T.o.N. (Theory of Nothing)

[N0B0DY]

You cannot 'reduce something Infinitely', thus there is no such thing as 'zero'.
pif.

Just a few things:

1) If we were able to reduce something infinitely, it would never reach absolute zero. Infinity cannot be verified using the scientific method, so how do you propose the reality of infinity?

2) Infinity is based on the inversely-proportionate relationship of the infinite and infinitesimal. So if we were to hypothetically propose that space is infinite, the finite observable universe would be relatively infinitesimal.

3) I agree that there is no such thing as zero, but as being representative of absolute vacuity (0), the opposite would be absolute solidity (1); and since both states are impenetrable and neither can exist, both seeming opposites can be equated as non-existent. This would mesh with Newton's absolute spacetime, and because there can be no literal basis for Einstein's relative spacetime, the warping of which is thence impossible, it must be illusory.

4) I think Newton was correct in his assumption of an absolute spacetime, but not in his assumption of particulate matter being separate from space. I think also that Einstein was correct in his assumption of a unified field, but not in his assumption that variable densities can warp space. Yet, we can integrate both in another fashion using the theoretical basis above, where absolute spacetime is the equivalent of absolute mass/energy in order for us to be able to extract the finite masses and energies observed; and this could include your proposal of infinite space, relative to the reducible velocities from absolute speed.

Relative masses and energies would not be separate from absolute space, but we could eliminate the concept of warpable spacetime because there is no need for space to be filled if it is equated with absolute solidity - there is already more mass than observed. So the motion of mass could then be viewed as being incrementally replicated according to observable quanta as a result of the cumulative distribution functions of random, but deterministic, probabilities.

[neutralino]

Children

Play Nicely!

I'm with Rufus here. Fluent Piffle and Drifter, please refrain from offtopic comments aimed at each other.

Let's all try and keep on track in this thread. Perhaps we can follow Nobody's example, and return to the topic.

[Drifter]

Thank you gentlemen, I agree.
There is a lot of truth in the old addage about casting one's pearls in front of swine.
[No harm/offence meant to any human-being.]

THE EYE OF SELF-EXISTENCE - I

__

The Secret Doctrine establishes three fundamental propositions:

An omnipresent, Eternal, Boundless, and Immutable PRINCIPLE on which all speculation is impossible, since it transcends the power of human conception and could only be dwarfed by any human expression or similitude. It is beyond the range and reach of thought - in the words of Mandukya, "unthinkable" and "unspeakable".

To render these ideas clearer to the general reader, let him set out with the postulate that there is one absolute Reality which antecedes all manifested, conditioned being. This Infinite and Eternal Cause - dimly formulated in the Unknowable of current European philosophy - is the rootless root of "all that was, is, or ever shall be". It is of course devoid of all attributes and is essentially without any relation to manifested, finite Being. It is "Be-ness" rather than Being (in Sanskrit, Sat), and is beyond all thought or speculation.
The Secret Doctrine

In the magical phrase of the Book of Dzyan, the oldest book of revelation kept in the secret sanctuaries of the sacred Mystery Temples, the Rootless Root symbolizes the First Fundamental of the Sacred Science of Gupta Vidya, the Wisdom Religion or Theosophia. It is the unknowable, but for humankind, it is also the unthinkable and unspeakable, especially in the Mysteries, for those who have apprehended the unknowable, those who have gone beyond all scattered thoughts to the supernal realm of Divine Thought, transcended even that, and become one with TAT. It is THAT, beyond all names and forms, which includes all, cancelling and superceding all beginnings and endings. It is that which is beginningless, ever existing and never dying. It is the fountainhead and origin of all Life, and of all life in the seven kingdoms of Nature in all worlds and systems, in all stars, planets and galaxies.

__It is the origin of all life during manvantara, the 'Day' of the great universe, which is the period of activity for every single being throughout the cosmos. It is also equally and exactly the same during the 'Night' of non-manifestation in which every being is reabsorbed, without knowing it, into the great bosom of the Divine Ground, that which includes all and yet itself is No-thing, which is everything and nothing. Unthinkable, unspeakable, it is the Soundless Sound in the eternal Silence that transcends all sounds and silences in the manifested worlds of Nature, both visible and invisible. It encompasses the entire human kingdom and all the lives of all gods, monads and atoms, beings of every kind at whatever degree of awareness, knowledge, self-knowledge, universal knowledge, universal self-knowledge or universal self-consciousness.

