Urantia Book Forum

Urantia Book Discussion Board : Study Group
It is currently Wed Jan 29, 2020 4:11 am +0000

View unanswered posts | View active topics


Board index » Main » General Urantia Book Discussion

All times are UTC - 7 hours




Post new topic Reply to topic  Page 1 of 19
  [ 276 posts ]  Go to page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 ... 19  Next
  Previous topic | Next topic 
Author Message
 Post subject: Metaphysics
PostPosted:  
Offline

Joined: Sun Mar 25, 2012 5:29 am +0000
Posts: 4061
Metaphysics dictionary definition:

NOUN

the branch of philosophy that deals with the first principles of things, including abstract concepts such as being, knowing, substance, cause, identity, time, and space.

abstract theory with no basis in reality.


UB keyword search for metaphysics OR metaphysical:

https://truthbook.com/search/UBParagrap ... &start=all


The Papers teach us how inevitable, inherent, and natural is the construction, by mind, of explanations for that which is observed or that which is believed to exist but is not observed. This can be about either causes of observed effects or the effects of observed or theorized causes. Anything at all we can imagine to explain something is metaphysical.


The mind, we are taught, is designed to invent context and perspective in order to understand. It will invent fictions if need be to complete this important task. Is this the reason that faith trumps knowledge in this brief mortal life? Is this why the Spirits have the power to create urges, impulses, and yearns which we respond to without understanding or knowledge? I think so yes!! Personal revelation is focused almost exclusively on religious truth for the spiritization of the mind - it is not a source of empirical knowledge and fact about the material world or the cosmology of the universe.


That is the task and purpose of Epochal Revelation - the delivery of critical facts and knowledge or the material world and the cosmos and our source and destiny and relationship to all of creation. This knowledge is delivered to reduce the confusions and eliminate the errors of metaphysics!!


Metaphysics are very important bridges and links for the ability to formulate perspective of reality, more and more of which is scientifically proven to be true and real, a progressive evolution of fact discovered by the scientific method which becomes verified over time as a dependable reality-construct. But even though more becomes factually known, still does even more become open for further speculation and explanation and thus come forth theories and beliefs to explain the otherwise unexplainable.


We invent creation stories...some religionist offer a false metaphysical explanation (the 6 day wonder!) and some scientists offer another and competing false explanation called the big bang. Both are metaphysical explanations for an unknown. And both are "abstract theories with no basis in reality". Now we know what really happened...and when...and how....and why!!


For some who find the Papers and these facts of universe reality, so many personal metaphysics - those theories and beliefs we all hold to construct our perspective of reality, whether based on so called modern science or traditional religions - find conflict and contradiction which can make it difficult to lay aside these prejudices of belief (false belief) and adjust our paradigms and lens of perspective to factual and actual universe reality.


Even here and at other study groups of the Papers, do we find those who make endless proclamations and declarations and write out their own theories and fables of personal fabrication trying to explain what the UB clearly and redundantly explains as the factual presentation of reality to reduce such confusions and eliminate such errors as these mortal authors persist in defending here. Perplexing.


Metaphysics is a natural function of the mind....but it is a poor substitute for factual knowledge. This gift of factual knowledge to our world is destined to eliminate much of the factless fictional creations of theories, myths, false beliefs, and fables for the generations to come and to nurture a truer philosophy of living based on a factual perspective of universe reality for an entire world to elevate humanity to new heights in the Mortal Epochs.


I hope we might explore that which is now metaphysical in its falsehood and belief and compare such fictions with the facts provided in the Revelation which cause and require tectonic shifts in perspective of universe reality. Remember...there is only one universe reality....there are many different perspectives and subjective experiences of reality....but only one objective reality. Our eternal adventure is designed to reduce the subjective lens and widen the objective lens of reality by both education and experience. This textbook called the Urantia Papers is an important tool gifted us to gain a more objective view and factual perspective of universe reality...a book filled with thousands of reliable and meaningful facts to replace errors and confusions!!


