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Mungeclimber
Trad climber
sorry, just posting out loud.
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haven't read the full thread, but with the philosophical bent of the last posts, it reminded me of Searle...
paraphrased...
the mind body problem is just a stomach digestion problem.
the mind is what the brain does. digestion is what the stomach does.
and for my part binary understanding yields false dichotomies almost invariably due to complexity.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Physics of the Impossible: A Scientific Exploration into the World of Phasers, Force Fields, Teleportation, and Time Travel.
~ Michio Kaku
In this latest effort to popularize the sciences, City University of New York professor and media star Kaku (Hyperspace) ponders topics that many people regard as impossible, ranging from psychokinesis and telepathy to time travel and teleportation.
His Class I impossibilities include force fields, telepathy and antiuniverses, which don't violate the known laws of science and may become realities in the next century.
Those in Class II await realization farther in the future and include faster-than-light travel and discovery of parallel universes.
Kaku discusses only perpetual motion machines and precognition in Class III, things that aren't possible according to our current understanding of science.
He explains how what many consider to be flights of fancy are being made tangible by recent scientific discoveries ranging from rudimentary advances in teleportation to the creation of small quantities of antimatter and transmissions faster than the speed of light.
http://www.amazon.com/Hyperspace-Scientific-Odyssey-Parallel-Universes/dp/0385477058/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1262414809&sr=1-3
The most amazing part of all this to me , is that he classifies precognition as a Class III impossibility - "things that aren't possible according to our current understanding of science".
when I've experienced it many times as have others I know. Either he's wrong or there may be parallel physical and spiritual laws existing simultaneously in this universe.
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Gobee
Trad climber
Los Angeles
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The simple message is, that Jesus came in the flesh, who gave himself for our sins, in order to be justified by faith in Christ, for the righteous shall live by faith. For in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith.
2 John 1:5-7, not as though I were writing you a new commandment, but the one we have had from the beginning—that we love one another. And this is love, that we walk according to his commandments; this is the commandment, just as you have heard from the beginning, so that you should walk in it. For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh. Such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist.
Galatians 1:3-5, Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.
Justified by Faith
Galatians 2:17-21,We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified. But if, in our endeavor to be justified in Christ, we too were found to be sinners, is Christ then a servant of sin? Certainly not! For if I rebuild what I tore down, I prove myself to be a transgressor. For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.
The Righteous Shall Live by Faith
Galatians 3:10-14, For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.” Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for “The righteous shall live by faith.” But the law is not of faith, rather “The one who does them shall live by them.” Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”— so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith.
Galatians 3:21-2, Is the law then contrary to the promises of God? Certainly not! For if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law. But the Scripture imprisoned everything under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.
Galatians 3:26-29, for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise.
Galatians 4:8-11, Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods. But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more? You observe days and months and seasons and years! I am afraid I may have labored over you in vain.
Christ Has Set Us Free
Galatians 5:1-6, For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. Look: I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law. You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace. For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.
Galatians 5:13-15 For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another.
Walk by the Spirit
Galatians 5:16-26, But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.
Galatians 6:1-5, Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. For if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. But let each one test his own work, and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone and not in his neighbor. For each will have to bear his own load
It's a Vertical World, AFTER ALL (from Day 6, from the beginning)
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cintune
climber
the Moon and Antarctica
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God's curse, eh?
Nice trick. Always keep 'em guessing.
"Toward a critique of the law-book of Manu.-- The whole book is founded on the holy lie. Was the well-being of mankind the inspiration of this system? Was this species of man, who believes in the interestedness of every action, interested or not in imposing this system? To improve mankind--how is this intention inspired? Where is the concept of improvement derived from?
We find a species of man, the priestly, which feels itself to be the norm, the high point and the supreme expression of the type man: this species derives the concept "improvement" from itself. It believes in its own superiority, it wills itself to be superior in fact: the origin of the holy lie is the will to power." Nietzsche
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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or, Jan, what you experienced wasn't what you thought you experienced...
this is not a condescending statement, but one based on experience as an experimental physicist trying to understand just what is being observed in an experiment. We learn early in our careers that we must understand in excruciating detail how our experimental apparatus works, what parts of the observation attributable to the apparatus, and what parts to nature.
