Archive 81 discrepancies

Movies are make believe and whether it is ‘historical’ or ‘fiction’, one should always be aware that a camera is used to present an interpretation of any ‘truth’.

Nowadays, many people are lured into the traps of streaming services where ‘the next best series EVER’ is shown right after last months ‘best series EVER’.

Yesterday’s Jam

Where suddenly Squids, Aliens or lords of the underworlds were the new best thing to watch, now the rehash of the Blair Witch project seems to get some hyped up attention. Is it worth it? Well, that is for everyone themselves to decide.

This article is about some of the things that are causing the ‘suspension of disbelieve’ to be broken by the simple fact of inconsistency or failing effects that are the base of the series.

Nothing evil or anything…

 Any person with a bit of intelligence understands that causality is the reason why things happen and why things can’t happen. The same thing goes for the concepts of evil and good. They are emotional evaluations of effects. Nobody says: Look a rock, that is evil. However, when someone got a rock hitting their head, they will ask: Who would do such an evil thing? 

The series drags very heavily on the ‘truthfulness’ of religion and there being only a god of the Christian faith. Which is shamingly limiting the whole perspective, if you like Lovecraftian horror. As such all the ideas in the series become tainted with the viewer having to accept that there should be a god that is benevolent and is able to ward off all the bad things and those that ignore this (which is the protagonists of course) will suffer the consequences, making the base premise of the series: believe or repent or you are evil. 

A bit obscured

 The idea of using recordings (which painfully fails in the 4th episode, as suddenly the viewer and Dan observe something that has NOT been recorded) is fun. It has worked in many situations. The Blair Witch project failed in my perspective, but there is a boxoffice rating that says otherwise.

Anyone who lived long enough to actually have had a CRT television that gave statics when no signal was received, SHOULD have noticed something odd about the recordings. The static/noise has been applied to the recording AFTER, as the noise is actually moving in regards to the movement of the camera. Look at any scene with lighter surfaces and you will notice.

This for me was initially a question, like: Is this something regarding the alien/demon that was initial in the static Dan observed? But as the story progressed this seemed to be unlikely. 

Killing mood

As such, after episode 4 it started to really annoy me. Where the ‘Ring’ style grab from the screen was the last drop. Wallbreaks are fun, shock and awe are part of horror per definition, but this was too much, too fast, too unlikely and too soon.

In Character

The uplifting thing is the acting quality. It is ranging from above average to very good. The interaction is believable, though the fact that Dan didn’t ask Davenport about (seemingly his father) the redhood exiting the premise, even after being totally freaked out at the receptionist about it, seems a bit off. I will say that is a cutting issue in scenes most likely.

 

Final judgement

Another series that tries to increase ‘religiosity’, by advocating the devil. This using some interesting method of ‘oldschool’, which in it self for me, as a sceptic of methodology fails due to inconsistency. This causes the imergency that requires suspension of disbelieve to dissolve.

Het innerlijke beest in de online facade

Daar lezen we het zoveelste bericht dat iemand vindt dat een regeringsinstantie of een ander institutioneel apparaat moet ingrijpen in hoe men omgaat met online gedrag.

Ik denk dat iedere weldenkende Nederlander (slash wereldburger) eens moet gaan begrijpen dat ‘online’ en ‘offline’ gedrag geen verschil moet maken. Zeker nu we allen zoveel vaker ‘online’ communiceren door de diverse restricties van de ‘offline’ wereld.

Als je in de winkel iets ziet dat volgens jou niet hoort, zeg je er dan iets van? Ik wel. Mijn identiteit wordt niet beperkt door een glazen schermpje en draadloze verbindingen. Ik ben wie ik ben. Online EN Offline.

Het zou volwassenen sieren, als ze zich online zo gedragen, als ze willen dat hun kinderen zich offline gedragen. Daarnaast ook, dat mensen offline begrijpen dat regels en wetten online ook gewoon van toepassing zijn.

Het uitleggen van gedrag aan kinderen geeft ons een spiegel als volwassenen op onszelf. Zijn wij zo verdraagzaam? Zijn wij zo tolerant? Zij wij zo mondig?

