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Tue 9 Oct, 2007 11:00 am
ONE
What is the nature of the universe? Where does it come from? Of what is it made? How did it come to exist? What is its purpose? By what process does it change? Is it evolving or devolving? Does it function by itself or would it degenerate to chaos without some kind of intelligent control?
TWO
Is there a Supreme Being? If so, what is His nature? Did He create the universe? Does He continue to control it personally and if so, at what level? What is his relationship with man? Does he intervene in the affairs of man? Is this Being good? If this Being is good and all-powerful, how can evil exist?
THREE
What is the place of man in the universe? Is man the highest fruit of the universe or is he just an insignificant speck in infinite space-or something in between? Does the spirit of man descend into matter from higher spiritual realms, or has it evolved from matter? Is the universe conscious or unconscious of man? If it is aware, is it warm and friendly to him, or cold and indifferent, or even hostile?
FOUR
What is reality? What is mind; what is thought? Is thought real? Which is superior: mind or matter? Has mind created matter or has matter evolved mind? Where do ideas come from? Does thought have any importance--does it make any difference in our lives--or is it just fantasy? What is Truth? Is there a universal Truth, true for all men forever, or is Truth relative or individual?
FIVE
What determines the fate of each individual? Is man a creator and mover of his life, or does he live at the effect of forces over which he has little control? Does free will exist or are our lives determined by outside factors-and if so, what are those factors? How does life work: is there a Supreme Force that intervenes in our lives? Or is everything pre-determined from the beginning of time? Or is life just random, full of coincidence and accident? Or is there some other control mechanism we do not perceive?
SIX
What is good and what is bad or evil? What is moral? What is ethical? Who decides good and bad, right and wrong; and by what standard? Is there an absolute standard of good and bad beyond one's the personal opinions? Should good and bad be determined by custom, by rational law, or by the situation? What if the decisions of others (society, authorities, laws, etc) determining good and bad are contrary to one's personal beliefs or freedoms? ?should you obey others or follow your own conscience? Moreover, if as an answer to FIVE, we do not have free will but are ruled by outside factors, what difference does good and bad make? ?we have no choice. If so, we have no responsibility for doing bad.
SEVEN
Why are things the way they are? How should things be ideally? What is the good life -for the individual and for the many (society)? What would a Utopian society, a heaven on earth, be like? Is it even possible to create a Utopia? If so, how? Would not a Utopia assure personal freedom? What, then, should you do with those who don't cooperate and violate the Utopian system? If you control or punish them, is there no longer a Utopia?
EIGHT
What is the ideal relation between the individual and the state? Should the individual serve the state or the state serve the individual? What is the best form of government and what is the worst? When is a man justified in disobeying the dictates of the state? To what extent should the majority rule and thereby act against the freedom of the minorities? When is a man justified in rebelling against the established order and creating a new state? What are the relative merits of the different economic systems (capitalism, communism, etc.).
NINE
He who controls education controls the future. What is education? How should the young be educated-what is important and what not? Who should control education: the parents, the student, the society or the state? Should a student be taught to think for himself or to adopt the beliefs of the society? Should man be educated to be free and live for his own interests; or to subjugate his desires to serve others or the state? ?see Question EIGHT.
TEN
What happens at death? Is death the end of everything or is there a soul in man that continues to exist beyond death? If so, is that soul immortal or does it too eventually cease to exist? If the soul does continue to exist after death, what is the nature of that existence? If there is an existence after death, is "good" rewarded and "bad" punished? If so, how do you reconcile this with the concept of predestination? And if there is a God of INFINITE LOVE and FORGIVENESS, how to you reconcile punishment?
@Pythagorean,
Pythagorean, those are the 10 questions I carried in my heart and mind for over 40 years. To answer those questions for myself, I studied every form of knowledge I could get my hands on. I studied this knowledge with a completely open mind.
The only way to have any chance of answering these questions for ones self, is to study all there is to study. It is easy to answer those questions with the dogma of one Idealism or another. But to answer the questions, with a mind filled with the many different forms of knowledge, is the only way to go.
It is such a great gift and feeling, to see reality with a mind filled with a huge multitude of individualized knowledge.
@PoPpAScience,
PoPpAScience, thank you for your sincere and refreshing post! I think that keeping an open mind is essential, I find that it preceeds excellence generally.
I posted the 10 great questions to promote philosophical interest and discussion. And I too go back and re-read those questions as it awakens in me the greatness of feeling as I survey the philosophical outline and gain a measure of what I know and what there is to know. I think that everyone at least once in their lives should read these ten questions.
Welcome to the Forum PoPpAScience!
@Pythagorean,
I think all or the ten questions are answered in the teachings of Walter Russell, I have been studying this philosophy for years and find the answers come to me from within as I open up to the message that he puts across Richard
@Richardgrant,
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I[/CENTER]
What is the nature of the universe?
