Rebecca Goldstein on the Many Meanings of 'Matter' | Closer To Truth Chats

Rebecca Goldstein discusses the meanings of matter, "to matter" and the matter of physics, and why we want to matter to others.

Follow Rebecca Goldstein on Twitter @platobooktour

Rebecca Newberger Goldstein is a novelist and Professor of Philosophy. She has written ten books, a number of short stories and essays, and biographical studies of mathematician Kurt Gödel and philosopher Baruch Spinoza.


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[cecilmontgomery]

I kinda like the idea of figuring out exavtly why matter ...matters .

[maryweprin]

On the question of is there something in the Universe that is of a spiritual significance, which I think is another way of putting it,
and your feeling that there isn't, is it possible that "it", is not "outside" but within, and is brought to life as we express spirituality? The question might also be put, "who are we"? Are we in essence, the Universe expressing itself?
Billy

[brandursimonsen]

All matters have a beginning and an end. Including the universe itself. Bert said it all is going to burn up with the universe. How did it begin? Is the universe a spinster.

[xspotbox]

Reality is real because we don't recognize any non real existence, except thoughts in our brains. Whatever exist obviously matters or it wouldn't exist.
But if we ask why do we matter, than answer doesn't have any well defined meaning, we don't matter because reality just is or isn't, can't be any other way. Real question from personal perspective should be, why do we remember things that doesn't exist?
Same logic can be applied to our mental state, everything we think of matters or it wouldn't be in our head. But is this a true fact, conscious thought are not part of material reality, are not a thing and have no physical influence on other objects, so they don't bound to same definition of reality. It's like our thoughts doesn't matter for material universe, but they're the only reason why we feel alive and can enjoy otherwise meaningless state of existence.
Another reason might be, perhaps there are other kinds of thoughts inside our mental sphere we can't distinguish from conscious process. I'm asking are there foreign thoughts inside my head or only what my conscious soul can produce?
Must mention i car hear subtle noise inside my head sometimes, it might be transmission from another dimension because my brain doesn't seem to age with time, if noise would come from my cells, than it will get worse with aging, but it doesn't. This means it must be produced by some influence, it's probably some mild influence of ear canal can cause that sensations, but this would be of even greater importance to me than, because it's related to my general health. Who cares if aliens or other people want to transmit something important into my head, i didn't ask anybody to attack my mental state. Than again if it's health related, it's strange we don't pay much attention to those kinds of negligible problems but rather guess if it's aliens or angel whisper perhaps.
Our brain is talking to nature since the dawn of time, it wasn't designed to produce fantasies and BS but to keep us alive and help us find some pristine joy in otherwise meaningless experience. It's just, the only way we can make our existence really meaningful is if we cross the barrier of dreams, and this is not allowed by reality standards. We would have to change definition of reality than, like reality is a very persistent joke.

[LaurenDove-xx]

To him whose ego leads him to believe that energy begins and ends in him, instead of knowing that the vast energy of the universe is his to use when he knows his universality, that is his stumbling block – his brake to success set against himself.

Egotistical man, proud of his few insignificant discoveries, which at best have but lifted us to where we are as apt to use them for mutual destruction as for mutual blessing, continually boasts of our gradual “conquest of Nature.” Nothing could be more absurd. Man is not conquering Nature, he is but conquering ignorance by becoming aware of Nature, a little fraction of it at a time.

One should develop a belief in oneself which reaches to the skies, but that belief should be free of the taint of personal ego.

Where then is the universal energy? It is not in motion at all but in the stillness from which motion springs, and that stillness is in the magnetic Light of universal Consciousness.

There is no material universe. Matter and motion do not exist. They appear to exist, but that appearance of existence is the great cosmic illusion. Even the senses which tell us that matter exists do not exist, for they are motion, and motion is merely the electric record of thought imaginings.

All bodies in all the universe are but waves of motion which in themselves are only seeming. There is no such thing as motion or substance. There is but illusion which we sense as motion and substance.

Sunshine in Nature would be a calamity without shadow – and an artist’s picture would be purposeless and valueless without both sunshine and shadow in their balanced relations.

No matter how great your knowledge of the unreality of death may be, - no matter how strongly you may live in the spiritual world – you must not forget that you have a physical body which manifests spiritual idea – and that you live in both the divided and the undivided universe of CAUSE and EFFECT

To have so much knowledge of the undivided universe that it leaves you cold to the emotion of the divided universe is to hold yourself aloof from the Play, and render you purposeless.