De volgende keer dat je iemand online wilt uitschelden, denk dan aan de jeugd die dat bijna tot een kunst verheven heeft en een klasgenootje de dood in kunnen drijven. Waar denk je dat ze dat vandaan hebben? Hoe zou jij als volwassene dat hebben kunnen voorkomen? Misschien door te leiden met voorbeeld?

Wees je bewust van je acties en van de observatie van jouw gedrag.
Lees je eigen berichten eens als een vreemde…zou jij dat accepteren? Zou jij je er fijn bij voelen?

#meta #bewustzijn #awareness #metawareness #eerlijkheid #opvoeding #cyberbullying #cybercrime #omdenken #spiegel #mirror #blackmirror #whitemirror #yourmirror #eyeontheworld

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When critique ‘hits’ the big screen

Below is the transcript taken from the 2020 Golden Globe Awards presenter Ricky Gervais. Being a strong fan of the scepticism and critique Ricky can produce spot on (albeit sometimes rigorously harsh), this one hit me flat in the face. The media is always full of actors talking ‘against’ injustice, but they are strongly responsible for the actual injustice done by the business supporting companies.

Ricky Gervais:

“Apple roared into the TV game with The Morning Show, a superb drama about the importance of dignity and doing the right thing, made by a company that runs sweatshops in China. Well, you say you’re woke but the companies you work for in China — unbelievable. Apple, Amazon, Disney. If ISIS started a streaming service you’d call your agent, wouldn’t you?

So if you do win an award tonight, don’t use it as a platform to make a political speech. You’re in no position to lecture the public about anything. You know nothing about the real world. Most of you spent less time in school than Greta Thunberg.

So if you win, come up, accept your little award, thank your agent, and your God and fuck off, OK? It’s already three hours long. Right, let’s do the first award.”

I know this isn’t going up for all artists in the field, but many do. The other striking part is that Ricky explains the fact that actors are replaceble. Actors playing roles of real experts aren’t the same as real experts playing roles. They can learn the tricks, but never with the flair of actors. However, actors should not fail to recognize that they could never replace the experts.

How Meta of you

Just the other day, Facebook‘s CEO Mark Zuckerberg (Though I think the announcement was done by a VR image of him) announced that Facebook would become ‘Meta’.

The first laugh

NO! You don’t name your company after something that is a direct existing word in a lexicon.

meta/ˈmɛtə/noun

  1. short for meta key.

adjectiveUS

  1. (of a creative work) referring to itself or to the conventions of its genre; self-referential.”the enterprise is inherently ‘meta’, since it doesn’t review movies, for example, it reviews the reviewers who review movies”

Definitions from Oxford Languages

Why wouldn’t you do this?

Because any lawyer can tell you, you can NOT put any Trademark on it. You can’t claim it, you can’t OWN it. The name Meta is a reference TO the actual definition and as such can be used, but not be protected.

Here at Metawareness (pronounced Meta – wearness, but contraction of ‘meta awareness’), we know that we reference something and we used the contraction as name, which is now a prior art and can not be used by anyone else, even if we didn’t trademark it.

How to do it?

Why was ‘facebook’ which is a contraction of ‘book of faces’ or ‘your book of face values’, a name that could be trademarked?

Because it didn’t exist yet as a name. Perhaps someone created a local phoneregister and called it such, but never came out with it.

Why can Nike, Adidas, Google, etc work as a brand, but not Alphabet (Google’s mother firm)? Because you can’t protect it. You must hope that the use of the word ‘alphabet’ in the normal situation will reference positive to your brand. But how to do this with Meta?

The verb in the verse

Zuckerberg’s ‘Meta’ references the ‘Metaverse’. Great, lets see, it is based on a book from 1985, is already made a name in several ways: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaverse

There is a game that is called the Metaverse, several lores. Facebook can’t own them. They can buy it, but anyone coming up with prior art after Facebook gained equity with it, will have a bigger piece of the pie.

Conclusion

I think it is either one of two things:
1. Meta is a blindsider. Facebook will come with a different name, but will out the video as their level of quality in ‘Virtual Reality’. Meta is just a reference to YOU being meta aware of what the future will bring and how YOU (Meta awareness of your reaction) will easily be tricked by this ‘fake news’.