We are also taught that substituting our opinions about these facts for those facts is a grave error, an evil that should be avoided....there is only one reality. Our opinions of it are but subjective metaphysics...personal abstract theories and fictional constructs without basis in reality....human distortions and limited subjective perspective. If that were desirable or sufficient then we would not be given Epochal Revelation at all. Or so I understand.

103:6.7 Your difficulty in arriving at a more harmonious co-ordination between science and religion is due to your utter ignorance of the intervening domain of the morontia world of things and beings. The local universe consists of three degrees, or stages, of reality manifestation: matter, morontia, and spirit. The morontia angle of approach erases all divergence between the findings of the physical sciences and the functioning of the spirit of religion. Reason is the understanding technique of the sciences; faith is the insight technique of religion; mota is the technique of the morontia level. Mota is a supermaterial reality sensitivity which is beginning to compensate incomplete growth, having for its substance knowledge-reason and for its essence faith-insight. Mota is a superphilosophical reconciliation of divergent reality perception which is nonattainable by material personalities; it is predicated, in part, on the experience of having survived the material life of the flesh. But many mortals have recognized the desirability of having some method of reconciling the interplay between the widely separated domains of science and religion; and metaphysics is the result of man's unavailing attempt to span this well-recognized chasm. But human metaphysics has proved more confusing than illuminating. Metaphysics stands for man's well-meant but futile effort to compensate for the absence of the mota of morontia.

8) Bradly
Top
 Profile Send private message  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject: Re: Metaphysics
PostPosted:  
Offline

Joined: Sun Mar 25, 2012 5:29 am +0000
Posts: 4061
Factual knowledge of universe reality is an important element to gaining a more objective reality perspective. However, as metaphysics (or the invented solutions to material reality mysteries) are displaced by actual facts related to reality over time and by education, still does mystery remain. There will always remain that which is unknown to us about reality and the phenomena we witness...the inexplicable, which even the authors of the Papers reveal to us that they too share the fact of mystery and the response of speculation to all mysteries.

For example, the spiritization of mind, our relationship with God, the birth of soul, and fusion with the Adjuster are so personal and subjective that they simply cannot be reduced to any form of objective or factual description adequate to express the subjective truth experience.

103:8.2 (1140.2) The confusion about the experience of the certainty of God arises out of the dissimilar interpretations and relations of that experience by separate individuals and by different races of men. The experiencing of God may be wholly valid, but the discourse about God, being intellectual and philosophical, is divergent and oftentimes confusingly fallacious.


I think wisdom is also more than reality perspective and knowledge based. Faith, religious experience, spiritual transformation, experiential wisdom, and our relationship with God is more about truth, beauty, and goodness - the subjective experience and our expression of that experience within reality - than it is about the facts and objectivity of universe reality.


Philosophy connects these two realities of the subjective experience within the objective reality. There is only one universe reality but there are a near infinite number and varieties of personal experience and expression of that singular reality. And the Supreme is the integrated aggregation of all those unique experiences and expressions of personal subjectivity.

196:3.20 [Part IV]
Every time man makes a reflective moral choice, he immediately experiences a new divine invasion of his soul. Moral choosing constitutes religion as the motive of inner response to outer conditions. But such a real religion is not a purely subjective experience. It signifies the whole of the subjectivity of the individual engaged in a meaningful and intelligent response to total objectivity — the universe and its Maker.


This is why, perhaps, it is often so difficult to find adequate words to describe our relgious experience and relationship with God for such "...discourse about God, being intellectual and philosophical, is divergent and oftentimes confusingly fallcious."!!!


But the inability to adequately describe our religious experience does not dimminish its certainty, importance, meaning, value, or results - the Divine fruits of the Spirit. And this personal experience is available to us all no matter how false is our metaphysical constructs and fictions and mythologies of the universe. Those corrections will come in time...by epochal revelation on the worlds of origin and by simple education on the worlds to come. Reality alignment helps our philosophy to improve perspective as we live our life and make our choices...but still is it faith that can transcend myth and falsehood and build a bridge for us into eternity itself!

