"But if men would give heed to the nature of substance they would doubt less concerning the Proposition that Existence appertains to the nature of substance: rather they would reckon it an axiom above all others, and hold it among common opinions. For then by substance they would understand that which is in itself, and through itself is conceived, or rather that whose knowledge does not depend on the knowledge of any other thing." (Spinoza, 1673)
Spinoza recognized the One Substance must be Infinite;
"No two or more substances can have the same attribute and it appertains to the nature of substance that it should exist. It must therefore exist finitely or infinitely. But not finitely. For it would then be limited by some other substance of the same nature which also of necessity must exist: and then two substances would be granted having the same attribute, which is absurd. It will exist, therefore, infinitely." (Spinoza)
And Ageless and Eternal;
"A substance cannot be produced from anything else : it will therefore be its own cause, that is, its essence necessarily involves existence, or existence appertains to the nature of it." (Spinoza, 1673)
"Reality cannot be found except in One single source, because of the interconnection of all things with one another." (Leibniz, 1670)
Albert Einstein also had a good understanding of humans as an inseparable part of the One, as he writes;
"A human being is part of the whole called by us universe ... We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from the prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. The true value of a human being is determined by the measure and the sense in which they have obtained liberation from the self. We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if humanity is to survive." (Albert Einstein)
spaceandmotion.com
Were Einstein and Spinoza in absolute agreement about absolute truth? I don't think so. The point is that they both took accepted truths about laws of the universe and looked beyond them to create other (and perhaps superior) ideas of "truth".
It is not about arguing whether or not the sky is blue. Parts of it sometimes appear one of many shades of blue to us because that is what we choose to call how we experience a certain wavelength of light. Of course we all see it somewhat differently and blind people don't see it at all, but language has been such a wonderfully unifying force for humanity, hasn't it?
"our planet has one Sun"
The evidence points that way and I am comfortable agreeing with you on that. But it is suggested that in many fields humanity will advance further than they have in all of human history. If this happens in physics and we find that there are several suns circling our sun which are as small as a pencil tip and are some surviving remnant of "black holes" in a "dark energy" belt circling the sun, then that would become the new "truth" and I would go with that. The children in a hundred years will be astounded at the primitive ways we looked at physics, biology, chemistry, astronomy, etc.
"he discovered what he had been looking for when he declared, "They are all perfect.""
I think that is somewhat more profound than discussing the beginning of the universe. That is more on the level of Spinoza or Einstein and "truths" where people understand a relationship (and an affection) for every part of the universe (even distance and ignorance are relationships) are truths more likely to survive in the heart long after the sky is no longer "blue". |