2. Meta is the rebound relationship. As Zuckerberg is heavily under fire in the US and will see stock fail, they let Facebook go bankrupt, but move most assets through Meta to new ‘brands’. And yes, most likely Zuckerberg won’t be the lead in all this anymore in the end.

NFT NFTW

NFT Not For The World.

NFT – Non-Fungible Token

NFT’s are the new high. Virtual drug as I would say. But what, why and why am I against it?

First thing: I am against blockchain in general for a simple reason: It increases the heat exhaust into our environment to create blocks and to mine for ‘Proof of Work’. This therefore is counter productive to what humanity should be doing, as lowering the carbon emission and improving climate stability/dynamics.

I am against NFT, because it plays on the psychology of people to make the blockchain a technology REQUIRED to be kept, because someone would lose a truckload of money if we would choose to remove it. AND it is just for leisure. NFTs have basically NO value (you can make NFTs with value, but that is not what it gets promoted for now).

Everyone is full of it:

We must safe the environment. We have to reverse the damage done to the climate. But at the same time, we are buying into the luxury that makes us feel cozy.

Blockchain was a dream to become rich. Those that got into Bitcoin early would be millionaires (and many are now). But that is passed. All Blockchain does is cost energy to maintain (it is nothing but virtual, meaning if the net goes does for even one single second, all cryptocurrencies will be useless) and everyone knows better, so from 1 cryptocurrency we now are on our way to have 7.7 billion different cryptocurrencies, because basically you can make a separate one for every person in the world. There is no regulation against it, if it is, it is automatically defying the reason that blockchain was first adapted by the darkside of the web.

The world is being sucked into a web of virtual blackmail and either nobody sees it yet, until there is too much at stake to stop, or nobody cares and want their piece of the pie before they die.

You decide what you think is best….for you…or your children.

Start to end

#IFH  

Start to end

When did it start? We live we die. Our parents live(d) and die(d). And it all changed, subtly.

Did we choose to change? No, life adapts. Adaption is learning. 

The moment life became self-sustaining, it became consuming. The process of consumption requires adaption to changing environments. No food means no consumption, no consumption means no life.

To adapt was the will to survive and the ever changing way of the world, caused all diversity to come by. From the most simple of organisms to the most complex. But not all persisted. Not all survived. It wasn’t always the best suited even. There are always risks, chances, sudden changes.

First came unaware processes, then there were the unaware responses, then there were the unaware interactions and eventually there came the aware processes and aware responses and interactions. Where does that brings us?

We are able to learn what we want, what we need, we can predict changes, so we can change in advance. Yet we still fail ourselves. We are still more animal organism than human self aware beings.

Do you disagree? Look around, we are all fighting windmills, dragons and fantasy. Our self awareness has a drawback. We are highly creative, but a basic feature of creativity is instability.

We are children, learning about our hands (mind) and how to interact with it. We haven’t come far yet. But our adolescence emotions make us think we are.

Stop battling the future, the cliche is true: If you want a future, you have to make it.

Chances are a choice, not a plan

Do you ever think you find something to improve about yourself? 

What is your first response? 

Are you acting on it, or are you planning to change it in the future?

Changes in the future are often….a plan. A plan that will be moved to the back of one’s mind and even if it stays in the front, it will just stay that: A plan.

Best changes, are changes that you act on. Once you have acted upon them, to plan how to prolong it, Why not plan and then act? Because, as I said, you will plan to act, and your brain will help you in that: It will plan in definite, because emotions and cognition will find reasons for you NOT to act ‘yet’, indefinite.

Your emotions and cognition will help you plan, but as change means insecurity, it will keep you planning.

So, advice: When you feel you should change: CHANGE. Then plan. Because your brain, both emotions and cognition, will help you plan why to stop….indefinite.

I know it is not that easy, but the logics is sound. Try it out. It works for me. Perhaps it can for you too.

Bottom line:

Plan a change and your emotions and cognition will help you plan the change, never arriving there. Act the change and plan how to continue the change, and your emotions and cognition will help you plan to stay in the change, never stopping it.

