Gravity - absolute truth?

bhaktajan said:
Is the term "neti-neti" the measurement of zero?

No. Wrong understanding of the term.
It's like saying " "One plus Two equals Four" . . . so please except that statement as payment . . . in lieu of Cash".

Neti-neti is the intellectual exercise of seeking out Godhead and/or Enlightenment ---and thus Doing a "Check-off List Proceedure" of encounters along the spiritual path:
  • Neti-neti ---No Not This Thing.
  • Neti-neti ---No Not This Thing either.
  • Neti-neti ---No Not This Thing either . . . ad-infinitum
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Zero is the placeholder (check) for null, correct?

  • Neti-neti ---No Not This Thing. 0% This Thing
  • Neti-neti ---No Not This Thing either. 0% That Thing
  • Neti-neti ---No Not This Thing either . . . ad-infinitum 0% all these things
Thanks for all the other info, though. :)
 
a principle vs. an absolute

It is important to distinguish between a principle and an absolute. A principle such as gravity exists, even when there is nothing which exists as an example of gravity. Therefore, the principle of gravity "exists" even during the time between universes (when nothing exists which can be an example of gravity). But this does not mean that gravity occurs, or is able to occur anywhere and anytime, as the word absolute seems to imply.
 
It is important to say what you mean. Except for things that are 100% absolutely true (like arthmatic and tautologies and some definitions) I am open to alternatives.

Like the last post, if information or mental states continue to exist when there is no physical universe, then Ncik is spot on. If the universe is only matter and energy (the scientistic material monism), he is out to lunch. I believe and I think the majority here belive the former (mental events or information exists independent of matter).

Pax et amore omnia vincunt
 
But this does mean that The Right Honorable Mr Sir "VOID" Esq. occurs, or is able to occur anywhere and anytime, as the word absolute seems to imply.

El Execellente "VOID" occurs, or is able to occur anywhere and anytime, as the word absolute seems to imply ---with out taint nor influence nor diminution.

Our Dear "VOID" is pure and unchanging since before and till after time-immemorial comes and goes repeatedly.

"VOID" cannot be found seperated from the 8 manifest material elements along with those elements endless permutations and Psychedelic perceptions by the whole spectrum of 8,400,000 species of Living life-forms.

The "VOID" known as Brahman in the Vedas is described as being the same composition of a Individual vector point of a Spirit-Soul.

The "VOID" is "without qualities" ---yet it's the building's foundation for the material world's manifestation. In sanskrit the word for "without qualities" is "Nirvana".
 
Pretty good, bhaktajan. That is the key, I believe, to our spiritual journey. Sir Void (aka "that beyond the universe") is always and eternally present. If the universe did not exist, IMHO Sir Void would still be there. Withour qualities He just is.

So in that sense (kinda transcendentally or existentially) the Absolute is Sir Void. But even if that is true (as I believe it is) the problem becomes "can we know It"? If the "collapse of the wavefunction" (in Quantum) and the "singularity" (In Relativity) are beyond knowing (that is, we can never observe or measure or do any of those other scientific things physicists do), then Sir Void is similar (in that we cannot know in the scientific sense).

However, Sir Void is beyond "collapse" or "singularity" in that He is even more unknowable (like infinity is one thing but infinity to the power of infinity is much bigger). But, I believe, He is experience-able.

Good post! Pax et amore omnia vincunt.
 
radarmark said:
... the problem becomes "can we know It"?
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Eriugena asks this of man, or rather, human nature.

radarmark said:
If the "collapse of the wavefunction" (in Quantum) and the "singularity" (In Relativity) are beyond knowing (that is, we can never observe or measure or do any of those other scientific things physicists do), then Sir Void is similar (in that we cannot know in the scientific sense).
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My understanding of terms is too thin here ... but Eriugena argues (I think) that 'subjectivity' is infinite, that human nature is an infinite number of infinite subjectivities, but by the fall, collapsed into objectivity and caused the world as we now perceive it ... in which our subjectivity is even more occluded, and all we see is the surface of things.

(... a religious digression is that only God knows Himself absolutely, but having created human nature in His own (meta-)image, that is in His own image that is beyond image, then man too is infinite, unable to know Himself as God knows Himself because ultimately man's being resides in and proceeds from God ... the Fall then is man deceived himself into thinking that because he partook of the Divine Nature, he was by nature Divine ... )

radarmark said:
However, Sir Void is beyond "collapse" or "singularity" in that He is even more unknowable (like infinity is one thing but infinity to the power of infinity is much bigger). But, I believe, He is experience-able.
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And we are ourselves unknowable, because there is no limit to what we can know (to know man would necessitate knowing all that man can possibly know) — the phenomenologists — Murleau-Ponty, for example, says to know something is to be able to circumscribe it, we can make a tour of it; our potential to know is infinite, and the knower must be greater than the known ... but as you say, we are not as unknowable as He is unknowable.

That's why Christ says 'follow me' ... we can never know Him, because He is infinite.

