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James Webb telescope confirms there is something seriously wrong with our understanding of the universe
(www.livescience.com)
this post was submitted on 16 Mar 2024
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We all have our traumas. For instance my grandfather had a similar story - he would not entertain the notion of us having any relion besides Catholicism, though he himself had not attended church in decades. He saw too much how the sausage was made, and could not stomache it, though he still believed, ostensibly, except he did not, but again would not allow us to go our own way without comment. I realize that came from his pain, though have too much of my own to really be able to fully set foot into his shoes there. I realized from all that - and later from reading the irl backstory of CS Lewis, who walked away from his puritanical upbringing to become atheist - that a lot of people have a made-up "god", and that quite frankly Jesus Himself not only "would be" but WAS fucking PISSED at that aspect of life. We all should be more atheistic - yes, this from the very words of Christ Himself!!!!! (hehe, my rather... "liberal" interpretation of them anyway:-P, e.g. "be ye either hot or cold, not just making up whatever the fuck you want and call it a day")
I feel like there is a Truth to the universe - this is what makes e.g. planes fly in (or in Boeing's case fall out of) the sky - and while we do not have to choose to live in Reality, preferring our fantasy dreamland adventures, it really is (probably) better to do so. So the real question is whether God exists or not, not whether we want him to. Ofc that proves a bit hard to answer, or to prove even if someone knew for certain. Like in The Matrix movie, if Neo himself introduced himself to you and you saw him fly, but did not record it on camera (or even if you did), how could you convey that? Similarly, how can smart people convey the complexities of mathematics, of physics, of philosophy, to people who literally cannot - as in do not have the capacity to uptake - understand even a fraction of wha t you speak of? How can people who KNOW convey that both the Left and the Right side of politics are both WRONG, having been bought out by corporate special interests (but that even so, one side is most definitely even more so in that regard lately...)? Ofc we cannot, and really, except the "hard sciences" one, how can we even be fully sure of what we DO happen to know? (and even there, physics is constantly over-turning old ideas - like the latest thought that there is no need for all that "dark matter" that the media has been throwing about for decades now, just poof, it's all gone now!? ofc most things are merely supplanted by a higher-resolution version, like Newtonian is not gone just relegated to a subset of Einsteinian mathematical formulations of our understanding of the universe)
Another thing I use the Bible for btw is as a repository of the "wisdom of the ages", as in even though I believe in a God, putting that aside and conjecturing at worst as if that were a false statement even, there is still some merit in its depictions of things. And I definitely looked through its verses regarding teaching... which convey that you just CAN'T force knowledge onto people, not b/c of stupidity but rather b/c of obstinancy. "You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make it drink." I still would have offered them the benefits of my knowledge & experience regardless, except it was heartbroken to think that they were being saddled with generational levels of debt, for a degree that they probably would not even use, b/c they lacked the emotional maturity level to handle life beyond the (post-No Child Left Behind era) high school level.
Regrets: I actually have very few of those in my life, b/c I realize that the past me did not know what the current me does, so how could I have done any differently, and furthermore why bother thinking along the lines as if I somehow could? That said, like CS Lewis (this being the main reason why I like him, b/c I so very much "get" his struggles), I often arrive at the correct conclusion from the most bass-ackwards route, which highly ironically may thereby end up making it potentially the wrong thing, for me in my circumstances. So am I "ahead", or am I "behind"? Yes! I have a feeling that you, having experienced more than one major "transition" in your own life, may understand exactly what I mean there!:-P (others may be born there already, while you had to struggle to get there, and vice versa) But no matter how painful, those struggles are also what define us and give us character so... tbh I probably would have skipped them, but I am also grateful, in a tiny way, that I am who I am now, and can appreciate so much that I otherwise would not have been able to - if that makes any sense whatsoever?
I would guess that people love you b/c you seem to have genuine empathy + depth both. That seems... rare these days. It should NOT be, and you would not think it, but given how often people take advantage, it does seem to be like a beautiful flower that gets mowed over quickly as if it were some weed that people feel the need to stamp out quickly:-(. Especially on the interwebz. If you want, you can use that power to make people feel better - as you already do, but I mean consciously! - but ofc I hope you also hold it in check, so that you manage to meet your own needs as well (which are ofc interconnected to helping others, so it truly is a balance there, not just all one or all the other way). I feel like it is good to be Masters of ourselves rather than the other way around. Which ironically... I accomplish by giving in to my desires? But like, making sure that I acknowledge ALL of those, not hyper-fixate on just one at any given moment.