103:9.12 (1142.3) There is a reality in religious experience that is proportional to the spiritual content, and such a reality is transcendent to reason, science, philosophy, wisdom, and all other human achievements. The convictions of such an experience are unassailable; the logic of religious living is incontrovertible; the certainty of such knowledge is superhuman; the satisfactions are superbly divine, the courage indomitable, the devotions unquestioning, the loyalties supreme, and the destinies final—eternal, ultimate, and universal.

8)
Top
 Profile Send private message  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject: Re: Metaphysics
PostPosted:  
Offline
User avatar

Joined: Sun Jan 22, 2012 11:16 pm +0000
Posts: 1166
Location: Nanticoke NY
I am heard of this term "metaphysics" from many other cultures? But the Urantia Papers suggest that metaphysics would be borne borne of the Power Directors. Authors Designated an entirely separate subject matter "morontial maturation" to those aspects of mind which pertain to the developing rational functionality of man, within the expanding mind-potential of perception. I don't think you can take the culture and apply what it means according to the URantia Papers - metaphysics as we know metaphysics as a science would have to be entirely reoriented in lieu of central universe and universe reality, before one would begin to explain it.

_________________
to the Underlaying Unity of All Life so that the Voice of Intuition may guide Us closer to Our Common Keeper
Top
 Profile Send private message  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject: Re: Metaphysics
PostPosted:  
Offline

Joined: Sun Mar 25, 2012 5:29 am +0000
Posts: 4061
SEla_Kelly wrote:
I am heard of this term "metaphysics" from many other cultures? But the Urantia Papers suggest that metaphysics would be borne borne of the Power Directors. Authors Designated an entirely separate subject matter "morontial maturation" to those aspects of mind which pertain to the developing rational functionality of man, within the expanding mind-potential of perception. I don't think you can take the culture and apply what it means according to the URantia Papers - metaphysics as we know metaphysics as a science would have to be entirely reoriented in lieu of central universe and universe reality, before one would begin to explain it.


I look forward to supporting text SEla for your statement above, as I can find none which "suggests" the Power Directors are related to metaphysics.

It appears to me that the common human usage of the word equates directly with the UB....metaphysics is not scientific or a science except that it it seeks explanations and understanding...but without actual facts and proofs. Rather, it is a speculative substitute for science. It is a non-factual belief or theory in lieu of scientific evidence or empirical proofs. It is an invented explanation. It is a theory. It is a belief without basis in reality.

But there actually is a scientific explanation provided by epochal revelation...if one is willing to drop our self created inventions and fictions of reality....our metaphorical or metaphysical beliefs and explanations of reality which are but mere temporary substitutions for reality. The very purpose of the UB is to reduce such confusions and eliminate these errors of metaphysics.


When I say temporary substitutions, perhaps it would also be accurate to say that sometimes metaphysics is part of the scientific method...the part that comes prior to evidence or validation by proofs....that part that is related to theorization, speculation, supposition, and all forms of imagination used to explain that which is currently without explanation. Our ancestors from one million years ago and since invented all sorts of explanations for everything which led to all manner of superstitions and beliefs based on pure fiction...but most of which also led to discovery and understanding of a more practical, truthful, and factual basis.

103:7.8 The truth—an understanding of cosmic relationships, universe facts, and spiritual values—can best be had through the ministry of the Spirit of Truth and can best be criticized by revelation. But revelation originates neither a science nor a religion; its function is to co-ordinate both science and religion with the truth of reality. Always, in the absence of revelation or in the failure to accept or grasp it, has mortal man resorted to his futile gesture of metaphysics, that being the only human substitute for the revelation of truth or for the mota of morontia personality.

103:7.9 The science of the material world enables man to control, and to some extent dominate, his physical environment. The religion of the spiritual experience is the source of the fraternity impulse which enables men to live together in the complexities of the civilization of a scientific age. Metaphysics but more certainly revelation, affords a common meeting ground for the discoveries of both science and religion and makes possible the human attempt logically to correlate these separate but interdependent domains of thought into a well-balanced philosophy of scientific stability and religious certainty.