The meaning of gods (The comforting lie)

The meaning of gods


Very recently….like 20 minutes ago….I came to a final supporting piece of evidence that many people don’t ‘believe’ in gods as such, but in the effect believing in gods have on them, from society.


So, what is this about?

Well, whoever debated or discussed religiosity with someone who is ‘of faith’, will have come to realise that the counter arguments you get are all based on ‘personal experience’. This isn’t strange, because anything we know and learn from the world, we learn from experiencing it. However, the point for a non- or lesser-believer is, that they are self-sufficient enough to accept that if more people support the same view regarding experience, the experience holds more validity. Why would it be different from an experience from a religious person? Why would that hold less validity? For the religious person it doesn’t. It supports their reasoning in why they feel ‘happier’ in their own perspective. They feel they connect better with people than those that don’t ‘believe’. Is this true? Are people who don’t believe less connected? I would say (being a realist) no. I know I have a high impact on society around me, because of the actions I do. I do the actions because that is who I am and I know I try to help people with them. I teach good values, I act to improve the temporary or longterm quality of other’s lives. This would be (to my understanding) the same a person of faith would do. Likely for the same reason: To lighten the burden of others. But why are people discerning themselves about the underlying lie that is causing the discussion/debate? Why would I (a realist and therefore atheist) care about what kind of imaginary friend a person holds in their mind? Because of numerous reasons. 1. Because it is a lie. 2. Because it generates a fragile framework that is easily misused. 3. Because the direct and indirect effects are additional lies. 4. Because when the lie finds enough people, it changes society to a dangerous place for specific individuals or whole groups. Something that is ‘inhuman’.


Now, why would people still not accept the absence of a god, if it is the logical and honest thing to do?

Well, likely for the same reason someone would supress the truth regarding something, if it would mean the difference between a warm cozy place near a fireplace in the middle of winter, or standing barefeet in the snow of -10 C.



I read a very ‘sane’ story of a person today, that said: Well, I came from an ‘atheist’ home, but as we had family problems and it felt cold, I found a place where it promised warmth and care. Though it was based on religion, I welcomed it, because it felt someone cared for me.’ 


And I think this is what is causing people to only move away from the lie, if the lie is becoming too obvious to them that they can’t uphold it anymore.

The ‘atheist’/’realist’ view and life seems (I must emphasize this: seems) lacking the warmth of social cohesion we see in the christmas movies. The warm sweaters and cozy singing. People who are feeling lonely want this. People can feel lonely for many reasons, even with no place to go because of the amount of people.


We humans are a social species. Not all of us are at the same cognitive awareness level. Some pretend to be beyond, some don’t want to be aware. We all have our prerogative regarding what we want to be aware of. But does that mean we should accept a lie? No.


Why do we do this anyway? Why do for instance students more easily convert to a faith-based world view?

Well, taking the numbers and denominations, it is very likely an non-faith person at college time, will fall in a group where 3/4 is faith-based. Often a non-faith person doesn’t easily talk about it, causing 2 non-faith people next to each other, to be unaware of their shared state. This can cause them, due to the need to fit with the group to adapt to the general concensus of accepting a/the faith.


In earlier years, there isn’t really a question. Children take the word of their parents. They will accept the believe, because it is rationalised and even worse, children aren’t rational yet, they are learning how to reason. So, when learning to reason with a faith, it means that any further thought will incorporate rationalisation including that faith.


How about, after college? Well, high school, university all hold the same social bonds and needs for people to support each other in groups. So, the same danger exists. But what when people are mature and starting their adult life? They surely don’t fall for such group based empathies? Why not? We are, as I said, a social species. The main part of our ethical/moral encoding comes from the genetic learning to rely on safety within a group.


So, as long as the group that is faith-based, gives a signal that the group supports the individual to the amount that we learn (cultural) to accept as warm and welcoming, people will try to accept the accompanying lie.



To overcome this obstacle, it is important, as a humanist, realist (and atheist), to acknowledge the shortcomings and work towards a honest and thoughtful world, where taking out the lie doesn’t equals leaving out all the accompanying social commitments and group support.