One of my favourite texts:
We will get a clear idea of it if we only consider the role played by our bodies as the instruments of our presence in the world. It is in fact through the body that we are present in a world of bodies. However, this presence, of which we believe ourselves to be the masters since it is somehow identified with us, is in reality a passive and involuntary presence. It was Merleau-Ponty who showed, in The Phenomenology of Perception, that to see an object is 'to be able to make a tour of it'. And how is it possible to make a tour of it if not because the object imparts itself indefinitely and inexhaustibly to the surveying gaze, because it can do nothing but offer itself to our gaze, it can do nothing but be seen. To be seen, and to be corporeally present, is all one. My corporeal presence is my visibility, but my visibility is not my own; it belongs to every gaze, unbeknownst to me and without being able to do anything about it — an ignorance and impotence constituting the every essence of my visibility. Thus, no one is master of his corporeal presence, and, even more, to be corporeally present is not to be master of this presence.

What happens then, to the contrary, in the Resurrection of Christ? What happens is that the resurrected Body is as if a witness, a living proof, a saving irruption of the glorious nature of the created within the bosom of its dark and opaque modality: Christ's body is still the instrument of presence in the world of bodies, but, by a total change, it is no longer of the essence of this presence to be passive and involuntary... (Jean Borella, Gnosis and Anti-Christian Gnosis second section
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Do take a look, Radarmark, I think it might strike a chord ...

God bless

Thomas
 
I just did not get that deeply into the qualities of humanity. I appreciate your extension of my argument to human beings. For me the problem is transposing the experienced to the known... I still do not grok it (a bit too much scientist, mayhaps). The infinity of intersubjective objectivity (a pragmatist's view of phenomenology) is something I try to avoid except in FTF discussions for that reason.

Pax et amore omnia vincunt!
 
radarmark said:
infinity is one thing but infinity to the power of infinity is much bigger
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"anu-jiva-atma" -- "miniscule indivisable/individual soul"

In the Vedas the soul is specifically described as 1/10,000th the size of the tip of a staind of Hair ---and as bright as a 100 Suns.

In the Vedas the soul is specifically described Tiny.

In the Vedas the specific path to escape the material enclosure known as the material universe (brahmanda) is described.

When this mapped-out diagram is explained ---it becomes explicitly emphasized that we "Spirit-Souls, here surjourning in the material-World, are exceedily tiny" ---the layers of the enclosure of the Brahmanda alone illustrates a scale that requires a football-pitch sized drawing board to display the mega leaps of distance. [ie: 2Billion mile inner diameter covered by a layer (1st of 8) that is 'two-billion miles times ten' ---which is covered by the next layer that is an additional 10 times thicker than the preceeding layer . . . this description continues for 8 Layers.

In the Vedas the Outside diameter of the Brahmanda's 8 Layers are specifically described as amounting to small bubble-like spheres eminating from the pores and breathing of the Sleeping Maha-Vishu.

Google Maha-Vishnu Sleeping.

We are in one of quadrillion brahmandas eminating from Sleeping Maha-Vishu's pores and breathing ---all these brahmandas exist only for as long as the expiration-breath lasts . . . then the Inhalation-Breath begins and desolves all things back into a state of 'Pradhana' . . . waiting to repeating the process.

This Sleeping Maha-Vishu is the plenary expansion of the unlimited Majestic Creative Energy (Maya-Prakriti) of "God in Heaven" ---God in Heaven never needs to seperate Himself from Hisown Pastimes with the Hisown entourage.

God expands his energies through his plenary expanding omnipresense to allow for the Material Worlds' permutations to freely transpire without oversight by God's own personal attention.

sue Nuzzio,
Bhaktajan
 
And we are ourselves unknowable, because there is no limit to what we can know (to know man would necessitate knowing all that man can possibly know) — the phenomenologists — Murleau-Ponty, for example, says to know something is to be able to circumscribe it, we can make a tour of it; our potential to know is infinite, and the knower must be greater than the known ... but as you say, we are not as unknowable as He is unknowable.

That's why Christ says 'follow me' ... we can never know Him, because He is infinite.
Click to expand...

All knowledge MUST come via "Disciplic Succession" otherwise it is speculation with ulterior motives.

Inre this maxim, there is a famous question:
"How do you know who you real Father is?
Ask your Mother" ---this is "Disciplic Succession.

We know when we seek and then only when it is revealed.

The Human Condition is knowable and pasted down via a "Disciplic Succession".

Knowledge of Material Mechanics for material gain & profit and industry is a knowledge that keeps a soul from being able to pass through the eye of the needle.

Those "Fantastic Men & their Flying Machines" conjures up old abandoned rusty warehouse where children once worked 12 hour days.
Now adays there are other pastimes and paradyms to take the place of those old fashion manners of subjugation.

Can we look foward to a future of technological modern comfort and ease and higher standard of Living???

But why does the Cost of Living rise each time a University graduate leaves his professors' crib side?
 
