were the NOI simply Islam it would be impossible for Malik Al Shabazz (also known as Malcolm X) to convert to Sunni Islam.  Sunni Islam is the form practiced in most Islamic countries by the way.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation_of_Islam

EtI Wrote:So what? I didn't exclude traditional kinds of Christianity from Awakenings. You excluded other kinds of spirituality from Awakenings. You exclude genuine spirituality from Awakenings.

In correct.  I've not excluded any form of spiritual ideology (traditional Christianity or otherwise) from the ideologies created during the awakening.  What I said was that Transcendentalism itself was not wide spread or important. 

Tell me who speaks of Thoreau or Emmerson outside of a classroom these days?  Nobody.  Who goes to Mormon and Evangelical church services every Sunday?  Loads of people.

As we can see one is of lasting impact on the world, the other was a small and now long dead clique of backwoods philosophers most people who've never studied philosophy have ever heard about.

EtI Wrote:Take it up with S&H.

Isn't my concern.  I'd prefer to call them the Transcendental Generation because saying the Evangelical or Mormon Generation might actually get them confused with currently existing generations in the minds of some people. 

I remember, being a preacher's son, having to sit through youth services and listen to the youth pastor preach about how "God had planned for us to be an Evangelical Generation, that we were to take the gospel to the outer most ends of the earth, to outer space even."

The reason evangelical Christians are called evangelical is because they believe as a major precept that they must evangelize--that is "bear witness" of the gospel.  Or as I like to call it, annoy people with their religion.

EtI Wrote:We are all one is not a collective

Wrong again sunshine.  If "We" are all "one" then "we" must be a collective.  By using the term "we" you imply that you are speaking of a group of more than one person.  If that we is therefore "one", it must be a collective.

Much like the Borg.  They are all one consciousness too.

EtI Wrote:Ideologies are the way people get hooked on false memes and dominate people.

Not quite true.  Some ideologies are false--like your spirit-whats-it--others are not false.  For example the ideology that science can be used to explain the natural world using reason and empirical evidence.

Some ideologies can be used to dominate people, for example Nazism, or Communism, or Christianity.  Other ideologies cannot be used in such a way, for example Libertarianism, or Non-violent resistance.  Don't get on my bad side Eric or I'm going to forgive you so hard your mother will feel it.

EtI Wrote:They are beliefs we should all question, forced upon us by social authority and people with agendas.

You mean by forcing your silly beliefs onto me and pressing your "new age" agenda?

Which is hilarious since you don't understand the most basic and publicly known precepts of Scientology or the Nation of Islam.

EtI Wrote:No, Awakenings are times when idealism predominates and idealists come of age.

You are confusing idealism as a philosophical construct with the title idealist given to Prophet generations.  The Missionaries, even the most religious of them, focused on material progress.  The social gospel was all about maximizing the the material good for the maximum number of people.  According to you these people should in fact be materialists.

Are you then claiming that there was no awakening in the GSP?  Surely not, you are intentionally mis-interpreting the works of S&H to fit the narrative you want to have.

EtI Wrote:Only 4Ts are preoocupied with changing external institutions. That is what the "ideologies" you talk about are interested in.

Again, you misread S&H.  They clearly say that the ideas (I call them ideologies for the sake of simplicity) of the 2T are implemented in the 4T by changing the external institutions.  Therefore, it is only logical that if this is the case that the ideologies themselves are created/thought up/whatever in the 2T.

Did you even read their books?

EtI Wrote:Not everyone is a materialist like you. Not everyone is worldly like you. Some people are interested in culture and the spirit.

1.  Agreed.  For smart people to exist, the stupid have to exist also if only for something to have comparison against.  There is no light without darkness after all.

2.  For someone who is nearly twice my age you certainly are not as wordy as myself.  You're in here claiming that the Nation of Islam was founded in Saudi Arabia and not by Elijah Muhammad in 1930!  Could you not even do a google search?

3.  Yes.  They are.  The ones that concern themselves with the spirit almost always turn into religious fanatics, and are as dangerous as they are stupid.

EtI Wrote:Salvation and faith were dominant concerns in Christian revivals, which have been part of Awakenings. Other spirituality may not be, but they are concerned with unfolding spiritual consciousness, then. Or other forms of worship of a spiritual being and informs their "inner" spiritual life. NOI is irrelevant, and I assume you focus on it because of your race.

1  Salvation and faith are the dominate concerns of Christianity in general, not just revivals.  Or do you believe that the sinner's prayer only gets prayed on muggy nights in August in a tent?

2.  Other spiritualities do not concern themselves with salvation.  Either because they do not believe in sin, or because they believe salvation can only be achieved after passing through many lives or some other nonsense.

3.  The Nation of Islam is hardly irrelevant.  It is the main branch of Islam in the US practiced, furthermore you earlier in this post openly claimed that the Nation of Islam was Islam as a whole (I know that it isn't) and Islam is very important being the second largest religion after Christianity--and far more dangerous than Christianity.

4.  I focused on it specifically because it was the form of Islam I'm familiar with.  Yes, I am familiar with it because of my race.  I've studied the 5%ers in much more depth.  They are a split from the NOI and they are rather irrelevant.

EtI Wrote:Saying that "I am" does not at all mean that "I alone am," as Descartes went on to prove. You didn't read that part, I assume.

You assume wrong.  I've read Descartes proof, but all that means is one can use formal logic to prove anything anyone wants.  Mostly because logic is a tool.

EtI Wrote:That I am connected to all, is not only true because consciousness requires objects in order to be conscious, it is scientific fact.

Okay, let us suppose that consciousness is a scientific fact.  With what instrument is consciousness detected?  In what unit is it measured?  By what experiment is it demonstrated?

Unless these questions can be answered there is no scientific evidence for consciousness.  There may be philosophical evidence through the observation of phenomena associated with consciousness but that is about it.  See my paragraph above.

EtI Wrote:I am glad you took the questionnaire earlier, and confirmed you are what I would have thought you were. If you care to give me your exact score, I can add a dot for you on my map of all known responses, and add to the numbers of materialists on the map.

I took it long ago and don't remember the number nor care to have a dot on your "map". 

I'm not taking it again, in fact I'm not going to your website until you update it to at least the current century (2000 will do).  Seriously that thing looks like it was slapped together by a 12 year old girl in 1994.  The only thing it lacks is unicorns.

Your asinine comments about objectively good music have been ignored of course.  I can't take your opinion on music seriously since you have a hard on for that-singer-who-shall-remain-nameless.  I mean if it was like Enrique Iglacias I could understand but TSWSRN I just don't get.