So we perform a number of tests in the observation, as well as build a model of how the apparatus works. Most time is spent, in fact, understanding this aspect of the observation than anything else.
Care is also given to make sure the assumptions that were made in building the apparatus, and in analyzing the data coming from the apparatus, do not prejudice our conclusions about what actually happened in nature.
Almost none of this is done in reports of human witness. It doesn't even occur to us that the way we sense the universe, the actual measurements that we make with our senses, are limited in resolution, dynamic range and lack spatial and temporal continuity. We actually perceive all these attributes, but that perception is a part of our "conscious awareness" of reality, based on "models" of how the universe works in a very practical manner as learned by experience.
Common experiences like deja vu seem very strange because they seem to violate the continuity of time, which is a learned attribute of nature. However, the brain doesn't necessarily work in a time-continuous manner. We learn to stitch together time sequence from the many sensory inputs, and the processing of those inputs, into something that is perceived as a continuum. Occasionally we encounter situations where this doesn't happen and we have this odd experience of something happening after we perceive it happening...
Similarly, few people have a good idea of how memory actually happens, what is the mechanism for producing memory, how does the associative process happen, etc, and how do we recall memories. These processes are very important to the issues you raise regarding experiences of precognition. To make a flip remark, you can't study precognition until you understand cognition... which we don't fully understand yet. This is before you can make any meaningful observation about reality.
However, it appears that anyone who cognates assumes they are experts on cognition... yet upon examination of human witness accounts vs. objective measures of the same phenomena, all of the limitations of human sensory and cognitive processes are observed. While these abilities have been essential for the success of humans in the fitness landscape presented to them on earth for the last few million years, it has definite limitations when pushed beyond those rather immediate needs.
Experimental science rests on the veracity of observations that are made of nature. Experimental scientists have developed methodologies to recognize the difference between a "detector artifact" and an actual observation of nature... and to quantify the limitations of those observations. This skepticism is a powerful tool to understanding, and does not seem to exist in most discussions of personal experience.
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roadman
climber
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As my first comment of 2010, sitting here sipping coffee with my feet up, in my pink heart short short bathrobe with the name Darwin embroidered on it, I'd like to say: you guys rock!!!!
Peace and safety to all in 2010 and beyond
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MH2
climber
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"Few persons care to study logic, because everybody conceives himself to be proficient enough in the art of reasoning already. But I observe that this satisfaction is limited to one's own ratiocination, and does not extend to that of other men.
The object of reasoning is to find out, from the consideration of what we already know, something else which we do not know."
The Fixation of Belief
Charles Saunders Peirce
Popular Science Monthly
November 1877
http://www.peirce.org/writings/p107.html
But Peirce, who was a famously weird guy, was also very respectful, or at least envious, of belief that seemed to come out of nowhere, and encouraged people to seek it:
"One who sits down with the purpose of becoming convinced of the truth of religion is plainly not inquiring in scientific singleness of heart, and must always suspect himself of reasoning unfairly. So he can never attain the entirety even of a physicist's belief in electrons, although this is avowedly but provisional. But let religious meditation be allowed to grow up spontaneously out of Pure Play without any breach of continuity, and the Muser will retain the perfect candour proper to Musement.
So, continuing the counsels that had been asked of me, I should say, 'Enter your skiff of Musement, push off into the lake of thought, and leave the breath of heaven to swell your sail. With your eyes open, awake to what is about or within you, and open conversation with yourself; for such is all meditation.'"
A Neglected Argument for the Reality of God
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/A_Neglected_Argument_for_the_Reality_of_God
The Experimental Epistemologist begins to run into trouble:
FRANK: My goodness, do you mean to say that you can't even tell me what you believe without consulting the machine?
