Quote from: nihilnegativum on August 30, 2016, 07:49:44 PM

Suffice it to say, that the idea of good is one of perfection, that there is an essential duality to it
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This is exactly the point, the main distinction of metaphysics (serious buisness as it teaches how to use one's understanding), is the epistemological distinction between a priori and a posteriori that can hold only when this distinction is a pure difference. When one assumes this distinction to be based on some from of positivity, it either assumes a theistic ontology (an ontology where the pure infinite is the ground of everything and time a mere illusion), and thus lose the reality of a posteriori or the opposite, assume there is not pure ground, lose the a priori and be stuck with mere empiricism. My type of nihilism changes the mode of grounding, and grounds a priori on the pure negativity of inexistence. Far from leading to theism as its logical conclusion, this is the stepping stone towards a rational worldview without spiritualism and without inconsitencies that follow.

I agree that grounding ontology in the infinite implies that our reality including time must in some way be unsubstantial. This is hard to grasp from our frame of reference for we are fully immersed in our reality. However, this concept is not limited to theism. Several physicists have argued that reality is other then what it appears to be and that we may actually live in a Holographic Universe. This of course raises the question of who sustains the projection?

Godels incompleteness theorem tells us that for any overarching logical system no mater how complete there will exist unprovable assertions which if assumed true will require a priori knowledge (truths which are assumed but cannot be proven from within the system). With this in mind the logical course of action is to work to minimize our reliance on such assumptions while ensuring that our chosen system is not inconsistent for it is an elementary fact of logic that in an inconsistent formal system every statement is derivable, and consequently, such a system is trivially complete.

I cannot evaluate your concept of nihilism without further detail specifically your first posit and what you derive from it. However, the typical concept of nihilism argues that life is without objective meaning, purpose, or value, and that morality does not inherently exist. It argues that established moral values are simply contrived abstractions. This definition appears inconsistent with your a priori assertion of the good as perfection.

Quote from: qwik2learn on April 08, 2016, 03:32:24 AM

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Our total reality and total existence are beautiful and meaningful . . . . We should judge reality by the little which we truly know of it. We have concluded that the awareness is the finest and greatest item in this world based on the practical analysis here itself. If the practical experience is neglected, the logic will lose its basis...

Now I will also quote Gödel and Chopra for their very helpful comments on this difficult discussion:

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It is more elegant and far easier to accept as a working hypothesis that sentience exists as a potential at the source of creation, and the strongest evidence has already been put on the table: Everything to be observed in the universe implies consciousness.

- See more at: http://www.chopra.com/ccl/what-is-cosmic-consciousness#sthash.qAGM6TT1.dpuf

Now all of this is according to the "philosophical viewpoint" of the most brilliant mathematician of the 20th century:

Quote from: Kurt Gödel

The world is rational.
Human reason can, in principle, be developed more highly (through certain techniques).
There are systematic methods for the solution of all problems.
There are other worlds and rational beings of a different and higher kind.
The world in which we live is not the only one in which we shall live or have lived.
There is incomparably more knowable a priori that is currently known.
The development of human thought since the Renaissance is thoroughly one-dimensional.
Reason in mankind will be developed in every direction.
Formal rights comprise a real science.
Materialism is false.
The higher beings are connected to the others by analogy, not by composition.
Concepts have an objective existence.
There is a scientific (exact) philosophy and theology, which deals with concepts of the highest abstractness; and this is also most highly fruitful for science.
Religions are, for the most part, badbut religion is not.

I now present more fascinating and salient quotes from this mathematical genius:

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"The brain is a computing machine connected with a spirit."

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Positivists decline to acknowledge any a priori knowledge. They wish to reduce everything to sense perceptions. Generally they contradict themselves in that they deny introspection as experience. They use too narrow a notion of experience and introduce an arbitrary bound on what experience is

One bad effect of logical positivism is its claim of being intimately associated with mathematical logic. As a result, other philosophers tend to distance themselves from mathematical logic and therewith deprive themselves of the benefits of a precise way of thinking.

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What I call the theological worldview is the idea that the world and everything in it has meaning and reason, and in particular a good and indubitable meaning. It follows immediately that our worldly existence, since it has in itself at most a very dubious meaning, can only be means to the end of another existence. The idea that everything in the world has a meaning [reason] is an exact analogue of the principle that everything has a cause, on which rests all of science.

Source: http://kevincarmody.com/math/goedel.html

Why would awareness come from nothing and return to nothingness?
Would it not make more sense to say that awareness comes from a sort of non-awareness and returns to non-awareness in a cycle?
What is so difficult about accepting the possibility of another existence under conditions of material non-being? And the endlessness of these cycles?

What is so funny about all of this talk of "scientific proof" is that skeptics apply different standards of proof for parapsychological research and mainstream science. I strongly advise anyone to browse the spiritual development site to discover the facts behind skeptical misdirection, eminent researchers, etc.

I too wish that others will understand the debate, so I am putting forward the facts. One final fact I want to mention: For any authority, the final stage is experience, which alone gives validity... Matter does not force upon us a belief and neither does science have much to say about death; we know for sure that it is a miracle to be alive if indeed the true home of our minds is annihilation (i.e. non-existence or nothingness). Gödel agrees that simple mechanism cannot yield the mind, and that the mind did not arise in the Darwinian manner. That home which gave birth to... mind "out of nowhere" (can be) described as both "pre-existing" (quantum fields) and "nothingness" (an absence of any thing), but it cannot be both! If it were, then our existence would be scientific proof of a miracle.

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The standard dogma is that consciousness emerges from complex computation among brain neurons and synapses acting like bits and switches; I will point you to four reasons given by Hammeroff for doubting the standard dogma; the implication is that the brain is acting more like a receiver of consciousness than a generator of counsciousness;

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stuart-hameroff/darwin-versus-deepak-whic_b_7481048.html