Connecting the opposites... What could that mean?

[Marblehead]

Willful ignorance is typically a hallmark of the religious fundamentalist. You shred any credibility you might have as a self-proclaimed rational materialist by rejecting that which is not only rational but easily verifiable. If, instead, you said, Maybe I don't understand this," perhaps you might learn something about the objectivist world you claim to be all that is. To the contrary, however, you find yourself having to reject more and more of the rational objectivism you claim to espouse because it doesn't comport with your uninformed opinion. You do yourself a great disservice, my friend, and I hope you will reconsider your position.

So I am uninformed because I reject stuff that has nothing to do with my real world.  Well, so be that but my world is operating very well without all the BS.

 

My present position is seated.  In front of my computer, no less.

 

I don't even know which of my positions you are referring to.

 

Rejecting useless information is not the same as willful ignorance.  It is called discriminating.

 

So rather than trying to belittle me because I disagree with you why don't you try to convince me that what you are presenting it correct?

 

I reserve the right to change my mind.  But there needs be a reason to do so.

[Marblehead]

Good luck with your home-grown religion.

That is silly.  It is you who is holding religiously to your understandings.  All I have done is disagree with you.

[Wu Ming Jen]

Conflict two opposite forces, that describes walking which is one of our virtues one leg moves forward as one leg moves back but there is harmony united by oneness, the forces are oneness

[Marblehead]

Why ?  Because the air and water are 'pushing' against the  movement or inertia of the boat. Just like Brian's rock 'pushes'

 

So maybe if one cant feel a stone pushing back ... one can feel water pushing back , its just that its bonds are looser and you can push 'through' it  .  A good way to feel this is to do one's kicking training in  thigh deep water. 

So you are going to have the stones pushing back too?  That's fine.  I have many stones around my fish ponds and none of them have ever pushed me.  Seems that we have confusion between the concepts of "pushing back" and "resistance".

 

Or maybe my stones are passive and don't push back.

 

You know, it's not like I am trying to merge with the stone and become "one" with it.  It's just that if a stone have been moved to a position I don't want it to be at I simply pick it up and place it where I want it to be.  I have never had a stone resist my efforts at doing this.

[Marblehead]

Conflict two opposite forces, that describes walking which is one of our virtues one leg moves forward as one leg moves back but there is harmony united by oneness, the forces are oneness

Are you sure about those legs?  Isn't it that one leg moves forward and the other leg remains in place until the moving leg has established a footing and then the second leg moves forward.  We cannot walk forward and backward at the same time.

[Nungali]

Is that an African swallow???

 

No ... I am not going to cross that bridge when I come to it  ... I'll go back the way I came thanks .

 

[Nungali]

But I don't want a swallow. 

 

 

[Marblehead]

No ... I am not going to cross that bridge when I come to it  ... I'll go back the way I came thanks .

But you cannot complete your journey if you go back the way you came.

[Nungali]

Have you ever tried running in opposite directions at the same time?

 Dont be silly, I was talking about teams .  I was in a few teams that did run in opposite directions .... my friend Mario made a home touchdown at the wrong home ... also he thought it was gridiron so he just stood there over the line... the opposing forwards smashed him down and grounded the ball ... 'try'.

 

Mario " Those bastards smashed me after I got a touchdown ! "   Ummm ... dude ... you actually have to touch the ball down in this game and over the line at your  end  !

 

Also the school water polo team ... talk about chaos !  We even had a guy on the team that couldnt swim !   Seriously, he would hang on to the side of the pool and  flounder around with one arm at the ball if it came near him. 

 

One time he got mobbed and swam over, he came up  dog paddling and gasping and one of us had to help him to the side. The ref blew his whistle and stopped the game "What happened to him ?"

 

"Cant swim ."

 

 " What ! ? "

 

" He cant swim . "

 

Ref ;   

 

[Nungali]

Nungali, Your answers in post 72 , dont hold water, Ill just refute, the last one now , but could do so for the others as well..... you said to move the weight one only had to add the tiniest of forces, Its an incorrect answer because Ive already specified that the forces are neutral,, AND your answer defies the rest of your argument ! Since that tiniest of forces must be unopposed to move the weight. If, as you guys are contending ,some new opposing force appears when one asserts a force, then You could NOT move the weight , you said you could with the " tiniest of forces" .Check-mate ,Nungali.

 

 

Not at all .  

 

I was answering a specific question within the frames of that scenario . 

 

The fact is, everything I described .... can actually  be done .

 

 

And besides ... there can be no checkmate here anyway because 

 

 

one cannot argue against this 'motion' 

 

 

http://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bie3n4tCIAEfYOi.jpg:medium

[Marblehead]

 Dont be silly, I was talking about teams .

I was just checking on you.  I started worrying that you might be thinking you were a particle who couldn't be sure that he is a particle or a wave.  Kinda' like when one doesn't know whether they are coming or going.

[Nungali]

Point out one single thing in my explanations which you can refute with fact, theory, evidence, experimentation, logic or ANYTHING other than "nuh-uh" -- or simply say "maybe I don't understand" -- and I'll be glad to resume explaining to you how the physical world works. Until then, I'll consider you a lost cause and a waste of my energy.

 

 

Awwww ... I was looking forward to the 'throw something'  bit   

 

- but I can understand      

[Nungali]

Conflict two opposite forces, that describes walking which is one of our virtues one leg moves forward as one leg moves back but there is harmony united by oneness, the forces are oneness

 

Ahhh ... now we are 'getting there' .