EPISTEMOLOGIST: Of course not.
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Gobee
Trad climber
Los Angeles
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This is cool, what a crimper?
This hooks into the nerves surgically.
Their working on next arm now.
I'll be back for that one!
Also their working on eyes, ears, legs, and skin!
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Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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We have more money per capita and a better military at our disposal, including weapons I'm not allowed to mention. At least while the US government, and co-religionists in the US, keep sending money.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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If nothing else, Ed on the one side and Karl and I on the other, have demonstrated the functional differences between the two sides of the bicameral brain. Nobody can read this thread and claim that they don't see the difference between the two modes of thinking. So that much (and actually much more) has been accomplished. Thanks to Ed's persistently logical questions and comments, I know I have been forced to rethink a lot of things and differentiate in my own head at least, a lot of categories that were previously more vague than they currently are.
I understand the frustration of a scientist when confronted with phenomena that can't be reproduced on demand. I also understand why, according to current scientific rules, it therefore has to be disregarded.Of course in their personal lives, scientists violate their own discipline- imposed rules all the time. What scientist will say, that you have to understand every single aspect of human sexuality before engaging in sex? Or falling in love, or listening to music, or climbing rocks? So I think if I said that dabbling in mysticism was one of my several hobbies, that would probably be ok. I sense that science gets really uncomfortable only when claims are made about the nature of things.
Believe me, those of us who experience such phenomena from time to time are also frustrated that we can't reproduce it on demand.The only co-relation I've been able to make so far is that the more I meditate and do other spiritual practices, the more frequently episodes of precognition and other such phenomenon happen. Even then at my lowly level, it's not too often.
I contributed a few tidbits to Karl's "Trippy Juju" thread about some of these experiences but here's another one involving precognition. If anyone can figure out a scientific explanation, I'm certainly open to hearing it.
Example: I am driving home from work at midnight. I live on a hill with a driveway that is perpendicular to a steep and narrow road and requires a sharp turn to enter without hitting the concrete wall on either side. Normally, I drive up the road fairly quickly at that time of night and swing into the driveway in one swoop. This time about two blocks from my home, I had an interior picture (where inside the mind such images are formed I have no idea) of a black and white cat lying sound asleep in my driveway, curled up in a ball.
I thought to myself, I better drive slowly and pause before swinging into the driveway, or I will run over it. Sure enough, when I got to my driveway, there was the cat exactly as I had pictured, sound asleep. I had to rev the engine and blink the lights to wake it up. Slowly it got up and stretched and wandered off. I had never seen it before and I never saw it again at my house.
So what explains that? I have no idea, and that's just the most mundane example I could think of. It definitely was not a memory of a cat that I had ever seen before, and I had not indulged in drugs or alcohol, and wasn't particularly tired when it happened.
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cintune
climber
the Moon and Antarctica
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The reason science doesn't try to explain those kinds of experiences is because they are not reproducible. If they happened every day, or could be willed to happen, there would be something to work with, but in most cases they are random, entirely unexpected and therefore unexplainable. As to what higher power might be running such a show, the question arises as to its intent. That same night dozens of other critters became road kill with no rhyme or reason. Most of the spititual teachings say that these sorts of things are side effects of the "real" path we're supposed to be on. The whole white magic/black magic dichotomy comes into play, and the idea is generally to just let them pass without getting too curious, lest we fall into the trap of trying to impose our will on the transcendent and such.
Certainly though, weird things do happen.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Cintune-
Well put from both a scientific and spiritual point of view. In fact I decided some years ago that my experiences were getting way ahead of my wisdom and I cut back on meditating and focussed more on karma yoga - service to others.
Of course, one of the things I have often pondered along these lines is why I had no precognition of my own auto accident. I do know that I was tired, hungry, and mad about having to get out of bed on less than eight hours' sleep to attend an unnecessary faculty meeting. I was definitely out of sorts and not in the flow that morning.