__Beyond and behind all of these is TAT, which is ever full, and which, though boundless, is capable of emanating countless universes, and yet remains totally undepleted. One of the most magnificent stanzas in Sanskrit declares: That which is ever full has taken away from it that which is ever full, and yet, it remains ever full. It transcends all infinities and all sum totals, and therefore it is known to the man of meditation, and sometimes in speech, as that which is No-thing or No-being. It is No-thing in space and time, nothing that is ever manifested, because it is eternally beyond manifest and non-manifest, being and non-being, day and night. It is beyond all contrast, beyond all divisions and dichotomies, beyond Spirit-Matter and the very division and contrast between concretized spirit and sublimated matter on all planes of existence. It has also been sometimes referred to as the One Universal Existence, as in the eighth shloka of the Stanzas of Dzyan:

Alone the One form of existence stretched boundless, infinite, causeless, in dreamless sleep; and life pulsated unconscious in universal space, throughout that All-Presence which is sensed by the opened Eye of the Dangma.

[Drifter]

Prometheus Bound
Listen to the sad story of mankind: At first mindless, I gave them mind and reason. Not in disparagement of men do I speak. But to show my gifts were governed by good will. For seeing, they saw not; hearing, they could not listen. All their lives they passed like shapes in dreams, Confused and devoid of purpose. . . They acted without knowledge, till I came. . . . Number, chief of sciences, I invented for them, And how to set down words in writing, The skill of remembrance, mother of the Muses. . . . I distinguished the divers modes of prophecy, And was the first to discern from dreams What Fate ordains should come to be. I gave the hidden sense of voices, Sounds, sights met by chance upon the road. I guided mankind to a hidden art, And read to them the intimations of the altar-flames.

Aeschylus
The Omnipresent Proteus
Be what he may, once that a student abandons the old trodden highway of routine, and enters upon the solitary path of independent thought — Godward — he is a Theosophist, an original thinker, a seeker after the eternal truth, with 'an inspiration of his own' to solve the universal problems.

H. P. Blavatsky

[Drifter]

We are such stuff as dreams are made of.

-- Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act IV, Sc. I. [abstract]

Have perseverance as one who doth for evermore endure, for thy
shadows [personalities] live and vanish. That which in thee
shall live forever, that which in thee knows, for it is
knowledge, is not of fleeting life; it is the man that was, that
is, and will be, for whom the hour shall never strike.

[Drifter]

THE INNER CONSTITUTION OF MAN (1)

It is of these "dreams" of which we are made and of this man for
whom "the hour will never strike" that I have to speak to you
tonight, of the inner constitution of man, divided in a sevenfold
manner, called sometimes the seven-fold constitution of man.
This seven-fold constitution is not confined, in our opinion, to
man, but is shared with him by the whole of nature also. The
consideration of this subject, therefore, properly demands that
of the whole theosophical theory of evolution, so that tonight I
cannot hope to go over it, but only that part of it which
particularly relates to man.

In the theosophical theory, spirit and matter are co-existent,
and co-eternal. There is no spirit without matter, and vice
versa, there is no matter without spirit. These two are the
manifestations of the One Absolute reality. That is to say,
matter is at one pole of this reality and spirit at the other.
In other words, spirit contains the plan, as it were, which it
impresses upon matter, which receives this and carries out its
evolution from the moment that manifestation begins. Therefore,
this evolution is on all the seven planes.

The word "plane" is used in Theosophy -- and by many others
before this -- to indicate not only a place, but also a state or
condition. For instance we have the plane of mind, of body, the
spiritual, and the physical planes. This does not mean that they
are separated from each other like the compartments of a ship, or
floors of a house. These planes are conditions, or states, of
which one may interpenetrate the other. Evolution may be carried
on to perfection so far as this relates to inner planes, such as
those of man's septenary constitution.