We must create a better view on non-faith societies, where humans are still supporting and ‘warm’ towards each other, so the individual will have no reason to see benefit in a lie over honesty and reason. Though this is not something that needs to change. Societies of secular reasoning are among those to best support the whole group instead of a selective one, being aware on the impact of limited visibility against the overall ‘Coca Cola’-family effect of religion, will improve global human awareness of honesty, logic and reason.

Meaning of life (Not Brian’s)

This text was a response to a ‘blog’ I found on a well known ‘Q&A’ site. However I found it valuable enough to have its own space on my blog.

Interesting piece, however, failing at some severe points (as I just commented on one of your answers elsewhere, I thought lets see what Roger Baker writes beyond answers).

It starts here (well actually in some incorrect presuppositions made regard ability to generalize groups or even individuals with a certain worldview):

We may or may not be children of God, but we are indubitably children of the universe, and it is physical and insentient. If, as cosmology teaches, the universe is cold, impersonal and pointless, devoid of any framework of intentional, the problem of meaning forces itself upon one.

It seems as a very rational thing to say: We are either this or that, but one can not deny one of them. However, cosmology doesn’t teach anything, not even by its findings. It only shows what is observable and deductible and painfully our interpretations are always personal. Besides that, calling it ‘pointless’ would seem as if the universe has no ‘goal’. Though it doesn’t have a ‘deliberate’ goal, it is not without point. Just like crystallizing water creates intrinsic webs of ice, it is due to removal of heat. Such is also the fact that the universe becomes more and more complex due to the binding of elements, it is not pointless. It has a direction to move to. Life seems (as we now know the working of folding of proteins, build from simple amino acids) inevitable in situations common to our own Earth atmosphere.

Of course it is not intentional, why would it? A rock falls from a pile, does it have an intention? No. If it hits your toe, still no intention.

The induction (or the need to) of meaning is a post hoc fallacy. See, we are a species that has learned to change the simple ‘pattern recognition’ behavior that is in all life (flora and fauna) to survive, into the ability to plan depending on it by choice. We changed the: ‘It will happen’, to ‘it has to happen’. This is the cause of animism and from that religion at the start of humanity.

As is proven by research and logic (as we know can see, as an individual, the far reaches of space and the inner working of our own body), we individually can deduct and induct how causality causes, but not bring meaning. We are born to die, we procreate to survive. That is one of the definitions of life. So, whether you quote William James or someone else, it doesn’t change that observably we can individually and as humanity as a whole, tell that the biological bonds between kin, are causing the natural cause for procreation and the meaning (again from biological point of view) for our life. However, humans have one thing over other animals: choice. A deliberate and cognitive choice. Even the ‘smartest’ animals will behave on instinct, not rendered mental concepts.(Humanistic meaning)

Whether life has a meaning, depends on whether we give it one (Our own meaning). Or we are indoctrinated with one (religious meaning).

—————

I don’t take physicists or philosophers to quote them for ‘knowledge’. This is something an individual has to come to on his/her own accord. The scientist or wise person, or even just intelligent person can be a proxy or ‘enabler’, but it is your own mind that should try to find the answers, the ‘truth’ in your personal world. I guess we agree on that (though we might disagree on how that should go).

Lets leave out the religion part for the moment, as we seem to stand on different sides of the door and (the metaphore isn’t meant to be mean) I enjoy the sun on my face on the outside of it.

I will answer your ‘question’ regarding meaning, if you do too from your perspective (only your own words, not refering to your earlier writing or others).

You ask two separate things:

  1. How do we give meaning to life?
  2. Why give meaning to life if its meaning ends at death?

The additional points are valid questions regarding the fear people have not having chosen the right meaning for their lives.

For the first question, how do we give meaning to life, I could say that is a spiritual journey for many. Many others (if not most) get the meaning of their life directed by parents, society or general culture (In India the cohesion between country, religion, culture and societies are so strong, there is hardly a difference. This is also the reason).

I shared the second link, to show you have for instance the book of Genesis does ‘teach’ us things, but not about the actual words but the intrinsic nature of the human mind. How awareness (growth of level of cognitive abilities like recognition of causality and ability to form abstract concepts) has altered the realisation of self and the influence of our view of self on the world around us.