Since I was hit from behind by a guy having an epileptic seizure with his foot stuck on the gas pedal, doing 120 km an hour, it would have had to be a very explicit instruction to move into the oncoming traffic lane because he wasn't going to pass me as I would have assumed. If I was sent that warning, I certainly missed it and live now with a screwed up neck every day. So it isn't just the scientists who are frustrated at the lack of predictability of such phenomena.
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cintune
climber
the Moon and Antarctica
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True, if we could actually harness these sorts of things life would be much easier. Castenada has some insight into this, but my favorite quote along those lines comes from the science fiction novel Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny. It's a complicated and surreal story about a team of interplanetary colonists who take on the personas of various Vedic deities and get involved in a convoluted power struggle, but in the middle of it is this gem:
To define is to lose. The essence of all things is the Nameless. The Nameless is unknowable, mightier even than Brahma. Things pass, but the essence remains. You sit, therefore, in the midst of a dream.
Essence dreams it a dream of form. Forms pass, but the essence remains, dreaming new dreams. Man names these dreams and thinks to have captured the essence, not knowing that he invokes the unreal. These stones, these walls, these bodies you see seated about you are poppies and water and the sun. They are the dreams of the Nameless. They are fire, if you like.
Occasionally, there may come a dreamer who is aware that he is dreaming. He may control something of the dream-stuff, bending it to his will, or he may awaken into greater self-knowledge. If he chooses the path of self-knowledge, his glory is great and he shall be for all ages like unto a star. If he chooses instead the way of the Tantras, combining Samsara and Nirvana, comprehending the world and continuing to live in it, this one is mighty among dreamers. He may be mighty for good or for ill, as we look upon him - though these terms too, are meaningless, outside of the namings of Samsara.
To dwell within Samsara, however, is to be subject to the works of those who are mighty among dreamers. If they be mighty for good, it is a golden time. If they be mighty for ill, it is a time of darkness. The dream may turn to nightmare.
It is written that to live is to suffer. This is so, say the sages, for man must work off his burden of Karma if he is to achieve enlightenment. For this reason, say the sages, what does it profit a man to struggle within a dream against that which is his lot, which is the path he must follow to attain liberation? In the light of eternal values, say the sages, the suffering is as nothing; in the terms of Samsara, say the sages, it leads to that which is good. What justification, then, has a man to struggle against those who be mighty for ill?....
The answer, the justification, is the same for men as it is for gods. Good or ill, say the sages, mean nothing for they are of Samsara. Agree with the sages, who have taught our people for as far as the memory of man may reach. Agree, but consider also a thing of which the sages do not speak. This thing is "beauty," which is a word - but look behind the word and consider the Way of the Nameless. And what is the way of the Nameless? It is the Way of Dream. And why does the Nameless dream? This thing is not known to any dweller within Samsara. So ask, rather, what does the Nameless dream?
The Nameless, of which we are all a part, does dream form. And what is the highest attribute any form may possess? It is beauty. The Nameless, then, is an artist. The problem, therefore, is not one of good or evil, but one of aesthetics. To struggle against those who are mighty among dreamers and are mighty for ill, or ugliness, is not to struggle for that which the sages have taught us to be meaningless in terms of Samsara or Nirvana, but rather it is to struggle for the symmetrical dreaming of a dream, in terms of the rhythm and the point, the balance and the antithesis which will make it a thing of beauty. Of this, the sages say nothing. This truth is so simple that they have obviously overlooked it....
To struggle against the dreamers who dream ugliness, be they men or gods, cannot but be the will of the Nameless. This struggle will also bear suffering, and so one's karmic burden will be lightened thereby, just as it would be by enduring the ugliness; but this suffering is productive of a higher end in the light of the eternal values of which the sages so often speak......
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MH2
climber
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"The great pleasure and feeling in my right brain is more than my left brain can find the words to tell you."
Roger Sperry
But, both halves occupy the same body and manage to cooperate pretty well most of the time, no?