Bring on the part 2 then! When you are ready. I know what you mean about ownership - I have nothing now but one day if I ever could, the thought of needing to do that worries me. As it probably should:-). 💫
Funny, I was thinking about something similar last night. I'm not a very mathematically inclined person but for some reason last night I was thinking about it and how people who are "mathematically inclined" must see the world in a completely different way than I do. Kind of like how your average gamer and a game programmer might see a video game world differently. You can try to explain to the gamer who knows nothing of the complexities behind game programming and how it is really just all numbers, but they might not be able to see the numbers that make up that beautiful world you're playing in. This line of thinking can be applied to so many things. I sometimes feel like we may all be on the same planet but we all live in a completely different world.
Yes, that is how I see it too. I don't know if I had mentioned it in one of my previous replies, since I don't even remember when that was, but I actually found my grandmothers old bible a couple days ago and decided to start reading it. I read the Satanic bible so I figured I might as well give God's book a chance! I think it can definitely be a useful tool in that regard because things really haven't changed all that much. Humans are still the same.
I see it the same way you do. Were it possible, I might go back in time and tell my younger self to do some things differently, but I would effectively be killing my current self and I love this bitch. It wasn't always the case but now I think I'm actually kinda cool, I can see value in myself and I wouldn't want to be someone else. All roads lead to home, some are just longer than others but in the grand scheme of things I don't believe there is such a thing as wasted time.
Yeah, that is one thing that had made me grow a bit cold in the past, as a coping mechanism. Fortunately over the years I have learned to deal with these things a lot better. I can't avoid abusers but I can recognize them and limit their impact on me. When I say abusers I don't necessarily mean bad people either, although there have been some. Some people just don't realize just how much of their pain I soak up when they dump their trauma on me and some would basically only use me for that but I let it happen. I think it is just as much my fault as it is theirs, I simply overestimated what I could handle. I might've also been able to handle much more when I was younger but then as I grew older that shit started weighing really heavily on me.
That is something I have only recently realized I had to do, for the sake of all my loved ones I need to prioritize myself.
You may not be a fan of Kendrick Lamar but his song "Mirror" off his latest album (Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers) resonated with me SO strongly. I get the most intense "frissons" whenever I listen to it. The entire album is an absolute masterpiece, as is everything he does in my opinion. It all builds up to "Mirror", it might not be as impactful if you haven't listened to the whole album but it still is.
Absolutely, you need to do what you need to do to build a strong foundation for yourself. Only when you have that can you support others.
Some people can think in 7 dimensions at once, or so they say. For those of us who struggle to even contemplate a hypercube, we may not even begin to realize how impressive that must be. Then again, that is only one form of IQ, and EQ is still entirely separate. Still, how could an eagle even begin to describe to a turtle what life is like? Not that an eagle is "better" and a turtle "worse", but despite coinhabiting the same "world" as in physical space, they do experience that world according to SUCH different criteria that they essentially live in separate realities, like different dimensions of that "world".
As you said. Similarly in the USA, a white person can call out to a police officer and have some expectation of receiving immediate help, whereas a black person might get the literal opposite of help if they tried the same action. Rich or beautiful people likewise receive differential treatment - the same location, the same experiences, but received against a backdrop of a different lifestyle. Getting fired, or divorced, may just be laughed off by those who would be "set free" by such, vs. someone for whom that is their last thread. It is "the same"... yet so very, Very, VERY different! The tortise and the eagle, or the hare.
The irony there is that mathematics is pretty much the one universal constant. English, or French, or other languages may vary in their interpretation, and even Logic itself becomes subsumed by mere Justification in human hands. Even programming languages differ - identical syntax may be interpreted differently by C, C++, Java, etc. - though it does come fairly close when you specify all of the code, the language, and the receiving device, which together deterministically implements the mathematical instructions via the flow of electrons in the physical world. Math made real - pattern becomes substance (or something else even cooler-sounding, I dunno:-P).
Speaking of I have not read a Satanic one - surely there must be more than one type? - but I would give it a chance if I ever came across it. There's a lot to like there. Also a lot I do not like, but that is the same with literally everything. Not quite the same thing, but on a related note: most pagan religions "lost" the war against Christianity, which I feel like gives the latter some credence. Although... ofc it is not that Christianity "won", so much as that they "lost" - a HUGE distinction. Perhaps Christianity will lose someday as well... or maybe Jesus is a space/reality alien and when the energy beings come to enslave the human race, those of us who follow it will have been more properly prepared to serve the new overlords? (after all, if Might makes Right, especially for a being - like the owner of The Matrix - who literally can MAKE a Universe, then they do get to call the shots, whether we like it or not) Yeah, that's pretty out there, so I will bring us back to: who knows, really? Nobody, at least not perfectly, though we try to do the best we can, as far as we know at the time.