103:7.10 In the mortal state, nothing can be absolutely proved; both science and religion are predicated on assumptions. On the morontia level, the postulates of both science and religion are capable of partial proof by mota logic. On the spiritual level of maximum status, the need for finite proof gradually vanishes before the actual experience of and with reality; but even then there is much beyond the finite that remains unproved.


8)
Top
 Profile Send private message  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject: Re: Metaphysics
PostPosted:  
Offline

Joined: Thu Nov 24, 2016 4:57 pm +0000
Posts: 7
Quote:
When I say temporary substitutions, perhaps it would also be accurate to say that sometimes metaphysics is part of the scientific method...the part that comes prior to evidence or validation by proofs....that part that is related to theorization, speculation, supposition, and all forms of imagination used to explain that which is currently without explanation.


I think this is very much the case, Bradley. All theories are philosophical statements, and metaphysics is simply the branch of philosophy dealing with fundamental questions of reality. Not all these theories are abstract with no basis in reality. Most theories are developed on certain premises, some of which are more reliable than others. The Big Bang theory you mentioned is a classic example of a theory based on fairly reliable premises which most scientists agree on but, as we know by revelation (and perhaps by philosophical argument), the theory is not true. The premises may be correct but the interpretation of the evidence is not. More importantly, as you imply, the Big Bang theory is not a true scientific theory because it simply cannot be tested by any means. It is, therefore, metaphysical.

While the same could be said of any theory about the existence of God, at least God can be realized on a personal experiential level, which is more than can be said for any metaphysical argument on the origins of the universe.

And while we are encouraged to continue in our philosophical endeavors, it seems we must come to rely on revelation to further develop our philosophical arguments as well as our grasp of cosmic consciousness (the inter-relatedness of it all).

"The highest attainable philosophy of mortal man must be logically based on the reason of science, the faith of religion, and the truth insight afforded by revelation. By this union man can compensate somewhat for his failure to develop an adequate metaphysics and for his inability to comprehend the mota of the morontia." 103:6.15
Top
 Profile Send private message  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject: Re: Metaphysics
PostPosted:  
Offline

Joined: Fri Jan 06, 2012 9:14 pm +0000
Posts: 104
Bradley wrote:
fanofVan wrote:
"Remember... there is only one universe reality... there are many different perspectives and subjective experiences of reality....but only one objective reality. Our eternal adventure is designed to reduce the subjective lens and widen the objective lens of reality by both education and experience."

Describes where I was at, that day in 1978 when I went into the Theosophical Society's Sydney bookshop and asked the lady in charge if they had anything "more substantial" than the row upon row of mystic and metaphysical manuscripts that filled the shop. She smiled and said, "Well dear, there is this", as she pulled out a full-fat, hardcover 6th printing Urantia book from under the counter.

Like Bradley, I too had come to think that there must be "a way that things are". After 3 years of feverish adolescent searching, I'd grown tired -- of endless thin opinions and pale beliefs -- as I tried to track down worthwhile ideas about "what, and why, we are".

SEla_Kelly wrote:
(our metaphysics...) "would have to be entirely reoriented in lieu of central universe and universe reality, before one would begin to explain it."

Yes indeed! In this regard, in 2016 Princeton University Press published a review by Roger Penrose about the way metaphysics is now interacting (and interfering) with hard core physics,

Link: Fashion, Faith, and Fantasy in the New Physics of the Universe.

From Amazon blurb:
Quote:
What can fashionable ideas, blind faith, or pure fantasy possibly have to do with the scientific quest to understand the universe? Surely, theoretical physicists are immune to mere trends, dogmatic beliefs, or flights of fancy? In fact, acclaimed physicist and bestselling author Roger Penrose argues that researchers working at the extreme frontiers of physics are just as susceptible to these forces as anyone else. In this provocative book, he argues that fashion, faith, and fantasy, while sometimes productive and even essential in physics, may be leading today's researchers astray in three of the field's most important areas -- string theory, quantum mechanics, and cosmology.

See publisher's page here: Princeton University Press, book review here: The Guardian.

Since then, this and other similar commentaries have triggered an outflow of fresh discussion -- among philosophers, theologians and cosmologists -- about just how much unaided humanity can hope to perceive about "reality", about the way things really are.