As a guess, what makes science and religion meaningful to people comes from the same source: a sense of wonder at nature and appreciation for its beauty. Scientists often have no trouble combining scientific inquiry with religious conviction, or even with crackpot notions.
Although Spock may be humourless and unemotional, I can't think of too many actual people of my acquaintance, scientist or not, who resemble that description in the least.
The goal of science is not to explain everything, just parts of everything. Even cosmology is just a part of everything.
Jan's mystical experiences should be cherished, the same way a great friendship or sunset is.
And thanks, cintune, for reminding me that I'm not completely ignorant of things Vedic, if that's what Lord of Light was about.
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neebee
Social climber
calif/texas
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hey there jan, say... as to your accident and then the cat situation... it really does touch our heart as to how there seems no sense, rhyme or reason...
i've had such things, too... wonderful help and warnings for one thing, though not the others...
still, it feels good... as you know, due to the cat...
so what i always hold near to my heart is this:
there is more going on behind the scenes as to these issues that have affected our life... somehow, we were to play a part in it.. even if never seen.. who knows why that cat was somehow very speical in the "behind the scenes" .. .some times years later, we see, and are very very shocked...
then--as to the car accident, we sure wish to the good lord that all could have been well... :(
yet, even here, one just does not know--behind the scenes are working, yet again... perhaps you inner man, was trusted to go through this, for reaons that we may never see here..
i had a bad fall due to the careless of a lady, in her home... an umarked drop... i always wonderered why that had to be, when so many other times, things were seen ahead of time and as a perfect blessing, and i was kept well...
yet then, this:
though somehow, i think it must have been for some reaon in that lady's life... though i may never knew..
perhaps my fall, saved the life of her grandkids, as later, down the months to come, the area WAS blocked off..
better it had never happened... i never was set against to sue, and all that stuff, i just gave a big hug, when i crawled back up, in one piece... :O she was mighty scared, she thought i'd died! or was near to... :)
now, too, like you, i have a bad neck and must take care with it... it messed up my hip, too, and who knows that may be why my sciatic got so badly damgaged, later, at the cat-litter work...
"we will understand it better, by and by" as the ol' song goes...
:)
all that makes sense, is that we are a vast connection of a "quilted blanket of sorts" and our "sewing" may hurt at times and not make sense, but the beauty of the quilt will one day be seen:
and more so, if we are not angry against the "maker" of said quilt...
wow, this is very interesing, and:
i am so very very glad you are STILL here and part of this quilt...
and actually, we must be glad that the poor man is still here, too...
he should not have been driving that is fact... i sure he something will be changed in his life...
well, all for now...
god bless... :)
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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As a guess, what makes science and religion meaningful to people comes from the same source: a sense of wonder at nature and appreciation for its beauty.
Indeed!
I've also always liked the Buddhist visualization of being only one lotus in a crowded pond. Maybe the color for mystics is pink and for scientists yellow, but we all contribute to the beauty of the pond.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Neebee-
You're right, most of the time we don't know why certain things happen. In my case, the police suggested that if the other guy hadn't hit my car first, he would have probably gone through the 12 foot fence surrounding the American Air Force base and out into three lanes of high speed Japanese freeway traffic and into a huge international incident. Then again he had a young Japanese wife and a newborn baby. All things considered, the baby needed a father more than I needed a good neck!
The reason the guy was driving around with grand mal epilepsy however, is the result of the unscientific use of medicine. He told me he went to the Air Force clinic several times to complain of headaches and blackouts and was told it was stress and take motrin for it! Only after the accident did they test him for epilepsy. Of course he can not drive now and was discharged from the military with a disability. This too may have been a blessing at least to others, as his job in the Air Force was hazardous waste disposal!
Since they can't be tested and replicated all of these speculations are unscientific of course. However, they're also fun and interesting, part of the desire of human beings for meaning. Like you, however, I believe they are part of a bigger plan.