IowaGuy said:
Is gravity an absolute truth?

In the book/video "I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist", gravity is used as an example to "prove" the existence of abolute truths; which then sets up his "proof" of other concepts.

i.e. whether or not you "believe" in gravity (subjective truth), if you jump from the top of a building you will fall to the ground. This affects all people regardless of their belief/disbelief in gravity.

I'm hoping to get some other people's perspectives on how gravity, a favorite example in the subjective/absolute truth debate, applies to absolute or relative truth.
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Anything that can be neutralized by man cannot be absolute, IMHO. As we know, man can create an environment without gravity. To be absolute, gravity must exist no matter what, and that's not true.
Ben
 
For those of you who are material monists (the universe consists of only matter), if that is so and matter exists the per Relativity, gravity is absolute.

Gravity is what tells mass now to move, mass warps space and time, and space and time warpage is what gravity is. Very subtile that little Einstein.

If one is a materialist, the only other alternative is to postulate some exchanged particle that causes the force of gravity so spacetime is not warped. String, superstring, and supergravity hypothecize this. But they are not verifiable or falsifiable at this time (and may never be).

Bottom line: accept idealism (at least as part of dualism) or accept gravity as absolute or accept a very scientific looking theory that may not ever really rise above a psudo-scienc status.

P.S. ben, none of the materialist theories say "man can create an environment without gravity". Where did you get that?
 
radarmark said:
For those of you who are material monists (the universe consists of only matter), if that is so and matter exists the per Relativity, gravity is absolute.

Gravity is what tells mass now to move, mass warps space and time, and space and time warpage is what gravity is. Very subtile that little Einstein.

If one is a materialist, the only other alternative is to postulate some exchanged particle that causes the force of gravity so spacetime is not warped. String, superstring, and supergravity hypothecize this. But they are not verifiable or falsifiable at this time (and may never be).

Bottom line: accept idealism (at least as part of dualism) or accept gravity as absolute or accept a very scientific looking theory that may not ever really rise above a psudo-scienc status.

P.S. ben, none of the materialist theories say "man can create an environment without gravity". Where did you get that?
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What happened to gravity inside spacecraft shuttles? Hasn't it been neutralized by man?
Ben
 
Nope. Earth's gravity is still there, just "exactly countered" by the centrifugal force caused by the orbiting spacecraft (the direction of the force is constantly in opposition to the force of earth's gravity). This is the definition of "weightlessness" not "not having mass or inertia" (what you need to neutralize gravity).
 
i'm pretty sure it's called The Theory of Gravity and, perhaps more to the point, the idea of truths are really only applicable to formal systems like logic and mathematics, specifically human inventions.

indeed, you may even encounter the term "Law of Gravity" yet it is a theory and, within the realm of science, "theory" is as firm of a view as exists, it leaves open the possibility that, pending new information; new data, the prevailing theory could be overturned and a new theory created or the old theory modified. it is one of the beautiful aspects of the Scientific Method.

indeed, when we get into the quantum universe the "theory of gravity" undergoes a radical shift from how we understand it in the non-quantum universe which is one of the tricky things that prevents the Theory of Everything from coming together. of the four fundamental forces in the universe gravity seems to be the one, thus far, that cannot be reconciled at the quantum level.
 
Everything in science is a theory--it must be falsibiable, hence not absolutely true. My point to Ben was that the experience or actual occasion of having inertia or mass (related but not really the same) still exists in what we call weightlessness. That is how we experience gravity, so we would still be "experiencing gravity" (by knowing we still had mass) in weightlessness.

If we limit gravity to the theory, of course it is not absolute. If we use gravity to mean our experience of it and that experience is inertia or mass, then gravity is a concrete absolute.

You are quite correct that we must always be careful with how we use scientific terms.
 
even massless particles are effected by gravity hence the effect known as gravitational lensing and you are spot on with your explanation of gravity being a warping of timespace...otherwise how could massless particle be effected?

i am fascinated by the discovery, still pending independent verification of course, that nutrenos may travel faster than light.

it's an exciting time to be alive really...

metta,

~v
 
Ben Masada said:
What happened to gravity inside spacecraft shuttles? Hasn't it been neutralized by man?
Ben
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Yes it has!

Benjamin, you're so adorable. Now get down from that bluff or they'll just ramp-up the side.

I hope I don't get censured for this post,
Bhaktajan
 
radarmark said:
Yes, but that is science (light bent by mass). I was talking about gravity as an experience for human beings.
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well... wouldn't that very much depend on where said humans happen to be? granted, on earth it's a pretty sure bet that you'd fall but, there is a chance that something completely bizzare would happen and you'd not... not a great chance so it's better to have a parachute.

of course in orbit, as i think you pointed out, gravity still effects people, they just happened to be balanced between opposing pulls and thus they can experience it as gravity having no effect...though we can duplicate the effect with a quickly rotating wheel, kinda like that ride at the amusement park.

hurray knowledge, hurray beer!

metta,

~v
 
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