New Discovery

That was not his discovery. If he was wrong about how long it took for the Earth to form, it’s an incidental. Please keep that in mind.

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WOW! He never said God was a personal being. That was made very clear early on.
[i]
By a similar process of working our problem backwards we can
officially launch the Golden Age which necessitates the removal of all
forms of blame (the judgment of what is right for another) so that
each person knows he is completely free to do what he wants to do.
Although solving the problem of evil requires balancing an equation
of such magnitude, it is not difficult when we have our infallible slide
rule which God has given us as a guide.

By now I hope you
understand that the word God is a symbol for the source of everything
that exists, whereas theology draws a line between good and evil using
the word God only as a symbol for the former. Actually no one gave
me this slide rule, that is, no one handed it to me, but the same force
that gave birth to my body and brain compelled me to move in the
direction of satisfaction and for me to be satisfied after reading Will
Durant’s analysis of free will it was necessary to disagree with what
obviously was the reasoning of logic, not mathematics. I was not
satisfied, which forced me to get rid of my dissatisfaction by proving
that this philosopher did not know whereof he spoke.

To say that God
made me do this is equivalent to saying I was compelled, by my
nature, to move in this direction of greater satisfaction, which is
absolutely true. Definitions mean absolutely nothing where reality is
concerned. Regardless of what words I use to describe the sun;
regardless of how much there is I don’t know about this ball of fire
does not negate the fact that it is a part of the real world, and
regardless of what words I employ to describe God does not change the
fact that He is a reality. You may ask, “But isn’t there quite a
difference between seeing the sun and seeing God? I know that the
description of the sun could be inaccurate, but I know it is a part of
the real world. However, we cannot point to any particular thing and
say this is God, therefore we must assume because of certain things
that God is a reality, correct?”

We assumed energy was contained within the atom until a
discovery was made that proved this, and we also assumed or believed
that there was a design to this universe by the fact that the solar
system moves in such mathematical harmony. Did the sun, moon,
earth, planets and stars just fall into perfect order, or is there some
internal urgency pushing everything in a particular direction? Now
that it has been discovered that man’s will is not free and at the very
moment this discovery is made a mathematical demonstration
compels man to veer sharply in a new direction although still towards
greater satisfaction, then it can be seen just as clearly as we see the
sun that the mankind system has always been just as harmonious as
the solar system only we never knew it because part of the harmony
was this disharmony between man and man which is now being
permanently removed. [/i]

You’ll need to read the whole book at least twice. You’re jumping to a premature conclusion. Obviously, we can’t just stop blaming. That would make every crook happy as a lark. There will be a transitional period from one world to the other, which may be very gradual. As people become citizens, the police force will be reduced in just proportion.

If you are so sure the book is flawed then you must really understand it, so for starters what is the two-sided equation in your own words?

[quote="They also ignore the fact that before a final choice is made the will of man is actually free[/quote]
Absolutely not. Before a final choice is made man has a choice, but how can it be free when he cannot move in any other direction but “greater” satisfaction, not less? Your analysis so far is completely flawed and lacking depth.

What difference would that make surreptitious? Srsly??? I’ve been criticized by lots of people who are doing what you’re doing, making quick judgments without carefully reading the book or asking questions. They skim, can’t tell me what the discovery is, and then have the chutzpah to tell me it’s flawed! People rush to judgment especially when it doesn’t jive with their worldview. And even if it does, they will jump to the conclusion that it’s a religious work because he uses the word God. Amazing!

I think over time we will become a more moral species although we will both collectively and individually always be a work in progress
I can see the thinking in the book being applied to artificial intelligence that will be able to think in absolute terms but not to humans

I think that you have to accept criticism even if you do not agree with it as such which you seem unable to do
You cannot have the book discussed on a philosophy forum and not expect any because all works get criticised

I have read the first two chapters as you asked and gave you my take on them
If I was being close minded then I would not have bothered to read them at all

My opinion should not matter to you anyway but you should not dismiss it just because it is critical

You should print more extracts from the book as you did above because that way you may get more feedback from the posters here
Its actually easier to read in the forum format anyway - I think I will read the final chapter next as its a bit too repetitive otherwise

The main problem is that there is no way of knowing if what the book claims will come to pass as it will be long after anyone now reading it is dead

We will become a more moral species when hurting people stop hurting people, and the only way to accomplish that is to remove the hurt to those who have been hurt first which then causes them to strike back and on and on it goes…

I don’t mind being criticized if the criticism is valid. It’s not.

