The Universe is Intelligent

[Anonymous No.2728146]

There was never a time when the world began, because it goes round and round like a circle, and there is no place on a circle where it begins. Look at my watch, which tells the time; it goes round, and so the world repeats itself again and again. But just as the hour-hand of the watch goes up to twelve and down to six, so, too, there is day and night, waking and sleeping, living and dying, summer and winter. You can't have any one of these without the other, because you wouldn't be able to know what black is unless you had seen it side-by-side with white, or white unless side-by-side with black.

[Anonymous No.2728160]

In the same way, there are times when the world is, and times when it isn't, for if the world went on and on without rest for ever and ever, it would get horribly tired of itself. It comes and it goes. Now you see it; now you don't. So because it doesn't get tired of it always comes back again after it disappears. It's like your breath: it goes in and out, in and out, and if you try to hold it in all the time you feel terrible. It's also
like the game of hide-and-seek, because it's always fun to find new ways of hiding, and to seek for someone who doesn't always hide in the same place.

[Anonymous No.2728166]

Fuck your dialectical manicheistic shit.

Reality is much more complex.

[Anonymous No.2728169]

God also likes to play hide-and-seek, but because there is nothing outside God, he has no one but himself to play with. But he gets over this difficulty by pretending that he is not himself. This is his way of hiding from himself. He pretends that he is you and I and all the people in the world, all the animals, all the plants, all the rocks, and all the stars. In this way he has strange and wonderful adventures, some of which are terrible and frightening. But these are just like bad dreams, for when he wakes up they will disappear.

[Anonymous No.2728177]

Now when God plays hide and pretends that he is you and I, he does it so well that it takes him a long time to remember where and how he hid himself. But that's the whole fun of it—just what he wanted to do.
He doesn't want to find himself too quickly, for that would spoil the game. That is why it is so difficult for you and me to find out that we are God in disguise, pretending not to be himself. But when the game
has gone on long enough, all of us will wake up, stop pretending, and remember that we are all one single Self—the God who is all that there is and who lives for ever and ever.

[Anonymous No.2728186]

Of course, you must remember that God isn't shaped like a person. People have skins and there is always something outside our skins. If there weren't, we wouldn't know the difference between what is inside
and outside our bodies. But God has no skin and no shape because there isn't any outside to him. [With a sufficiently intelligent child, I illustrate this with a Möbius strip—a ring of paper tape twisted once in such a way that it has only one side and one edge.] The inside and the outside of God are the same. And though I have been talking about God as 'he'
and not 'she,' God isn't a man or a woman. I didn't say 'it' because weusually say 'it' for things that aren't alive.

[Anonymous No.2728196]

you gonna be wrapping this up sometime soon?

[Anonymous No.2728197]

God is the Self of the world, but you can't see God for the same reason that, without a mirror, you can't see your own eyes, and you certainly can't bite your own teeth or look inside your head. Your self is that cleverly hidden because it is God hiding.

[Anonymous No.2728198]

be a faggot elsewhere

[Anonymous No.2728205]

You may ask why God sometimes hides in the form of horrible people, or pretends to be people who suffer great disease and pain. Remember, first, that he isn't really doing this to anyone but himself. Remember, too, that in almost all the stories you enjoy there have to be bad people as well as good people, for the thrill of the tale is to find out how the good people will get the better of the bad. It's the same as when
we play cards. At the beginning of the game we shuffle them all into a mess, which is like the bad things in the world, but the point of the
game is to put the mess into good order, and the one who does it best is the winner. Then we shuffle the cards once more and play again, and so
it goes with the world."

[Anonymous No.2728208]

Too long, did not read.

[Anonymous No.2728219]

>>2728166
>>2728196
>>2728198

This story, obviously mythical in form, is not given as a scientific description of the way things are. Based on the analogies of games and the drama, and using that much worn-out word "God" for the Player, the
story claims only to be like the way things are. I use it just as astronomers use the image of inflating a black balloon with white spots on it for the galaxies, to explain the expanding universe. But to most
children, and many adults, the myth is at once intelligible, simple, and fascinating. By contrast, so many other mythical explanations of the world are crude, tortuous, and unintelligible. But many people think that believing in the unintelligible propositions and symbols of their religions is the test of true faith. "I believe," said Tertullian of Christianity, "because it is absurd."

[Simply No.2728233]

>science

[Anonymous No.2728242]

thanks for the art, bro.

[Anonymous No.2728264]

>thinks god exists

Yeah, you kinda lost all credibility right at that part, not that I ever thought your pre school level theory was even worth a second read though

[Anonymous No.2728291]

>>2728264

It exists outside of your one-dimensional conception of it.

It exists right in front of (actually, behind) your eyes.

[Anonymous No.2728363]

I enjoyed reading that OP. I'm not religious but I find pantheism to be a fascinating idea, and at least possibly true on some level. This description of the universe reminds me of a mushroom trip I had. It may be true, or it may not, but it's at least fun to think about.

[Anonymous No.2728409]

>>2728363

Download this book: http://www.leary.ru/download/watts/Book%20On%20The%20Taboo%20Against%20Knowing%20Who%20You%20Are.pdf

It's by Alan Watts and all the text I posted was taken from it.

[Anonymous No.2728443]

>>2728409
>leary.ru

So, did he take a bunch of drugs or something? Thanks for the link!

[Anonymous No.2728523]

>>2728443

He experimented with a number of psychedelics, including DMT, LSD, psilocybin mushrooms, mescaline, and cannabis, although he first dismissed LSD as a purely visual experience with not much more to it, but a psychologist friend of his urged him to try it again as there was much, much more to the experience - he had what he said to be an undeniably spiritual/mystical/transcendent experience. He later commented on psychedelic drug use that "When you get the message, hang up the phone." so he was not as enthusiastic or immersed in psychedelic culture as somebody like Leary or McKenna and as somebody very versed in most religious traditions (especially those of the East) he understood that psychedelics were only tools and these same kind of experiences could be induced by many other means.

He wrote a short essay about psychedelic drug and the West's aversion to their use and the similarity between it and typical spiritual experiences which can be found here: http://deoxy.org/w_psyrel.htm - also a good read if you're interested in psychedelics.

He is definitely one of my favourite philosophers and perhaps one of the most unknown and underappreciated (outside of certain circles) of the 20th century.

[Anonymous No.2728540]

So, is there going to be science in this thread, or...?

[Anonymous No.2728547]

>>2728523
>He later commented on psychedelic drug use that "When you get the message, hang up the phone."

Easily his most underlooked contribution to the discussion. Many of the LSD gurus were basically addicts; Watts demonstrated that a middle way was possible, and even desirable. Too bad more kids don't get this message.

[Anonymous No.2728645]

>>2728547

Indeed - makes it all the more saddening that he struggled with alcohol addiction later in his life and that it may have even contributed to his death at 58.

I've never read anything Leary wrote, but I do know that he so discredited any real legitimate study of psychedelics, and McKenna had some very interesting and intelligent things to say, but some of it just way too out there for me, like Timewave Zero.

>>2728540

Sorry dude - I guess I am taking up space usually occupied by a 100+ page debate on the existence of the one-dimensional and infantile Abrahamic conception of God.

[Anonymous No.2728703]

>>2728645
Your conception is no less infantile.

[Anonymous No.2728774]

>>2728703

It is inherently less infantile because it does not place the individual as subservient to a greater authority above the self - a divine monarchy under which I am an infant being ruled by an adult - instead, I am both the infant and the adult at the same time.

Of course you can argue - someone always does - things look very different from the inside looking out than they do form the outside looking in.