Seems like the time is ripe O:)

Nigel
Top
 Profile Send private message  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject: Re: Metaphysics
PostPosted:  
Offline
User avatar

Joined: Sun Jan 22, 2012 11:16 pm +0000
Posts: 1166
Location: Nanticoke NY
Why would the actual science of metaphysics be rooted in the actualities and manifestations of Paradise through the cascading Power Directors of the Seven Universes? Of course because, this pertains to the sustenance of God's Creation. Metaphysics and the supersensible is the approach of worthiness to receive the enhanced ministry of the seven adjutant spirits, which is a manifestation of the Divine Minister.

If people actually are seeking "that food and drink which even the Apostles know not of", or as it were described in the Epistles of Paul, they do certainly in accordance with the Spirit of Truth approach that reality which is revealed in ever rarified substances of the mind. How is this sustained in the universe? How does the universe actually "operate and distribute" this supposedly "Kharma"-netting of homeostasis and actions borne of sentient individuals.

You cannot answer the questions of metaphysics without knowing the distribution and ministry of the universe. But, if I can remember correctly, metaphysics was not meant by scientists to exist abstractedly or purely theoretically.

_________________
to the Underlaying Unity of All Life so that the Voice of Intuition may guide Us closer to Our Common Keeper
Top
 Profile Send private message  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject: Re: Metaphysics
PostPosted:  
Offline

Joined: Fri Jan 06, 2012 9:14 pm +0000
Posts: 104
SEla_Kelly wrote:
You cannot answer the questions of metaphysics without knowing the distribution and ministry of the universe.

Hi SEla_Kelly -- are you referring to the literal [meta=beyond]-physics underlying the 4 global circuits that keep the creation going? As you know, the Urantia book describes these as 1. personal, 2. spiritual, 3. mindal, and 4. material, each of which is centered on it's appropriate absolute, the so-called {1st, 2nd, 3rd, and Paradise} sources and centers. From (12:3.6, 131.9)

Quote:
"These four circuits are not related to the nether Paradise force center; they are neither force, energy, nor power circuits. They are absolute presence circuits and like God are independent of time and space." (131.9, 12:3.6)

Given the Urantia book description about the 4 distinct gravities pertaining to these 4 "absolute presence circuits", it would be quite something to explore the literal "physics" of these gravitations!

However, in this discussion, I think Bradley wants to focus on the definition for metaphysics used in the UB, not so much its transcendental extrapolation?

Nigel
Top
 Profile Send private message  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject: Re: Metaphysics
PostPosted:  
Offline

Joined: Wed Apr 13, 2011 5:21 am +0000
Posts: 972
hmm well the term metaphysics in the papers is not the same as the dictionary definition. metaphysics and revelation are essentially the same thing in the papers, both attempts to unify matter and spirit and both fall short...both more or less erroneous, but useful and serviceable scaffolding upon which higher conceptual frames can be formed. never forget that all this scaffolding will be torn down, all except personality and personality relationships and not until the third mansion world will we be capable of true metaphysics.
Top
 Profile Send private message  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject: Re: Metaphysics
PostPosted:  
Offline

Joined: Sun Mar 25, 2012 5:29 am +0000
Posts: 4061
SEla_Kelly wrote:
Why would the actual science of metaphysics be rooted in the actualities and manifestations of Paradise through the cascading Power Directors of the Seven Universes? Of course because, this pertains to the sustenance of God's Creation. Metaphysics and the supersensible is the approach of worthiness to receive the enhanced ministry of the seven adjutant spirits, which is a manifestation of the Divine Minister.

If people actually are seeking "that food and drink which even the Apostles know not of", or as it were described in the Epistles of Paul, they do certainly in accordance with the Spirit of Truth approach that reality which is revealed in ever rarified substances of the mind. How is this sustained in the universe? How does the universe actually "operate and distribute" this supposedly "Kharma"-netting of homeostasis and actions borne of sentient individuals.

You cannot answer the questions of metaphysics without knowing the distribution and ministry of the universe. But, if I can remember correctly, metaphysics was not meant by scientists to exist abstractedly or purely theoretically.