I’m glad you read the chapters, but you did not read them carefully enough. You probably skimmed them because you couldn’t even tell me what the discovery is. I can easily tell when someone hasn’t read the book in a way that would allow the concepts to sink in, but only to criticize and find loopholes that don’t exist. Your critique is scant and it’s certainly not balanced. Unfortunately, because of your comments people will decide that it’s not worth reading. Sad.

The principles are valid and sound. The criticism you made about the Earth is trivial. It would be like telling Einstein he was wrong because he made a mistake regarding a date. That’s what tells me you weren’t reading to grasp the knowledge but rather searching for anything you could find that would cause doubt. As I said, these trivialities have nothing to do with the validity and soundness of the discovery itself.

We can’t know how long it will take (it depends how quickly this knowledge can spread) but one thing is for sure, it must come about in time due to the fact that the discovery is sound and people will want what they see. Once it is recognized by science it won’t take but a relatively short period of time for the Great Transition to begin and the leaders of each nation to become our first citizens. Global peace will then be within our reach.

Even if we die before the Golden Age is here, we will know that our children or their children will benefit just as we have benefited from the generations that have come before us. Finally, if you begin to understand his chapter on death you will know that we (our consciousness) will be here to enjoy this new world, not our posterity.

Peacegirl,

More contradictions. So we have to judge before we become judgeless?!?!?

I see where you’re going here…

If everybody just acts perfectly, there’ll be no reason to judge, so you or this author sees, "well that means if we don’t judge, everyone will be perfect.

We have no choice but to judge… we are biological beings. Judgement is hardwired into DNA.

Psychopaths are determined to be born in this species, without jobs like soldiers or firemen or police officers, they just kill innocent people, that’s what they do. To get rid of them, you need a very sophisticated knowledge of the human genome.

Not someone who is themselves psychopathic saying, “if everyone obeys me the world will be at peace, obey me now!!”

Excellent point you make about psychopaths Ecmandu and one that peacegirl would have failed to factor in to her Utopian vision

Psychopaths do not understand the difference between right and wrong and would behave exactly the same in a blameless world
They would not understand why such a world would be any different for them because they would still do whatever they want to

In a perfect Utopia the criminally insane would still be themselves so everyone else being altruistic would have zero impact upon them
Psychopaths are not all of a sudden going to stop being psychopathic just because every one else has become entirely non judgemental

How seriously can I take someone who actually believes this…unless I assume that they believe it only because they were never able not to?

Sure, you can narrow this discussion down to the things that you assert are true and then just dismiss all the factors that don’t actually reinforce your own point of view as irrelevant. As though understanding how matter evolved into life evolved into brains evolved into minds evolved into your own particular self-conscious “I” is completely incidental to the author’s discovery.

It would be like physicists discovering that the multiverse does in fact exist, and someone insisting that, for the purposes of their own discussion, they want only this universe to be relevant. Even though the ecxistence of the multiverse might have profound implications for our own universe.

Or like someone living in Flatland able to demonstrate the existence of our own three dimensional world, and dismissing that as irrelevant to all that might be understood regarding the relationship between these two worlds.

Or like someone who was raised to believe their Christran beliefs were based only on the Old Testament alone, discovering that the New Testament existed…but then dismissing that is irrelevant to a discussion about Christianity.

That’s how I see you in a nutshell. There is what you believe. There is the comfort and consolation that what you believe provides you. And you’ll be damned if someone like me is going to insist on expanding the reach of the discussion if that might mean chipping away at this discovery. A world of words that, in my view, has become the psychological foundation [defense mechanism] onto which you anchor “I”.

Note to others:

Do you not see the gap I am talking about here? Do you not see how our own understanding of these relationships [including mine] can only be but considerably short of all that can possibly be known about existence itself?

Who cares? If the person who says 1 + 1 = 2 and the person who says 1 + 1 = 3 are equally compelled by nature to say only what they must? And if somebody caring or not caring is equally compelled by nature to care or not to care…?

The truth is ever and always the embodied of natural laws. If, in fact, that is actually true itself.