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Gobee
Trad climber
Los Angeles
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Bump to all the sons and daughters of are one and only, Almighty God and Father through our peerless and without equal and highly exalted and honored Lord Jesus Christ, whom belong the Glory Forever!
Daily Readings from the Life of Christ (vol.2) By John MacArthur
http://www.gty.org/Radio/Archive
Genesis 1:1, In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
Isaiah 40:28, Have you not known? Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary;
his understanding is unsearchable
Romans 1:25, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.
Revelation 4:11, “Worthy are you, our Lord and God,
to receive glory and honor and power,
for you created all things,
and by your will they existed and were created.”
Genesis 1:31, And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.
The FA; Scott Balcom July 13,1985
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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to respond to Jan's post above... I must ask: why do you need any explanation about why these things happen? Why not just accept them as is and seek no deeper cause?
The way I have thought about it, over the 40 odd years of thinking on the issue, people who reject the "scientific approach" of understanding replace the entire physical cosmology with a spiritual cosmology whose complexity rivals any science has to offer. My point here is more than adequately made by going up in this thread to the discussion on angels.
My questions regarding "authority" have to do with what we can take as evidence of any of this happening at all, and how we can interpret it. It is more than a conjecture, by now most adequately demonstrated, that our own thoughts are a poor authoritative source. This has also been recognized through the ages in various disciplines, and handed down to us as parables in a variety of stories, some systematized into philosophies and religions, spiritual and mystical practices.
That the very "authority" of our mental state fails in very simple ways, for instance, drinking 4 or 5 Old E's and recalling the consequences... "just what was I thinking when I did that?!" Or a bit too much of the bud, or any manner of ways we have of inhibiting, heightening or otherwise altering our consciousness. These affects are directly attributable to changing the chemical environment of the brain.
One doesn't have to be trite, think of anesthetic , how does it happen that by the application of a small amount of chemical to the body, our perception of pain is so radically altered that it allows us to remain placid as our bodies are hacked into? The chemistry of "thought" is profound.
Now what of love? certainly scientists can enjoy human feelings as any human does, but where does this thing come from, and why does it have to come from some external place? How can we not suspect that this "love" comes from very basic desires to procreate? That it may have important hormonal initiation. And that it is such a powerful social disrupter that our traditions have put severe bounds on playing out the feelings of love, and of love lost... These feelings are so powerful as to have acquired a complex set of socially imposed qualities that make it, love, a very complex concept. The Bonobos have a quite different manner of expressing an utilizing "love" in their societies.
Understanding this is a complex matter and the matter is by no means settled. To answer Werner's "designer" question I would restate it as a challenge to come up with a detailed explanation of how, for example, a complex structure like an eye results from evolution. Of course I cannot give such a detailed explanation, yet, but the general outlines of the explanation is contained in the theory of evolution, and the fact that there has been a very long period of time on Earth for that evolution to occur. The evolutionary "experiment" is harsh and success is fleeting. When something doesn't work individuals and whole species go extinct. When something does work those individuals thrive and a successful species might persist for a few million years, then vanish either by continued evolution or by becoming extinct. Most become extinct... any disadvantaging attribute results in individual death, and if a special attribute, the death of the species.
In some ways, it is the natural manifestation of the scientific method. The only certainty is that something fails a test. If that thing passes the test, it persists for as long as it does not fail.
Back to our conscious state....
I do feel that thinking on this matter lends one to a self-congratulatory conclusion that we are somehow special, and that we (and I mean "humans" here) are somehow apart from nature. And it may be true that there are special qualities to our evolved state, but I do not think for a moment that these things need to have come from outside of us, but rather are a part of evolution and completely within the natural realm.
While one cannot answer the challenge of skeptics that a "mere" mechanical explanation could possibly be true, it is a less high mountain to climb than the one to "prove" that some supernatural universe exists that has the properties necessary to escape detection in the natural universe. The only strong case to be made for that is "believe your feelings and have faith," which happens to be anathema to any hardheaded scientist trying to wrest a bit of understanding out of nature.