Once again I request some actual text support SEla. Please provide some.

Nothing in the UB either states or suggests "that metaphysics would be borne of the Power Directors." That is a personal opinion that well illustrates an example of metaphysics - a fictional or non-factual invention of mind in an attempt to explain and/or understand something not understood.

You state "...metaphysics as we know metaphysics as a science..."

SEla - metaphysics is not a science, or not according TO science OR scientists OR TUB. Nothing factual is also metaphysical SEla, which means that nothing presented in the UB is metaphysical either...if one believes the claims of the authors as presenting the facts (or more accurately 'some' of the facts) of universe reality. There are many more facts of course yet to be revealed in our morontial education to come.


What do you mean by "cascading"?

"Supersensible"?

What is the "enhanced ministry" of the Adjutants?

How does one become "worthy" of that?

What are "rarified substances of the mind"?

Of course metaphysics was "meant by scientists to exist abstractly or purely theoretically."!!! That is the original greek and historical and current definition of the word AND the prefix! That which comes after and goes beyond physics!

SEla - In the study of the UB here in this classroom of UB studies, 2 things are very helpful - posting supporting text and using the actual vocabulary and terms of the text as used within the same text. Otherwise all you offer is the fiction of personal misconception and metaphysics. Thank you.

8)
Top
 Profile Send private message  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject: Re: Metaphysics
PostPosted:  
Offline

Joined: Sun Mar 25, 2012 5:29 am +0000
Posts: 4061
Makalu wrote:
hmm well the term metaphysics in the papers is not the same as the dictionary definition. metaphysics and revelation are essentially the same thing in the papers, both attempts to unify matter and spirit and both fall short...both more or less erroneous, but useful and serviceable scaffolding upon which higher conceptual frames can be formed. never forget that all this scaffolding will be torn down, all except personality and personality relationships and not until the third mansion world will we be capable of true metaphysics.



Please explain the differences you perceive between the dictionary definition and the UB definition/usage. I find them precisely compatible myself...indeed I would say they are identical in form, substance, function, and meaning! And I would also offer a different opinion than your statement that metaphysics and personal or epochal revelation is the "same" or essentially the same thing. Not at all.

103:6.8 Metaphysics has proved a failure; mota, man cannot perceive. Revelation is the only technique which can compensate for the absence of the truth sensitivity of mota in a material world. Revelation authoritatively clarifies the muddle of reason-developed metaphysics on an evolutionary sphere.


103:6.12 Out of his incomplete grasp of science, his faint hold upon religion, and his abortive attempts at metaphysics, man has attempted to construct his formulations of philosophy. And modern man would indeed build a worthy and engaging philosophy of himself and his universe were it not for the breakdown of his all-important and indispensable metaphysical connection between the worlds of matter and spirit, the failure of metaphysics to bridge the morontia gulf between the physical and the spiritual. Mortal man lacks the concept of morontia mind and material; and revelation is the only technique for atoning for this deficiency in the conceptual data which man so urgently needs in order to construct a logical philosophy of the universe and to arrive at a satisfying understanding of his sure and settled place in that universe.

103:6.13 Revelation is evolutionary man's only hope of bridging the morontia gulf. Faith and reason, unaided by mota, cannot conceive and construct a logical universe. Without the insight of mota, mortal man cannot discern goodness, love, and truth in the phenomena of the material world.


103:7.8 The truth—an understanding of cosmic relationships, universe facts, and spiritual values—can best be had through the ministry of the Spirit of Truth and can best be criticized by revelation. But revelation originates neither a science nor a religion; its function is to co-ordinate both science and religion with the truth of reality. Always, in the absence of revelation or in the failure to accept or grasp it, has mortal man resorted to his futile gesture of metaphysics, that being the only human substitute for the revelation of truth or for the mota of morontia personality.


Me here: Both revelation and metaphysics share similar functions in mind....if not attributes or value....but, we are told, metaphysics is a poor substitute...like shoe leather or tree bark instead of steak for example - leather and bark may also be chewed upon but the results are hardly the same as eating the steak!