 

Its a tri-force (as I have always stated )   ... what is yin or yang ... some two things ... no it is 3 things , including ( or is it 'embracing' ?)  Dao ... 

 

3 in one  (as I said earlier ) 

 

 

 

 

Can you imagine Brian and Marbles on a sailing boat on a long ocean crossing ?    

 

Hell no, we would have to  have a third one . 

 

If it was me ... I would either end up schizophrantic  or enlightened at the end of it .

 

And each one of us would represent those three principles ;  who is Mars Venus Mercury .... who is sulphur salt mercury  ? 

 

Always these 3 principles are, or fall into, these roles .

 

 

More proof ?   : 

 

 

 

[Nungali]

So you are going to have the stones pushing back too?  That's fine.  I have many stones around my fish ponds and none of them have ever pushed me.  Seems that we have confusion between the concepts of "pushing back" and "resistance".

 

Or maybe my stones are passive and don't push back.

 

You know, it's not like I am trying to merge with the stone and become "one" with it.  It's just that if a stone have been moved to a position I don't want it to be at I simply pick it up and place it where I want it to be.  I have never had a stone resist my efforts at doing this.

 

 

Yeah .....   

 

< swims back to boat > 

 

 

maybe the language was too flowery  ....  resistance may be a better word  ...    but still, with 'water ' ....

 

... hang on a minute ,,,, I will climb back on board first . 

[Nungali]

Are you sure about those legs?  Isn't it that one leg moves forward and the other leg remains in place until the moving leg has established a footing and then the second leg moves forward.  We cannot walk forward and backward at the same time.

 

 

[Nungali]

But you cannot complete your journey if you go back the way you came.

 

Why ?   

 

I have had  to do that here when the bridge is flooded ....  its called a detour  ; go back , go up a forest trail,  across the 'Horseshoe' road, and then down ..... actually that way cuts out 3 bridges ... its longer ... but not in a flood . 

[Marblehead]

More proof ?   :

Too much violence.

[Marblehead]

 

... hang on a minute ,,,, I will climb back on board first . 

Well, hurry up.  A shark is headed your way.

[Marblehead]

And no, the moon walk doesn't apply.  It's an optical illusion.

[Marblehead]

Why ?   

 

I have had  to do that here when the bridge is flooded ....  its called a detour  ; go back , go up a forest trail,  across the 'Horseshoe' road, and then down ..... actually that way cuts out 3 bridges ... its longer ... but not in a flood . 

So now you have added a number of courses of action that weren't in the first post.  But that's fine.

 

 

 

[Nungali]

I was just checking on you.  I started worrying that you might be thinking you were a particle who couldn't be sure that he is a particle or a wave.  Kinda' like when one doesn't know whether they are coming or going.

 

 

Of course ... i am a wavicle ...  or it depends on the medium I travel in.

[Michael Sternbach]

Why ?   

 

I have had  to do that here when the bridge is flooded ....  its called a detour  ; go back , go up a forest trail,  across the 'Horseshoe' road, and then down ..... actually that way cuts out 3 bridges ... its longer ... but not in a flood . 

 

[Nikolai1]

Sorry to break up this fascinating discussion, but I want to go back to the OP...

 

Uniting the opposites need not be understood as acquiring a brand-new perspective to complement our former single-mindedness.  Rather, once the union has been achieved, we realise that both aspects of the pair were always perceived, but we weren't conscious of one of them.  Union therefore comes when we raise something unconscious to the level of consciousness.

 

A good example is our sense of mortality.  Our usual position is to think that we are a person who will live for a certain span of time and then die.  But unconsciously we know that this isn't the case, we just don't have any kind of intellectual handle on this bizarre truth.  This descrepancy between unconscious knowledge of our immortality and conscious knowledge of our mortality manifests at the conscious level as an emotion.  It is an emotion because it falls short of being knowledge.  The emotion is, of course, fear.

 

If there wasn't this conscious/unconscious discrepancy we would accept our conscious version of events (mortality) without any emotion.  Our death would be a fact that just IS...like granite simply IS hard and the rose petal simply IS soft.

 

But this particular pair of opposites requires resolution; and fear, just like any negative emotion, is the objective evidence of that.  The fear is both the result of the discrepancy, and the process by which we resolve it.  Fear of death is produced because of the existence of that part of us that knows we cannot die, and needs this to come to the light.

 

How do we come to know that our fear of death is groundless?

 

Put simply, we need to consciously BE that part of us that does not die.  This is the true aim of all spiritual practice.  When we experience that transcendent self which is the container, we come to see that death is not real and is only ever a monentary thought-form within the container that we are.

 

Gradually our fear of death withers away, and yet paradoxcially, we never deny that our bodies will die.  The event that we formerly feared is still 100% guranteed to happen, but in our wisdom we know that it is not such a big deal.  We will live on.  We will both die and survive.  We are mortal and immortal.  This is the end of fear, and the union of this particular pair of opposites.

[Marblehead]

Nice post Nikolai.  I don't necessarily agree with everything you said but that doesn't matter.

[Wu Ming Jen]

A coin has three sides,

 

In bow and arrow stance without moving the feet to move forward we push off the back foot to move back push of the front foot  using friction and resistance of the entire earth. The same conflict or harmony I describe from walking also describes the forces that move the planets.

 

feeling extreme cold we feel burning, extreme heat we feel a numbing sensation these opposite are polar complete pairs described in the Tai Chi diagram.

 

The polar complete pairs can not be separated, opposition or harmony or option number 3.

 

Was Newton aware of option number 3 because that would unite all of science then the different branches of science could talk to each other and we could graduate into the formless realm.