Clearly, in order to understand that you would have to understand what or who is responsible for nature [existence] itself. But you won’t go there for all the reasons I noted above. That and the fact that [so far] nature hasn’t compelled you to go there.

Back to this: I couldn’t have said it better myself!

You forgot [again] to point out that nature compelled me to go back to autonomy.

Only you are adament that in order to understand fully what “being human” entails others must be wholly in sync with the assumptions embedded in that particular “intellectual contraption” you call The Discovery.

Note to others:

In different words, please explain to me how, if “I” is necessarily, inherently a part of nature, this doesn’t compel me to keep repeating myself. Please explain to me in turn how my embodiment of “greater satisfaction” is not as well the embodiment only of nature itself.

Sigh…

What difference does it make [for all practical purposes] what I agree or disagree with here when [for all practical purposes] I am always being compelled to by nature? We clearly understand the [for all practical purposes] relationship between “I” and nature in very different ways.

Over and again, when I ask you to bring this all down to earth and note how the author has actually demonstrated why his principled assessment works in regards to actual human interactions – actual choices, actual behaviors – I am told that the “proof” will become clear only in the future when “it is shown that humans cannot desire to hurt one another when not to hurt them becomes the preferable choice.”

And how will I do that unless and until nature compels me to want to continue to make progress?

Oh, like 1 + 1 = 2, is the same as peace + brotherhood = the author’s own prescription for a progressive future. Value judgments as mathematical equations.

All I can note here is nature compels me to note that, from my frame of mind, this frame of mind is so incredibly naive, I wouldn’t even know where to begin in responding to it.

Then back to this knot:

If everything I think and feel and say and do and want and desire is necessarily a manifestation of nature’s laws, then how does time here get broken into “before I decide” and “after I decide”? How does the author demonstrate this other than by merely asserting it to be true? How could this actually be proven in a particular context? Other than by understanding the defintions and the meaning he gives to the words in his world or words discovery as he does?

Somehow in your head you make this before and after distinction between “I” desiring something and nature. As though “I” really does have some control over what it wants and desires.

Whereas I see all aspects of the brain – the more and the less primitive parts – as coordinating everything to be wholly in sync with the laws of matter.

Always, the way someone thinks about all this. Always about the definitions. Why? Because [in my view] this allows you keep the discussion up in the clouds of abstraction, and general description, and “principles”.

Indeed. But, in my view, the laws of nature compelled you to conclude that before you in fact did. But only if, in turn, the laws of nature compelled me to conclude that before I did.

Whatever reason can there be in a wholly determined universe but that nature compels my brain/“I” to not grasp it here and now? I see no break between “I” before concluding I don’t grasp it, and “I” after concluding I don’t grasp it. It’s all nature…past, present and future.

This is basically either 1] nonsensical or 2] unintelligable to me. I can’t help but sound as I do. Why? Becasue nature compels me to. But: if I do try a little harder how is that not also because nature compels me to? Nature may not be forcing me to as when we imagine someone forcing another to do something with a gun to his head, but that is because we cannot point to nature as we can the man with the gun. But if nature compels the man to point the gun how can we say that he is to blame for doing so? How can we hold him responsible as you seem to hold me responsible for not trying harder?

What on earth does that have to do with my point though? Even in the future, if a woman becomes pregnant and doesn’t want to be, there’s the pain and grievences embedded in shredding the unborn or in forcing the woman to give birth.

Similarly:

This in no way really addresses my point regarding conflicting goods in your so-called “progressive” future. It’s just a frame of mind that you have concocted in order to feel good about the author, his discovery and all the peace and prosperity heading our way as a result of them.

Thus in my view…

Clearly, we are in two very, very different discussions here. And imagine how embarrassed one of us would be if we did have some measure of autonomy.

Yes, but his discoveries all unfolded given the laws of nature in the either/or world. He could demonstrate his own discoveries. Why? Because they did in fact reflect that part of nature which is true for all of us. But how would he have gone about demonstrating that he accomplished all of this autonomously? How would he have gone about demonstrating that an electric current used to, say, execute a prisoner was a “progressive” thing to do?

Then my own bottom line:

Again: What does this have to do with the point I am making? Unless, of course, nature simply isn’t able to take things like that into account.

What he said.