The eventual physical theory of consciousness probably won't be that different in broad strokes from what we know today. The brain has evolved as the rest of the body, and retains parts inherited from past species. Our ability to process the sensory input, and to act on that input in an organized manner is specialized in a particular organ. It is likely that this is not exclusive, but that the entire organism retains some ability to "process" input and "act," making it very complex indeed. The bits and pieces of successful organizations meld together as the organisms evolve, and the tasks of generating action from stimulus are adapted for the special attributes of each new species.
These behaviors are "accreted" into layers, acting in part like individual behaviors but greatly modified by added behaviors. So involving a sort of "mental geography" to understand the moving and folding etc. of all these discrete structures. The evolutionary appropriation of these behaviors to "patch in" where needed, sometimes doing very different things than those structures' original job, makes it a messy situation.
Now put on top of that the very fact that the behavior that generates the curiosity to know how it works is a part of that same general behavior and there is no wonder that the issue is complex.
As is evident, I prefer the scientific way to try to get to the bottom of this interesting "problem" (where I use "problem" in the sense of a homework assignment, as is the tradition of the sciences) having thought deeply and practiced some of the other ways of trying to understand the inner domain. I have listened to my inner self, I have meditated, I have studied philosophies. I have discussed it with wise people.
My conclusion is that all this discussion is inadequate for producing real knowledge on the matter, and that only the scientific approach has a chance. It is pragmatic at least. It is a slow process and needs time to evolve, but it already has made great strides.
Think for a moment, when you call some service and get the computer asking you questions, and recognizing you verbal response. It drives me crazy, but it almost works, in fact, it works in most cases... I have friends from the past who have left research in the arcana of particles who now work on developing these sorts of "products" working at places like "Bell Lab" to make your lives convenient. Someday soon those voices on the other end of the phone will not be distinguishable between human and machine. And the first instances of the "Touring Test" will have been met in the general society.
If you will, the understanding of the "illusion of reality" will be the demonstration through the creation of that illusion. And just like any magical illusion, there will be no magic involved.
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Gobee
Trad climber
Los Angeles
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"My point here is more than adequately made by going up in this thread to the discussion on angels."
Manson, Jason, Freddy, and Michael Myres, have nothing on this tomb dweller! Yet he fell down before Jesus, and had compassion on him!
Jesus Heals a Man with a Demon
Mark 5:1-20, They came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Gerasenes. And when Jesus had stepped out of the boat, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit. He lived among the tombs. And no one could bind him anymore, not even with a chain, for he had often been bound with shackles and chains, but he wrenched the chains apart, and he broke the shackles in pieces. No one had the strength to subdue him. Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always crying out and cutting himself with stones. And when he saw Jesus from afar, he ran and fell down before him. And crying out with a loud voice, he said, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me.” For he was saying to him, “Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!” And Jesus asked him, “What is your name?” He replied, “My name is Legion, for we are many.” And he begged him earnestly not to send them out of the country. Now a great herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside, and they begged him, saying, “Send us to the pigs; let us enter them.” So he gave them permission. And the unclean spirits came out, and entered the pigs, and the herd, numbering about two thousand, rushed down the steep bank into the sea and were drowned in the sea.
The herdsmen fled and told it in the city and in the country. And people came to see what it was that had happened. And they came to Jesus and saw the demon-possessed man, the one who had had the legion, sitting there, clothed and in his right mind, and they were afraid. And those who had seen it described to them what had happened to the demon-possessed man and to the pigs. And they began to beg Jesus to depart from their region. As he was getting into the boat, the man who had been possessed with demons begged him that he might be with him. And he did not permit him but said to him, “Go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you.” And he went away and began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him, and everyone marveled.
The Ministry of Reconciliation
2 Corinthians 5:11-21, Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade others. But what we are is known to God, and I hope it is known also to your conscience. We are not commending ourselves to you again but giving you cause to boast about us, so that you may be able to answer those who boast about outward appearance and not about what is in the heart. For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you. For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.
From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
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