Also to be considered is the difference between personal revelation and epochal revelation with the added voice of the Spirit of Truth...and the source and functionality of intuition and insight as well. So many issues to explore related to metaphysics.


Once we come to understand the meaning of metaphysics, perhaps we can explore the value metaphysics bring to mind. Remember...the mind is created to understand the why and how of all things. We are intensly curious and seek knowledge. These are inherent and more than instinctual...although these attributes are also instinctual! But we never outgrow or are shed of this urge and yearn and drive to know and to understand...it will be with us forever! We are taught the mind, driven by this need to understand, will and does INVENT explanations and beliefs, even beliefs we claim to be facts...false 'facts' and myths and fables and fictions! Humanity depends upon these to function...we must have context and perspective!! Even if we must invent both!

This is the topic I aim for....eventually. But first let us resolve the issue of definition to then approach the deeper and more interesting topic of how persons as individuals and collectively as tribes, nations, cultures, societies, and whole worlds progress from complete the ignorance and fantasy of total subjectivity to the sublime objectivity of reality!! The UB provides us a fascinating glimpse of how mortals and humanity can progress in the Spirit and by material experiential wisdom through all levels of partial knowledge and understanding to ever more complete levels of those over time.

Especially fascinating, to me, is how total savages and barbarians and the most ignorant of children still progress in religious experience, first by the evolutionary and faith methods to give birth to soul, and then by the personal revelatory relationship and experience with the God Fragment within, which can overcome all fictions and false beliefs to yield a soul destined for eternal life!! What a fantastic story to consider!!

8)


14:5.7 (159.3) Not until you traverse the last of the Havona circuits and visit the last of the Havona worlds, will the tonic of adventure and the stimulus of curiosity disappear from your career. And then will the urge, the forward impulse of eternity, replace its forerunner, the adventure lure of time.

14:5.10 (159.6) Love of adventure, curiosity, and dread of monotony—these traits inherent in evolving human nature—were not put there just to aggravate and annoy you during your short sojourn on earth, but rather to suggest to you that death is only the beginning of an endless career of adventure, an everlasting life of anticipation, an eternal voyage of discovery.

14:5.11 (160.1) Curiosity—the spirit of investigation, the urge of discovery, the drive of exploration—is a part of the inborn and divine endowment of evolutionary space creatures. These natural impulses were not given you merely to be frustrated and repressed. True, these ambitious urges must frequently be restrained during your short life on earth, disappointment must be often experienced, but they are to be fully realized and gloriously gratified during the long ages to come.

:wink: :biggrin: :idea: :!: 8)


Last edited by fanofVan on Fri Dec 28, 2018 10:05 am +0000, edited 1 time in total.

Top
 Profile Send private message  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject: Re: Metaphysics
PostPosted:  
Offline

Joined: Wed Oct 17, 2018 4:14 pm +0000
Posts: 210
Location: Left Coast
Here’s a fun stab at metaphysics:

Consider this quote:

2) 39:3.8 5. The Transporters. The fifth group of supervisor seraphim operate as personality transporters, carrying beings to and from the headquarters of the constellations. Such transport seraphim, while in flight from one sphere to another, are fully conscious of their velocity, direction, and astronomic whereabouts. They are not traversing space as would an inanimate projectile. They may pass near one another during space flight without the least danger of collision. They are fully able to vary speed of progression and to alter direction of flight, even to change destinations if their directors should so instruct them at any space junction of the universe intelligence circuits.

That last sentence about varying speed at the behest of their directors. We are told that these transporters travel at about three times light speed so I can assume metaphysically that the speed of communications between angelic transporters and their directors is at least that much?
Anyone want to guess at the maximum speed of communications?
This might be a bit tricky because when transport happens at three times light speed, the beings involved in transport are using energy circuits, superimposed on each other that do not function in our finite material creation because the speed of light sets limits.
Top
 Profile Send private message  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject: Re: Metaphysics
PostPosted:  
Offline

Joined: Sun Mar 25, 2012 5:29 am +0000
Posts: 4061
no sophist wrote:
Here’s a fun stab at metaphysics:

Consider this quote:

2) 39:3.8 5. The Transporters. The fifth group of supervisor seraphim operate as personality transporters, carrying beings to and from the headquarters of the constellations. Such transport seraphim, while in flight from one sphere to another, are fully conscious of their velocity, direction, and astronomic whereabouts. They are not traversing space as would an inanimate projectile. They may pass near one another during space flight without the least danger of collision. They are fully able to vary speed of progression and to alter direction of flight, even to change destinations if their directors should so instruct them at any space junction of the universe intelligence circuits.