Or, rather, the way that I would spin it. :wink:

Yes, we judge many things to determine if something is worth pursuing, but this is not the kind of judgment I’m talking about. Stop conflating this word to make it look like you’re right when you’re dead wrong. :stuck_out_tongue:

It’s the exact opposite. When we stop judging, everyone will be perfect. But remember this does not mean we suddenly stop judging just because we know FOR A FACT that man’s will is not free. If you had read the chapters you would have known that. You know nothing about this knowledge, and it shows!

Thinking is hardwired. Judgment against someone because you judge him to be wrong and worthy of repercussions is not hardwired into anyone’s DNA.

Is English your second language or am I missing something? Psychopaths are not born to be psychopaths without the environment to trigger it.

Oh, so now you’re a great scientist on top of being a great compatibilist. You know for a fact that every person that becomes psychopathic has something wrong in his genome? Shouldn’t they have identified this genome already with such sophisticated technology?

Who said “obey me now”? You are just pissed because your logic does not prove that man has free will, let alone anything that can help our world. Sorry Ecmandu, you lose! :laughing:

You would not disagree with Einstein because he was recognized. You would listen quite attentively and if you didn’t understand something you would question earnestly to get a clearer understanding. But you certainly wouldn’t argue. You disagree because this author was an unknown, and because of this you don’t take this knowledge seriously. But he did have a discovery and it will become recognized one day. Then, just like with Einstein, you would not even think of arguing. This can work in reverse if science says something is true. People accept it at face value and don’t question any further. This can be dangerous and lead to apparent truths that have graduated into fact and no one dare criticize or ostracism is the name of the game.

How do you know this surreptitious75? Prove to me that they would act the same being born in a world where not only no one blames, but no one is hurt by the many events in life that lead to hatred whether it’s used against oneself or against others.

It’s more than being non judgmental. It’s changing the environment entirely. I did say that as we make the transition, there may be people who are so far gone that they cannot be rehabilitated at all. Therefore, they will need to be institutionalized just like a mad dog would, but this is a tiny percentage of the population. Why are you focusing on this when most criminals are run of the mill crooks? They are the professional thieves who know right from wrong. They would never desire to steal, rob, murder, under changed conditions that alter their preference not to take from others as that alternative that gives them greater satisfaction.

  1. I can’t speak for Iambiguous, but I would certainly, if I ended up in a discussion with Einstein, question his ideas, point out what I thought did not make sense, probe and test, as well as I could. I have a suspicion Iambiguous would also. I think Einstein would have understood the need for such a process. That is part of learning. And since Einstein was not always correct, it is a part of his learning also, or was.

  2. The writer, your father presumably, has not been recognized. So it makes sense that people will be skeptical and critical. Einstein’s ideas and the math involved were scrutininzed by the smartest people in the relevent fields and then later tested empirically, where possible. This has not been done yet. So you are in a cart before the horse situation. And experts were skeptical of his ideas for quite a time. Anyone with new ideas can expect criticism and would understand the need to work maturely and respectfully with it. I notice that the predictions in the book about when humanity would come to understand the great discovery were not correct. IOW predictions about the speed with which these ideas would be accepted were incorrectly predicted by the author. Fine, he could be wrong about that, but right about other things. But since the predictions about how we will all get along if we believe in the ideas depend on knowledge of how humans react, the fact that he was significantly off about when the ideas would take over says something about his understanding of humans. And that calls into questions his ability to predict other things. Further it means that he and perhaps you have not be dealing with criticism in such a way that the scientific community and intellectuals in general have taken the ideas seriously. The fact that you think it should be treated like we would hypothetically treat Einstein’s ideas even though we have no good reason to do this and criticism is treated poorly, does not bode well for any wide acceptance of the ideas in the near future.

  3. Einstein was incorrect about some things. So everyone bowing down to even Einstein would not have been a good idea. That’s why we have peer review. If you want to say no one here is your author’s peer. Fine, but whoever is peers are, they are not listening, or you would not be pushing the book here amongst people who do not have the power, in the main, to get scientific consensus support.

Well,right. We aren’t just bowing down. All we have now is your assertions and the authors assertions that everyone will be convinced. We have someone who think she/he should be treated by Einstein, despite the fact that Einstein ran a gauntlet of expert criticism, using incredible skill and discipline over a long period of time. IOW he knew what to do to get a wider acceptance of his ideas and who to go to and who to collaborate with. He earned it. You want it ahead of time, without doing the work.