Consciousness, but based on the production of material limitations.
Where does it come from?
The universe still neither has start finishes, because it is infinite.
Of what is it made?
Consciousness.
How did it come to exist?
Consciousness.
What is its purpose?
Consciousness.
By what process does it change?
Transformation.
Is it evolving or devolving?
Wrong base.
Does it function by itself or would it degenerate to chaos without some kind of intelligent control?
No, separation doesn't exist. Everything is generated by your imagination as a part from the whole. Nervous-systems cannot perceive everything simultaneously, so they divide everything in your imagination severed into small fragments (minutes & hours & seconds).
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II
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Is there a Supreme Being?
No. God doesn't solve your tasks. God is a thought. So similarly as with a hallucination. The human being refuses to overdo it responsibility. Therefore, he invents God. This takes over the life and fate with responsibility in the heads of the people. The demons have their origin in the human consciousness and not in the unearthly. You all will understand each other emotionally incorrectly, will create a psychological battlefield and will believe that war is necessary in order to be able to live in peaces. You do this instinctively. And this involves only the human race. The tendency to change the own melancholy with the human need into a psychological synthesis in consideration of the search of deeper sense was laid each human being as premise and gift into the cradle, as possible motivation in consideration of an incentive to succumb to the mourning helplessly and helplessly in the everyday life of the life opposite not.
@Silke,
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III
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Your task passes your reality to learn in it to generate through your thoughts. Black magic. The human being is not the highest nature. You are vessels. People are like batteries. Your souls generate energy and somebody lives from it. You were created. Therefore.
@Pythagorean,
In response to question number four, I would like to say that I believe that our perception is our reality. I believe that the entirety of our lives is lived within the confines of our heads. You ask if thought is real, and in order for that to be answered, you must first ask the question, what is real? In my belief that we live within our heads, clearly there is no way to believe that thought is unreal. But then again our reality is based on perception, therefore we each live in our own reality and what is real to one may be unreal to another. I would say that mind has created matter but then again without matter, what is the mind? These question can't be answered by one man but I find it to be undoubtably true that thought has a purpose because we are nothing without it. And whether or not thought is fantasy it still has meaning. Fantasy is what fuels the human mind, without something to dream for what reason do we have for creativity, and what is the reason to keep going? I believe truth is relative, there cannot be a universal truth, because if truth was universal there would be no questioning, and the most important part of the human thought process is questioning.
@whereamI,
These are really good questions and an outstanding post. Thank you.
I feel like I'd like to answer each of those questions. But it'd take a WHOLE lot of writing. I'd kind of like to see these busted up and inserted into each philosophical area's forum for discussion.
Again, thanks.
@Pythagorean,
Often I believe that questions are more important than answers.
Questions are the things that define us.
@Silke,
Silke wrote:[CENTER]III
[/CENTER]
Your task passes your reality to learn in it to generate through your thoughts. Black magic. The human being is not the highest nature. You are vessels. People are like batteries. Your souls generate energy and somebody lives from it. You were created. Therefore.
Silke, I have a question for you and anybody else that's interested. How can I change the world I live in.?
@Pythagorean,
Camus had a different take on the matter. For him the ONLY important philosophical question was Why bother to live at all? Why do anything?
@Richardgrant,
Richardgrant wrote:Silke, I have a question for you and anybody else that's interested. How can I change the world I live in.?
Is it possible not to change the world you live in? If you had never lived, the world would certainly be different. So, to live is to change the world in some way or another.
@Pythagorean,
Interesting and difficult questions, Pythagorean. There's obviously more than 10 actual questions in there, but they all can be divided into 10 topics as you have done. The 10 topics, and even each question within each topic could be considered and discussed at length; I don't think I would even try to answer them all in one thread. I still do appreciate them being spelled out here as you have done. I would say that most, if not all, of these questions could qualify as some of the toughest questions of philosophy,which is the topic of a thread I created here not too long ago.
Toughest Philosophical Questions
@Pythagorean,
I wish I had a list of the philosophers who attempted to answer these questions, sorted by category.
@Pythagorean,
Great post! Thanks.
I guess thats why we are here; to try and answer these questions.
Do we have to answer them (or some of them) before humankind will become sustainable?
Doc
@Pythagorean,
Number 11: Why must I philosophize!?
@dynamo,
For me the crucial question is the first one: the nature of the universe. It is diversifying unity. Human beings are potentially the most diversly unifying process in the universe.
@Didymos Thomas,
Didymos Thomas wrote:Is it possible not to change the world you live in? If you had never lived, the world would certainly be different. So, to live is to change the world in some way or another.
If every question in the world had to be answered and every problem solved by just one word, that one word would be balance. Richardgrant
@Richardgrant,
balance without drive would yield nothing
@Pythagorean,
To sit in the eye of a hurricane there would be absolute stillness and in the center of pure energy. Richard
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