If you fully comprehend what I have just told you, you will fully comprehend the relation of the divided universe of motion which forever repeats its sequences of motion to create illusion, to the undivided universe of stillness from which those sequences of motion are projected.

In other words you will be intellectually able to be constantly aware of the two worlds in which you live – the undivided and the divided – instead of just the one divided world of the senses which has dominated man’s actions for ages.

The supremacy of man is dependent upon the measure of his ability to live knowingly in the undivided Mind universe. The master makes use of the divided universe of sensed matter as he wills – or dismisses it from his Consciousness when he wills. Until you become master of matter it will master you. The greatest aim of your life should be freedom from matter and to be its master.

That is why I am stressing the mechanics of the divided universe of sensed matter which has made man its slave for ages, in order that knowing man can transcend matter and become its master instead of its slave. For this reason you must know the mechanics of it until it is automatic in you. The small effort of study you give to knowing this principle in your heart is more than priceless to you.

That is exactly what I mean by the transformation which will lift the more spiritually advanced of the human race out the ages of material man into the age of Cosmic Man. And that also is the reason why you should know the invisible universe of God’s still Light even more abundantly than you can sense the two lights of opposed pressures which constitute the sensed electric universe of divided motion.

The Soul is the fulcrum from which the polarized lever of motion extends to manifest a polarized body. All bodies are electric, therefore all bodies are polarized.

A polarized body means a body which is divided into two seemingly separate parts because of two opposite conditions which cause that seeming separateness.

The whole universal body is polarized. It is divided into compressed light waves of matter which you can see, and into expanded ones which you cannot see.

There has been much controversy in science as to the nature of light. For a long time light has been presumed to be corpuscular, which means that it is composed of particles of matter. In recent years light has been said to be made up of waves. Both are right All motion in the universe is wave motion. Matter is a corpuscular record of the electric potential at any one point in any wave. Particles of matter form wherever desire of Mind to express form takes place – and that is everywhere.

There is no point in the universe which is not continually extending and retracting in inward-outward explosions to multiply the black light of space into the white light of incandescent matter and to divide the white light to return it to the zero from which it came. Every particle of matter is a wave and every wave is completely filled with particles of matter which measure the electric potential at every point in every wave-field.

The entirety of this convincing universe of seeming reality is motion, controlled by INTELLIGENCE and powered by DESIRE. The realities of love, truth, balance, idea, inspiration, religion, invention, beauty, the arts, romance, courage, character, ethics, loyalty and all of the ennobling or debasing attributes of man’s world are not in matter or motion at all. Give thought to this all who think of their bodies as themselves.

Matter consists of countless little and big whirlpools of two-way motion. One of these two directions winds up its two intertwining electric opposites into an incandescent fury of explosive resistance which become the suns of stellar, solar and atomic systems.

That winding up of motion is what polarization is. That fury of resistance to the winding up process is what compression is. That also is what gravitation is. And all of it is but one piston stroke of the electric heartbeat of the universe of matter.

That polarizing piston stroke which generates the hot light of suns electrically records God’s concentrative thinking in the forms of Creation which simulate God’s knowing. That polarizing piston stroke vitalizes bodies and makes them “live” and grow toward strength. That polarized light of suns repolarises other bodies while the dark of space depolarises them. But God’s concentrative thinking is sequentially repeated in reverse. The intensity of generated resistance to such compression must relax. The wound up whirlpools of motion which simulated one half of life must unwind into the cold dark of space to simulate the other half. Everything which appears must disappear.

That opposite, relaxing piston stroke of God’s decentrative thinking depolarises, degenerates and devitalises bodies and makes them seem to “die” and decay. It gives bodies back to the source of their borrowing. It RADIATES that which has been GENERATED.

In motion alone is the answer to all of the mysteries of matter. With one stroke of the piston we “live” – with the other we “die.” With the next stroke of it we are reborn to again die. And so it is that the cosmic cinema goes on forever. Bodies appear, disappear and reappear as a continuity forever and forever, but they never die, for they manifest eternal life, and LIFE CANNOT DIE.

(Source: Extracts from The Home Study Course by Walter Russell)

[dawnbradshaw]

The only thing that matters his love and kindness towards each other

[bruceylwang]

So, we should stop saying what's the matter with you (or me)?

[sharonbre]

Do these 2 make it up as they go along?