How can you possibly not understand such basic things about how ideas come to be accepted

and at the same time be sure

these ideas will have the effects you claim they will have.

Right there I question even the chance of you having expertise.

The number of psychopaths that exist in the general population is not actually relevant here
I also dont think that environment is the major cause for psychopathic behaviour but genetic
The brains of psychopaths are different to non psychopaths so they are already born that way

Einstein is a bad example because he spent the second half of his life trying to dismiss quantum mechanics
As reality at that level did not conform to his ontological [ not scientific ] expectations of how it should be

Peacegirl,

Let’s come back to this:

You state that the deterministic law of world peace is the highest law in existence.

For millions of years, hominids have never been confused by a real law, the law of gravity …

Yet, a law that you claim to be a higher law than the law of gravity is a law that NOBODY obeys !!!

So there are one of two possibilities here for your “law”

1.) because it’s the highest law in existence and nobody follows it, it’s a proof of freewill

2.) it’s not a law

Remember what she is proposing cannot be proven at this point in time since it has yet to happen
This means there is no absolute guarantee it will happen and something else could happen instead

Well put.

It seems that people have certain predispositions that can manifest in anti-social behavior given the right conditions, but to say that people are born evil or psychopathic is without scientific proof.

I didn’t say that. I said that man’s will is not free and that when the corollary to this invariable law is put into practice, world peace can be achieved.

That’s only because we had to believe in free will as part of our development, even though man’s will has never been free. Your comparison doesn’t fly. Just because we were never confused about gravity and we were confused about free will, doesn’t automatically negate determinism.

Once again, your premises are ridiculous. We don’t follow it because the principle of no blame is counter-intuitive considering that our entire justice system (the best in the world) is based on the belief in free will. But the time has come where we have been given a better way. Why are you so resistant when you haven’t even studied the principles? You are too sure of yourself.

It is a natural invariable law that no one can escape because there are no exceptions. That’s why it’s a law.

I appreciate the time it took to respond to this long post, but I am going to take a pass. A lot of it is repetitive and we just don’t see eye to eye. You keep saying I blame you, and I don’t. You keep saying these are assumptions that have no real capacity to demonstrate, which is false. Chapter Three gives a clear demonstration of how this law works when applied to the environment. You keep saying this discovery has no foundation without understanding what is behind existence itself, which is not true. You keep bringing up autonomy (free will) as if we can step outside of the laws that created us. I keep saying that it’s a false dichotomy because we can have determinism and be autonomous according to the definition given in most dictionaries. You keep talking about conflicts that you believe can never be resolved. You say it’s just a frame of mind that I have concocted in order to feel good about the author, his discovery and all the peace and prosperity heading our way as a result of them, which is completely bogus. I have concocted nothing. You haven’t shown a shred of interest in the book which is why you don’t understand a shred of it. I know nature didn’t allow you to, and that’s okay. But because we have such different perspectives, I don’t think there is any way we can move forward, therefore I’m bowing out of our discussion. It was a good run and I wish you the best. :wink:

First of all, given that Einstein is described here …

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious … #Free_will

…as a “strict determinist”, I would ask him if he believed the discussion we were having would and could only unfold as it must. Given how he is said to believe that “human behavior was completely determined by causal laws.”

I would then probe his thoughts regarding Hitler and the Manhattan Project. If human behavior is in fact completely determined by causal laws, was not the entire Second World War [up to the dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki] inherently and necessarily in sync with the laws of matter? Going all the way back to the explanation for existence itself?

Besides, try as I might, I still don’t really understand all the technical arguments he made in his arguments/theories regarding the “space-time continuum”.

But the thing about Einstein is that his arguments could be tested empirically. Experiments could be conducted, predictions could be made, results could be replicated.

And your author? Where on earth is the equivalent of this in his own work? How has he taken his world of words, intellectual contraption assumptions about free will, determinism and a “progressive” future and provided us with an assessment that can in fact be brought down to earth and shown to be applicable to the behaviors that we really do “choose”?

The fact that you are so obsessed with “definitions” speaks volumes to me. In my view, you believe that words mean only what they must mean in order to sustain [psychologically] the comfort and security you derive from this meaning “in your head”.