Why do I explain this? Because this is where the meaning of our life comes from. Do ants think of a reason for their life? Or the meaning of it all? No, they are fully functional lifeforms, immersed in emotional instinctive behavior. It gets them from a to b and from life to death. This goes for all lifeforms without cognitive abilities like humans (as far as we are aware we are the only ones on this planet currently)..

Why do some think that there must be a reason/meaning for their life outside of their own mind? Because of the lack of awareness of causality. The lack of understanding how things work if there is no mind to observe it (you call this the non-physical, but the first link I shared shows how the mind comes from the brain, ie physical). ‘If a tree falls in a forest and nobody is there to hear it, does it make any sound?’ Yes, it does. Sound is the word we give to the sensory input of material pressure (vibrations in air, but also through more solid objects) change, recognized by our body (ears, sinus, head, haptic feeling). However, we as humans aren’t the only ones to recognize this event in our surroundings. Even if we are not there to recognize it, nor any other life form, the event still takes place. the tree’s branches will still break, the trunk will rupture, the objects around it and the ground itself will tremor. However, this already happened way before human ears existed. It didn’t have any meaning, yet happened anyway.

So, if everything has happened, yet had no meaning, like the birth of stars and the death of them, the debris becoming planets on distant solar systems after a cataclystic event like a super nova. These events also have no meaning, except for the life that eventually might emerge on such planets and becomes aware enough to observe and question their place.

The fact that humans exist, as does other life on Earth (and possibly elsewhere), does not automatically bring a meaning. If history had gone different, we might have not gained cognitive abilities to question our surrounding, though logic states that it is most likely that this was inevitable.

Once you are aware of your parents (by the time you are able to see.), you will feel identified with them. They are part of you. This is a biological bond, that is caused by evolution, because those children who don’t cling like a leaf to their parents will die first. Our emotional field has all emotions of earlier iterations of animals, but our cognition doesn’t have a direct connection with them, though it is directly/indirectly influenced by them. The very first emotion (most important for survival) is fear. Even the single cell organism responds with the most rudimentary equivalent of fear. If something takes away fluids, move away. If something is hot, the cell will (by internal mechanism) move away from it, like plants do. This is meaning for them to survive? Or is it ‘reason’? Or ‘cause’? Life in general has become more aware each iteration (aware in level of response mechanisms to influences in the cycle of a life form). Nowhere in this trajectory there was meaning induced already. This only came into existence when cognitive awareness caused the individual entity (in this case proto-human) to recognize that not all signals were required to respond instinctively to. The fact that (proto-)humanoids weren’t at the bottom of the food-chain anymore, caused their numbers to increase. More entities in a group create more communication, causing complexity of interaction and ‘language’. But with complex communication comes enlarged memory due to the nature of individual differences. Communication causes humans to seek common ground, this is something that is imperative for survival as well. After all the physical dangers outside the group, now humanity has to ensure there is no danger from inside the group too. By following specific protocols, individuals ensure early recognition of danger or possibilities to have mutual goals. Is this a meaning? Or a reason? No it is a means though. Humans haven’t been aware of it, but they have been subject to it anyway (as an object). This all shows that there is meaning in itself.

We create a meaning based on our awareness of the world. When one is unaware of causality, all meaning is one’s own mind. When one sees causility that is identifiable, one will place meaning outside him/her self, based om the identification. Mostly like children do: I act like this, so any event outside myself happening in an identifiable order will be based on the same kind of reason: a person. ‘Stupid chair’ etc.

When we become more aware of the world and have understanding that there are larger connections, it is this larger scope that provides us with meaning: We live together and are dependent on each other. So, this bond must have importance. Now we have (as humanity) evolved further and become aware of things as individuals. We are able as individuals to survive as such. We find that outside ourselves, everyone makes a meaning for their life (Buddhists make their reasons, Christians make their reasons, aboriginals make their reasons.) Because everyone has a choice based on their awareness, meaning has become individualized. But meaning is still not imbued by anything outside the mind. Cause and effect are not meaning, they are results. Taking ‘pointless’, as ‘meaningless’, yes, the universe is meaningless. We observe (and perhaps other species that have evolved into cognitive beings as well) the universe and are children. Our emotional dependency on pattern recognition (instinctive survival mechanism), causes our cognitive awareness to ‘feel’ there is a reason for things, even if it is just that false positive on danger.