I do not believe in wasted time either... although just try telling that to a boss! Those with more authoritarian mindsets are not capable of accepting this aspect of the Universe, and I concede too that there must be a Balance. So wtf does that even mean - that it both is a waste of time, yet that waste was itself not a waste!? Yes. You get me. It is a contradiction, and within that paradox lies such beauty as to take our breaths away. Yin and Yang - not one or the other, but fucking both, always and never not that.
You also have a beautiful perspective on abusers: sometimes they do not mean it, sometimes they do but are not "evil", sometimes they are but... so what? We still gotta roll how we want to, not just always react to however others want, or even not want, us to. We chase after our goals, and they do whatever little thing they want, and we need not even break our stride as we press onwards. This point was REALLY driven home for me HARD when Trump won the 2016 election. Conservatives just did not give two fucks about "him", but they liked what he could do for them... it was quite strategic. Raw. Naked. Bleeding. Evil incarnate... and therefore beautiful for all of that? Like that movie Haunting of Hill House: a darkness that shines as bright as the stars themselves - and all the more deadly as a result of that. Jon Stewart tried to warn us, he foresaw that and said how "liberal media aims to be correct, but conservative media aims to be effective". This is why I have lost faith in democracy: it depends on presuppositions, specifically that the voting citizenry are aiming to vote correctly, and that errors are distributed randomly; however it is vulnerable to an outside attack that cause all the errors to bend in a single direction: towards the will of the evil ones (whoever they may be - Putin, Bezos, Musk, and others who prefer to hide deeper in the shadows). Oh well. Like everything else: I will enjoy it while I can.
But anyway, you were speaking of smaller-scale abuses, like a turtle crying over something to another turtle, never realizing that e.g. taking a long time to speak could be agonizing to an eagle (or the analogy works far better in reverse:-D). Many people do not realize it. Many others do realize it but do not care:-(. Some even realize it, care, and enjoy it:-|!? But if you get overwhelmed, you cannot help anyone else, least of all yourself, so yeah, guard your heart, most definitely. Literall nobody else can do it for you (well, they can help though:-).
I want to share with you a phrase that I have always hated: "If you see yourself in others, whom can you harm?" Whoever invented that must have had two loving parents, and can just fuck right off as far as I am concerned for rubbing that in the faces of those of us who did not. Setting that aside, part-way, even if you gave zero thought to your own welfare and cared exclusively for others, you STILL need to take care of yourself, or you will not be able to do that! (for very long) YOU ARE A PEOPLE TOO!!! I really like how the Bible portrays that: "the measuring procedure that you use to levy judgement upon others is the identical process by which you will use to judge yourself". People either suck, in which case you do, or they are worthwhile, in which case... say it with me... you are worthwhile too:-P. I have fought against this every hour of every day of my entire life, but it is True nonetheless. I HATE that thought... but I can't fight physics, or in this case the more relevant part is that it is just how human psychology works. I do not know much, but this is one that I do feel certain about, and I hope sharing these thoughts help you too (and by extension, perhaps me as well?:-P).
I am glad that you are going through such a time of change, to be able to get frissons!:-) I have been closing off so much lately that it will take some time to open up again:-(. But that too... is not a waste of time (except it is, but even so - it is what must be:-). I almost wonder why he says "I'm sorry", b/c it is the Right thing to do, though I get that he does feel guilt for it too, but still there is that nagging thought: is that a slight admission of doubt, that he is not entirely certain that it is the correct path? And like, he could have said "I need to choose Me", but instead he chose the other wording... so I wonder, what does that mean? I am probably over-thinking it, and quite frankly the intricacies hardly matter, b/c the main thing is what it means to you. I am SOOO glad that it gives you peace - b/c yes gurl you NEED to get that!:-)
About me saying that I accomplish Mastery of my Mind, I wanted to be sure that I conveyed that I feel like I cannot win when it becomes a "struggle" - even at best if one side or the other were to totally conquer the opponent, then I overall would lose. So by "giving in to my desires", I mean not fighting it, nor letting it win either, but striving to achieve that Yin/Yang balance of winning when and where most needs to happen at each given moment, the trick being to find what that is. Some things I have practiced enough to have a really good idea of precisely where that line is, while other things I severely struggle on a daily basis to even identify the factors involved. As I suspect we all do, at least those of us who allow ourselves to remain open to adventure rather than falling prey to stagnation.
Hehe, this music is good for other reasons too:-D.