(October 6, 2014 at 6:37 am)Riketto Wrote: In the past i reach a stage in which i realized that i was not getting anywhere.I did reach that stage. Like you, I don't think we can achieve peace of mind or happiness until we determine a purpose or goal, and set about planning to reach it. I think you underestimate just how 'programmable' the human mind is, or appreciate that happiness and peace of mind are mental states that we can achieve through a number of mechanisms.
This usually is the crossroad that make you think about changing the way to proceed.
My understanding is that you still haven't reach that stage.
I get the impression that your worldview depends on certain conditions being met to qualify a person for true happiness and emotional balance. So if someone says they have these things but are not proceeding as you expected, you don't believe them. My worldview is not dependent on that; if your spiritual and philosophical journey leads you to what you seek, then I'm happy for you. Your success does not diminish mine. I am not driven to think that you are fooling yourself or mistaken because I think your approach can work just as well as mine.
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
-Stephen Jay Gould
-Stephen Jay Gould