That last sentence about varying speed at the behest of their directors. We are told that these transporters travel at about three times light speed so I can assume metaphysically that the speed of communications between angelic transporters and their directors is at least that much?
Anyone want to guess at the maximum speed of communications?
This might be a bit tricky because when transport happens at three times light speed, the beings involved in transport are using energy circuits, superimposed on each other that do not function in our finite material creation because the speed of light sets limits.



I must be absent a few days now. But wanted to say thanks to those joining in here and moving the discussion and topic forward!


no sophist points how much more the UB opens up to our metaphysical conjecture and speculations! And also do I appreciate his most appropriate sense of wonder and glee at wondering! A fine example of an important element and the origination of metaphysics....the innate desire to understand and know!! Please join in the fun with no sophist and conjecture away!!


Something to consider: there appears to only be metaphysics with mortals on the material spheres. All beings enjoy speculations and conjectures we are told by the many authors listing their own mysteries about things unrevealed to and unknown by them. But they, unlike us, do NOT create fictions of solutions. They seem more satisfied with their own objective perspectives and knowledge and understanding...and accepting of that which is unknown to them...or so I presume in my own reading. But mortals are driven to know to the degree that we invent entire fictions and falsehoods and myths to explain what we do not understand. A curious distinction which is discussed in the UB!


Happy New Year everyone!!


8)
Top
 Profile Send private message  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject: Re: Metaphysics
PostPosted:  
Offline

Joined: Wed Apr 13, 2011 5:21 am +0000
Posts: 972
metaphysics in the papers is the attempt to unify matter and spirit...metaphysics in the dictionary is, at best, an attempt to unify matter and mind. i'm aware of the failures of metaphysics but the papers also mention the failure of revelation to compensate fully for our lack of "mota":

Quote:
The highest attainable philosophy of mortal man must be logically based on the reason of science, the faith of religion, and the truth insight afforded by revelation. By this union man can compensate somewhat for his failure to develop an adequate metaphysics and for his inability to comprehend the mota
of the morontia.


the papers dont say mind invents fables and myths...it says we create useful and servicable scaffolding. if it's true that the human mind only invents fables and myths it doesn't bode well for a revelation built around the mandate to, whenever possible, take our own words and throw them back in our faces. ;-D
Top
 Profile Send private message  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject: Re: Metaphysics
PostPosted:  
Offline

Joined: Sun Mar 25, 2012 5:29 am +0000
Posts: 4061
No one has claimed the mind ONLY invents fables and myths????? Who said that?


But of course the mind does create fables and myths and we are provided many examples of those. Oral traditions are factories of myth by their very function.


There is also insight and intuition of course. And certainly does personal revelation often play a part in all of those - fables, myths, insight, and intuition.


You said that revelation and metaphysics were essentially the same thing...not true...or close to true. Is my disagreement with your belief and claim and the posting of text which confirms my disagreement considered "take our own words and throw them back in our faces?" or some false mandate to do so? Not getting it. Is accuracy irrelevant then? Opinions trump facts? How metaphysical!! :roll:

8)
Top
 Profile Send private message  
Reply with quote  
Display posts from previous:  Sort by  
Post new topic Reply to topic  Page 1 of 19
  [ 276 posts ]  Go to page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 ... 19  Next

Board index » Main » General Urantia Book Discussion

All times are UTC - 7 hours


Who is online

Registered users: No registered users

You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You can post attachments in this forum

Search for:
Jump to:  
Switch to mobile style
cron
Powered by phpBB® Forum Software © phpBB Group