I want to know, what is The Force?

Brick, in his IP, wrote:

Lesson 8: Jediism Essays (Continued)

Essay 5: The Force

There are many different, and personal, views of The Force.

What is The Force to you?

What connection, if any, do you feel you have to It?

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I had a right old chew on with this task.

Initially I thought it close to impossible to accurately describe my thoughts on The Force. To attempt any kind of real description would, IMO, mislead. Whatever answer I give, it is likely to be wrong. I am bad enough at finding words to explain what I mean, but to use a finite number of words to describe something which is infinitely indescribable? Buggeration :laugh:

Its also very difficult to explain things that really have to be observed/experienced purely in words. For example, WW2 children in the UK were evacuated from the cities to live in the country, many of these children had never seen farm animals before and so wrote letters home describing them. One boy famously described a cow as looking like a

milk-carton on its side with four legs and a brush for a tail.

Now I personally don’t think that’s a very good description of a cow. I would said it looks like a fat black and white horse. Then again, if these people hadn’t seen cows before, maybe they hadn’t seen horses either. So, a really big, less hairy, black and white dog? That doesn’t really sum up what a cow is, does it? :laugh:

Though perhaps I’m being a tad unfair, I did actually find what I think is quite a good description by another child evacuee:

The cow is a mammal. It has six sides, right, left upper and below. At the back it has a tail on which hangs a brush. With this it sends flies away so they do not fall into the milk. The head is for the purpose of growing horns and so that the mouth can be somewhere. The horns are to butt with and the mouth is to moo with. Under the cow hangs the milk. It is arranged for milking. When people milk the milk comes and there is never an end to the supply. How the cow does it I have not realised but it makes more and more. The cow has a fine sense of smell; one can smell it far away. This is the reason for fresh air in the country. The man cow is called an ox. It is not a mammal. The cow does not eat much, but what it eats, it eats twice so that it gets enough. When it is hungry it moos and when it says nothing it is because it is all full up with grass.

My point is that these descriptions, no matter how good, conjure up very different images of what a cow looks like, but they’re all describing the same thing. And this is what happens when someone tries to describe what The Force is. You’ll get an infinite number of answers that conjure up totally different images in one’s mind, even though these descriptions are all talking about the same thing. They’re attempting to describe something that is indescribable, and they’ll all be warped in some way by our thoughts and pre-conceptions. It doesn’t matter how accurate a description one may be able to provide, it’ll never be quite there.

It’s the same with the name. I look at it’s name as any other word, just in different languages. For example a dog in English is ‘dog’, in German it is ‘Hund’ and in French ‘chien’. It doesn’t matter what we call it, it’s still the same thing. That too applies to The Force. We can call it ‘The Force’, ‘God’, ‘The Tao’ etc. It’s still all the same thing (though perhaps interpreted slightly differently). But ultimately its just a name for something that does not have a name.

The Force transcends words and thought.

Perhaps the best way to explain my understanding is to pinch Sonya’s from the ‘Mindwalk’ Lesson earlier on in the IP. Now, I am no physicist, but the descriptions of how one part of a system depends on that of another, how these things around us seamlessly blend and connect and change slowly together over time, all depending on one thing, which depends on something else, and on and on. That just makes sense to me. I can see it in patterns all around and within me.

I have never really considered the idea of the earth as a giant organism until watching Mindwalk. For me, to talk about The Force is to talk about that ‘connection’ to that giant living, breathing THING that we all are together. Like Watts’s ‘cat through the fence’ example, event ‘head’ does not lead to event ‘tail’. Its all ‘Cat’, just as I/you/cat/dog/earth are all ‘One’ or ‘All’. I don't feel that ‘All’ forms a sentient or has a secret plan for our lives or some meaningful destiny that it's taking us towards. I don't believe you can pray to it, it can’t hear you (and even if it could, it couldn’t do anything). I don't believe that it is guiding us in any particular way. But I have no choice but to be connected to it through The Force because it's part of what we all are. To suggest otherwise would be like a limb claiming to be a separate entity to the body. I can however become ‘in tune’ (for want of a better phrase) with ‘All’. Be as one with my surroundings. I’m not entirely sure how yet, but I think that over time I will come to know this.

Or perhaps its all just Dark Matter

:laugh:

We shall see

End of Lesson 8: Essay 5

Fyxe wrote: A lot of people have said that The Force is just everything. But I dont see how that can be? If it is everything why pull it out as something that can be put a name on it? like The Force, understand? we already have a name for everything, its called the universe, right? so why is there two names for the same thing? I just dont think the force is everything.

Carlos.Martinez3 wrote:

forestjedi wrote: The Force is everything that is.

If I may ask, for whom?

Thats one of the hardest things in modern day Jediism I find... how to be you with YOUR OWN definitions while other be THEM -WITH THEIR OWN definitions. Kinna like life but thats a sermon for another day.

Brick wrote: The Universe is just a bunch of 'stuff' stuck together, in the same way that the human body is just a bunch of organs stuck together.

Fyxe wrote: A ball and a tomato are not the same thing. a tomato is not a ball, a tomato and a ball are similar only because both are round. but one is not the other. and surrounding us, penetrating us and binding us sounds like something pretty different to us, right? I mean what we are and what binds us together has to be two different things.

Sort of what brick was saying, an arm cant claim its seperate from the body when it is attached to the body but if you cut that limb off it does not stop being a limb and then it can claim it is seperate from the body. now there is a body and a limb, two seperate things where before there was just a body!

So if the force took a life energy and shattered it into a million pieces they are all sperate things but still part of what used to be one thing. does that one thing exist anymore? well no, its not one thing anymore. now it a million things that used to be one thing. and if the thing that shattered that one thing took a string and hooked them all together then all those things would be connected but still seperate things. the breaker is the force and the hooker of the string is the force. but the parts are us! our job is to use the string to put ourselves back together, make sense?

Fyxe wrote: No ob1, I asked the question what is the force? because I want to know what people think it is so we can discuss it and see what we can decide it is. I have an idea and you have an idea but when ideas get shown that make no sense why cant I disagree with them?

Fyxe wrote: no double standard, I dont make fun of others opinions like others do. or tell me Im not listening or am a liar. I dont insult people. I just disagree, and you can disagree with me all yo uwant but I wojuld like you to tell me why and what you think is actualy realy instead of just teasing me.

Fyxe wrote: I have an idea and you have an idea but when ideas get shown that make no sense why cant I disagree with them?

Fyxe wrote: OMG!! f**k both you gist and ob1. I am discussing THE FORCE!!! YOU ARE THE ONES THAT DRUG THIS CONVERSATION INTO A PISSING CONTEST AND GIST YOU ARE THE LIAR THAT IS MAKING THIS ALL ABOUT YOU AND THEN BLAMING ME!!
You guys are pretty brilliant at dodge and deceive, sneak attack on the newb like a pack of hyenias!!!