To illustrate: Consider the shadow from some object in an
electric light, thrown in a certain direction. Another electric
light may throw a beam at right angles to this black shadow. The
shadow and the light thus cross each other, but they do not
interfere. The shadow, when it strikes an object beyond, still
envelopes it in darkness, although the electric light has shone
through its center. Thus the shadow and the bright light may
exist at the place where they cross, independently, otherwise
they would negative each other, and there would be a cessation of
light or of shadow beyond the point where they met. Instead of
this, both shadow and light will continue on to their respective
destinations.

[Drifter]

THE INNER CONSTITUTION OF MAN (2)

This sufficiently illustrates my meaning, that the planes of
evolution may proceed within each other, and yet not interfere,
and it is not necessary that they be separated in any sense
whatever. There are many illustrations which could be drawn from
science. Mr. Tyndall substantiates this with respect to the
colors of the solar spectrum. We know these are all in the solar
light, unseen by us until they are separated by the prism. And
so on, in almost every direction, are similar illustrations.

Evolution proceeds on seven planes throughout the manifested
universe. Man, in this world, is the highest manifestation of
this evolution, and therefore contains within himself its higher
seven planes, which before his advent were not perceptible,
although they existed always in the germ. Buddha declares that
man is made up or formed from thought germs. He is not alone in
this assertion.

Many philosophers since his time have said the same thing; that
man is a thinker, and is made up of and the result of his
thoughts. Western minds have become so accustomed to judging him
by his mortal body, and to listen to theories which teach the
conditions whereby mental states may be materially produced, that
at last it has lost sight of man as a thinker at all, and cannot
understand why he is made up of his thoughts. We admit that he
has a body, and that this body is not thought, but declare that
it is the result of his thoughts. The body, now used by all
human beings, is the result of the thought of the human race in
the past, which thought, at length enabled it to so mold matter
as to furnish the body in which man, who is the thinker, really
lives.

Man, the thinker, is not divided in this seven-fold way, but man
consisting of body and other elements of his nature is so
divided. This seven-fold division is not absent anywhere in
nature. The seven days of a week is an instance. The layers of
the skin are divided in a seven-fold way. In the growth of the
child before birth, there are seven distinct divisions. In the
progress and construction of the great works of man, there is
even seen the seven-fold division.

Of a great building, for example, the architect first formulates
the plan. The materials existing in various states, represent a
second stage; collecting them together after that, a third;
united in the building, a fourth; decorating it, a fifth;
furnishing it, a sixth; and its occupation by man, the seventh
and last. And so it is with man. The ideal plan is laid down;

[Drifter]

THE INNER CONSTITUTIONS OF MAN (3)

the materials of which are scattered through space; these are
collected; then built together in the various forms of nature
until that of man is reached.

The first division of man is body, composed of what is called
matter, or atoms, held together in a definite form. Have you
ever reflected that your body, composed of matter, is made out of
the mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms, and therefore you
have within portions of the tiger and all ferocious beasts as
well as the gentle? You have also vegetable and mineral matter
collected in your body, for this represents all that evolution on
the physical plane has accomplished in the world.

With the Evolutionists of today, we admit that at one time there
was only a mass of fire mist, and although our theory of
evolution does do so, it is unnecessary to go beyond that for our
present purpose. These say there was first this fire mist,
which, by means of the processes of nature, began to revolve into
a vortex, and so continued until it became sufficiently dense for
a crust to form upon it. This kept growing thicker, until we
have the world as it exists today, which finally, without any
life or intelligence of its own, produced these. That is, from
nothing came forth something.

We admit with them that this process went on, but we assert that
it was in accordance with the plan laid down by other human
beings, who evolved it as the result of the experience of other
lives on earths which they had passed through in the great wheel
of eternity. But we say further that in this fire mist of the
scientists are beings carrying the plan of evolution with them.
They first put this matter through the mineral school, so to
speak, residing within each particle, and continuing the process
for millions and millions of years. When this had been
sufficiently accomplished, these beings then passed on; that is,
pushed forward some of this matter into the vegetable kingdom.
This process was carried on for uncountable years. Then this
same collection of beings carried the evolution of atoms up into
the animal kingdom, where we are now, as mere masses of flesh,
not as human shapes. This process went on until the whole mass
had received education in the animal kingdom.