Does not having a meaning in life, mean that life is meaningless? No, because our mind has emerged from the increasing complexity of manifolds, we are able to introspect, retrospect, deduct and induct on our observations (which are more than just the visuals). Yes, the only reason for our lives (biological) is to breed. What would happen if all of humanity lost the want to procreate? We would die out. Except that our biological sexual drive will cause the unaware to start breeding (having sex) anyway and cause the species to continue. This again is not a meaning, but cause and effect of biological measurements. But we give life meaning. How do we reflect on a Gorilla mother hugging their infant? How do we reflect on a Chimpanzee baby sleeping in the cultivation of its mother or father? Does it have less meaning? Or more?

Why would a human life have more meaning? The cognitive awareness? Is that what gives more meaning? Because the cognitive awareness is required to even fatom a meaning? Yet if all humans were finished off, the world would continue to turn and another species would emerge superior. Would that be the meaning for humans perishing? The cycle of life includes death. No matter what comes after. The existence as it was before you were born or a fictive eternity of mind? The implications of the wanted ‘after’, depends on the awareness one has for causality. If something doesn’t fit into the logic of reality, one will add supernatural or surreal solutions. To do so, will then cause more and more intrinsic webs of supernatural causes and reasons. But with it comes a reason and cause that is also requiring a meaning. Thus one creates a loop that will keep itself going. Worst thing is our primal emotion. When the loop is connected with fear, it is almost impossible to stop it. Life is prone on survival and to survive it needs to know it will not die. When it knows it will die, it either looses will to continue or seeks a meaning for death. The only meaning people ‘want’ for death is to continue living. The truth is, everything dies. The universe, the planet, humans, specks of dust. Dying is part of a cycle of existence. Energy – matter transformation. Direction to no direction. Movement to no movement.

But what would be wrong about it? Did you bother about life before you were born? No. You weren’t existing. IF you would imply everyone lives AFTER death, you automatically imply everyone lives before birth. Taking this into infinity, everyone would be in an infinite loop and you more likely will end up Buddhist, than anything else. If you live before birth, as what? Non-corporal? That would imply the mind or essence is not based on physical causes as we know it is. It implies we would be able to investigate mind / cognitive abilities at the moment of conception or even before (because the implication of added complexity would still have to adhere to reality). As we know, this is not so. We have been able to figure out where the mind/cognition is created and can switch it on and off.

So what is the meaning of life, if life ends? Well, for one, there is the meaning of A life and there is meaning of life. One is what it means to an individual, the other is what it means to a species or even broader, an ecosystem. Until an individual is aware of it, there is no meaning for it to discern. When it is aware, it will search for a meaning. Not that there is one, but it will search for it, because the pattern recognition that is the base of our mind, depends on search for causality. We as humans often fail to understand that causality is not meaning. It is cause and effect. The result, not the meaning.

So, if there is no meaning to life, what could we extract as the most objective ‘meaning’ we could give it?

Looking at life as it is, it is adaptation. Adaptation means learning. Learning means finding data, information and from that knowledge. This is what humanity has done. First with the increasing complexity of life itself, then its habits, then its communication, then its cognitive understanding. So, the meaning of life, in the most objective matter would be: Accumulate as much data, information and knowledge for the next generation to grow upon and extend.

I might add: To increase the positive effect of it on humanity, its habitat and entire ecosystem.

And again on the proof of superstition

Any religitard (someone who has deliberately kept his/her ignorance up, by following superstition rather than using the brain his/her ancestors gave him/her) will keep coming up with reversed logic:

‘Look how beautiful everthing is. That MUST be my god’s doing’ (Whether it is Hindu, Muslim or Christian denomination)

‘But that is too complex to be existing without a divine hand’ (doesn’t matter the line of religion followed)

However, they still fail to meet any burden of proof

And what will they say?