The geological history of the world verifies these statements,
excepting, of course, the presence of these egos. I admit that
its links do not give us any proof of these beings, but I insist
that a survey of the whole scheme demands their presence. In the
early ages, we find only forms of trees; later, we observe
enormous, or mammoth, beasts. They have disappeared when the
necessity for them passed. There isn't even a "missing link."

[Drifter]

THE INNER CONSTITUTION OF MAN (4)

The anatomist of today insists that these were the forefathers of
our animals; that such and such a huge beast is the original of
such and such a smaller one. The process of perfecting that
brought them to the stage where they now are was done by and
through these beings. Are our bodies, then, the result of this
evolution? If so, we are connected with all the lower kingdoms.
Without life this body would be useless, and the Theosophic
theory is that there is no spot in space where there is no life.

We have been accustomed to talking about life as something
belonging to material bodies, but as to the intervening space, we
have generally thought of it as without life. It is undoubtedly
true, I think, that in every point in space there is the same
stream of life, in which all beings exist, and hence this Life
Principle is the second division of the Theosophic classification
of man's constitution.

Now, the question arises, what is life and what is death?
Ordinarily, death is thought of as something that comes to all
beings, without exception. Theosophy denies that there is such a
thing as death at all. We don't say there is no death for this
body. But we declare that what is called death is really life;
it is one of its phenomena. Man may be compared to an electric
lamp, composed of carbon interposed at a break in the wire. The
current, caused to flow through this wire, reaches the carbon, is
resisted and broken until the carbon is exhausted.

Man is a carbon standing in a current of life, consisting of
molecules united in such a manner that he is capable of living --
burning -- just so long. That is, carrying the theory into
everyday life, he is capable of remaining active just so many
hours, when he becomes fatigued because life is so strong he
cannot longer resist it. In the morning he awakens, to once more
renew the contest, and keeps on so doing from year to year, until
life has grown too strong for him and he is compelled to give up
the fight and abandon his home in the body.

There is really no such thing as death, but only a change, an
abandoning of the body. This, then, is the second division of
man's nature; called in the Sanskrit philosophy, Prana, meaning
breath, because it is said that man lives by means of breath. It
is derived from the sun, which is the center of life or being for
this globe.

[Drifter]

THE INNER CONTITUTION OF MAN (5)

The next division is the Astral body, called the Design body, or
Linga Sharira, that on which the physical structure is built; a
further materialization of the ideal plan which existed in the
beginning of this evolution. Ages since, at the time animals
were going through the evolution necessary to prepare the human
form, only the Astral man existed. This Astral body was
therefore first; before man existed in material form, and, I
think, represents the time when according to the Christian Bible
Adam and Eve were banished from the Garden of Paradise, for it
was a state of paradise to have only an astral body at a time
when a physical one would have compelled man to maintain a perpetual warfare
against the monsters of prehistoric ages.

The Theosophical theory is that Adam, existing as an Astral Body
and having reached that point in evolution where matter could be
built into this body, received a "coat of skin" or became a man
of flesh and blood as he is today. I advert to this because it
is from the sacred book of the Christian, which has been reviled
and scoffed at because it has never been explained except in its
literal sense.

The Astral body is the shape of man's body, but contains in
itself organs which connect the man inside the real figure with
the outside organs; eyes, ears, nose, etc. Without the Astral
body, it would be impossible to account for the possession of
senses which are not man's true outer senses. The somnambulist,
for instance, walking with his eyes open sees nothing; is looking
at you and cannot see you.

Our explanation is that the connection between himself in the
Astral body and the outer organs is cut off. In hypnotism, any
organ or organs may be so cut off while others remain active,
thus accounting for many of its phenomena. The Astral body
therefore is in reality more the man than the body, but is so
connected with it that it is not able to act except in certain
cases.

"Mediums" are such instances. A medium is a hysterical, nervous
person. We know that looking over mediumship we find them
afflicted with something akin to this; catalepsy, for instance.
The condition in which many curious things happen through mediums
is this: The proper adjustment of all the functions -- nervous,
material, and mental -- is really a condition of the Astral body,
which is able sometimes to manifest itself. In our opinion,
nearly all the phenomena of Spiritualism may be traced to the