But you can’t disprove it either’.

Well….that is where they are wrong. See, all we have for saying that something exists is EITHER: proof/evidence (not the same thing) or history.

Now the thing with history is, that it is either ‘left overs’ in the natural world, or interpretations written to paper by our ancestors.

What is wrong with that? Nothing, as long as you understand the implication. It means that without the knowledge YOU have, someone who wants to give an answer about something, will have to trust on the information he/she DOES have.

An example? The people who wrote most of the still in print religious books from around 3000-2000 years ago, thought the world was flat. They even thought the Earth was the center of the universe. Why? For the same reason you talk from perspective of I and you/others. You speak from perspective. In such you take the place your mind is, in your head, behind your eyes, and the first thing you address is how to connect what you see, hear, feel and experience to the ‘mind’ that is you. Why can blind people think? Because the mind doesn’t need a visual to work. A part of the brain is dedicated to visuals, but the mind doesn’t have that. At first, humans, gaining cognition (deliberate self awareness and ability to extend that awareness into planning etc), only saw the limits of the group. Then they extended beyond the groups (some where bannished, some were seeking or left behind, some were the sole surviver of a group), they sought out the world. But that world was what they walked on. Every step was a flat step. When looking up, they saw the sky, like a blanket, when they looked forward, they saw the world, until the next mountain, then next forrest. The world WAS flat. It still is to extend, as the WORLD is what you observe. But Earth has never been flat. The planet is what it is, a globe (read some Copernicus to understand how humanity escaped that limitation of mindset), and the world is too, now. The world is basically our projection of our awareness on the ‘universe’ around us. How do we know that our evolving humanity has gone through these stages? Because our individual evolution per human still follows EXACTLY the same steps of awareness.

Sooo, how does all this relate to the question? Well, you wanted to know prove for imagination, I now explained to you where our mind and from that our imagination comes from. BUT, how about the ideas of gods? Well, imagine you are limited in understanding and awareness. Imagine you are a ‘baby’ in mind. Basically learning to ‘write’ and ‘read’, or even the more complex pattern recognition, was something that has taken humanity the greater of thousands of years. Before that, mammals were growing out of an ice age, where the ‘tide’ had turned. The change in climate, made the center of Africa (then the center of the ‘world’ of mammals, like apes) a lush green jumgle. It was easier to stay alive, but also, many different species fought for dominance and died. The dinosaurs, already extinct for some time, left more of the smaller animals for the battle and these eventually started to take its toll. Homo Erectus (or before that even Homo Habilis) was able to get out of the trees, without being preyed on. They started to walk the fields and have less and less attackers. BUT, the instincts were there. They had been there for thousands if not millions of years in its ancestors, and they had proven to be the required survival instincts. When a bush rustled, it didn’t matter if there was a predator or not, you got into the tree, high up. These were eventually, even when humanoids and other mammals lived in groups, the instincts that would still pop up. The ‘fear’ of death, the fear of not being able to reproduce, was stronger than anything. It still is. These fears, these ‘false positives’ were the ability for humans to survive. The ‘look I ran from this bush and survived’ was a stronger lesson than: ‘look there is a dead body of a mate but we don’t know how that happened.’

Now, you have had your run in the community with these false positives (you survived, even though there was no danger), how do you explain this to your children when they are in the woods. Do you say: Look, if you die, you were just unlucky. Or do you say: Stay away from rustling bushes, because you will die if you don’t? I am guessing you would go for the second. This is how our mind works. We did and do this with everything. From losing our keys at home, to picking up the phone a second before the mechanism actually makes it ring. We think that it is ‘super natural’, because it ‘preceded’ us or happened due to a factor that we are ‘unaware’ of. This is the basic reason people seek for proof of gods and other superstition. But they are all the same, just some have a longer written story that supports it.

The only argument ANY theist has for their god or supernatural power, is circular reasoning which has been done away with already (and again in the piece above):

The book says this happened and I will not seek into the mind of humanity WHY someone wrote it down like that, I just accept it for true, because I once had an experience I couldn’t explain, so it must be true. So, the book says my ignorant superstition is called , so I will name it .