And in the Discussion, I Fit Where?
Offline Hey all,
So I consider myself a Deist in that I believe there is a higher power. For me, that higher power is the massive, near-infinite, incomprehensible (ultimately, by any life-form in this reality) mathematical formula that guides the physical laws of this universe. It's not a granddaddy in the sky, but a force that guides the way this universe has composed itself. My belief system also allows for the supernatural, in that I've had experiences that cannot be explained away by current science, though I feel, if they weren't stigmatized and were analyzed, they could be explained by science. I have also had minimal experience with things like telepathy and telekinesis, which I believe can also be explained by (potentially testable) electro-magnetic phenomena and the powers of the human mind, but which i fear contribute to the illusion of a "God." I won't go on and on.
Problem is, I have a hard time knowing where I fit into this discussion. Should I stay out of the forums that say "No Theists?" I find myself unable to address questions posed to theists because the questions often assume premises to which I don't hold.
Honestly asking...feedback encouraged.
Ryan
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Offline Topher, you're talking to one seriously fucked up person here.
You can see the unintentional irony in the pile of shit you've just got as an "answer". I can see it. I have no doubt the proverbial dog in the street can see it. But luminom never will.
Stop fucking with his brain. It's under enough attack as it is.
I would rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy
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Offline For example, the relatively recent discoveries of quantum mechanics are similar to ancient notions of world illusion, called maya.
Quantum mechanics was discovered 100 years ago! Anyway, I have sat, thoroughly unimpressed, through people who gibber on about the ancient philosophical wisdom which is verified by "quantum mechanics". In such a discussion, you can always tell who the physicists are: They're the ones rolling their eyes. Because they know, first of all, that no one actually understands quantum mechanics on a philosophical level. People get very excited about the prospect of sitting around, smoking dope and discussing the philosophical implications of quantum mechanics. But as a discipline of physics, quantum mechanics is something you have to be able to do. And the people who can do it are the ones who understand that no one understands it. The great Feynman himself pointed that out! I can do quantum mechanics. I know how to use Bessel functions and solve boundary value problems for a quantum system, how to compute probability flux or the expectation values of a system. But I don't claim to be able to understand quantum mechanics philosophically. You see the irony here? People who can do it know that they don't understand it and people who can't do it think that they understand it!
It means to cooperate with more evolved human beings.
This doesn't mean anything.
he matter of body is being gradually replaced by a matter, which, if seen occultly, does radiate light.
Humans, like every other black body at the Earth's temperature, do emit photons. They're just IR, as per the Wein displacement law, which is why you can't see them (and even if you could detect IR, the black-body curve ensures the intensity is so low that they would be undetectable anyway). That was discovered over 100 years ago! How can you possibly bandy about ridiculously, trumpeting your supposed vast stores of knowledge hitherto untapped by scientific investigation, when you haven't yourself kept pace with real discoveries, even those that occurred over a century ago!
I'm just all for recognizing and scientifically following other sources, than just a mechanic rote or a guesswork. For example, the famous Einstein's work eventually known as E = M*C2 was created rather intuitively, without any evidence for it for years after it's formulation.
I beg your pardon?? That is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. You can read Einstein's original paper (translated from German) in which he deduces the mass-energy equivalence from the first principle of special relativity and the Maxwell equations:
http://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/einstein/E_mc2/www/
This paper was published in 1905. The same year of Einstein's formulation of mass-energy equivalence.
If I remember, DG spoke of three fundamental principles in the universe, and so are the three rays of Aspect.
What? Please. Never ever put words in my mouth again. I said that at present, due to the lack of a completed unified field theory, there are three fundamental forces in the universe. Strong force, electroweak and gravity. The electroweak force, by the way, used to be three: Magnetism, electricty and the weak nuclear force. But two successive unified field theories swept that away. Maxwell presented the first gauge theory of electrodynamics which you can read about here:
Relative Motion in Electrodynamics
And Weinberg, Glashow and Salam presented the electroweak gauge theory in 1967. Those three forces becoming one was a consequence of two successive unified field theories.
"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.
-Me
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Offline Solid, liquid and gaseous. There are four more states of matter, finer than gas. They are called etheric, still invisible to us, and there are life forms based on them. I know that for sure, because I am partially aware of the etheric world. It is tangible for me, and I'm not the only one, otherwise my opinion wouldn't be better than anyone else's
What elements can change into the etheric state, and at what temperature does this occur? Why haven't scientists discovered this yet?How can we perceive or measure matter in the etheric state? What life forms are based on the etheric state? How do they stay alive i.e. what methods do they use to acquire energy, photosynthesis? Why are they invisible to us? You claim that they are tangible to you. What do they look like? Do they have any distinguishable effects on their surroundings? If so, what?
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare
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Offline Luminon, seriously. We've gone way beyond crazy town, here. Thinking maybe there might be something science hasn't discovered that will be slightly different than what we previously though is one thing. This esoteric "I know for sure there's bio-energy" thing is just making stuff up.
Quantum mechanics was discovered 100 years ago! Anyway, I have sat, thoroughly unimpressed, through people who gibber on about the ancient philosophical wisdom which is verified by "quantum mechanics". In such a discussion, you can always tell who the physicists are: They're the ones rolling their eyes.
Thank you! Well put.
Because they know, first of all, that no one actually understands quantum mechanics on a philosophical level.
This is the biggest problem that I have with discussions about quantum mechanics. The people who have done the math have this simple, pragmatic view about it, with the occasional comment like, "oh, that's weird, isn't it?" to the other guys who have done the math. All of a sudden, someone who hasn't done the math overhears that, and decides it's philosophy. Now it relates to a mystical principal that Plato came up with (or any of the Eastern modes of philosophy that say the same damn thing).
"Oh, that mean's we're in Shiva's dream"
"It's proof of the immaterial"
...
To which the scientist can only shake his or her head. Honestly, we were just doing math a second ago, and then people started banging tambourines and it got all rama rama ding ding in here.
It is the greatest testament to the scientific community that they didn't hide quantum mechanics. I'm totally serious. If the scientific community was really a big conspiracy to hide things that were inconvenient to them, they would have hid everything about quantum mechanics that turned out to be true. Who would want to hear amateurs go on and on about something they can't even do? That's like being a professional athlete without the paycheque!
Saint Will: no gyration without funkstification.
fabulae! nil satis firmi video quam ob rem accipere hunc mi expediat metum. - Terence
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Offline Quantum mechanics was discovered 100 years ago! Anyway, I have sat, thoroughly unimpressed, through people who gibber on about the ancient philosophical wisdom which is verified by "quantum mechanics". In such a discussion, you can always tell who the physicists are: They're the ones rolling their eyes. Because they know, first of all, that no one actually understands quantum mechanics on a philosophical level. People get very excited about the prospect of sitting around, smoking dope and discussing the philosophical implications of quantum mechanics. But as a discipline of physics, quantum mechanics is something you have to be able to do. And the people who can do it are the ones who understand that no one understands it. The great Feynman himself pointed that out! I can do quantum mechanics. I know how to use Bessel functions and solve boundary value problems for a quantum system, how to compute probability flux or the expectation values of a system. But I don't claim to be able to understand quantum mechanics philosophically. You see the irony here? People who can do it know that they don't understand it and people who can't do it think that they understand it!
You are probably always ready denounce all the scientists who appeared in films like What the BLEEP do we know 2 and say that the equations they've had written on backboards in background weren't theirs. But to me, they seem like people who can do both, the quantum mechanics itself and understand it philosophically.
Quote:This doesn't mean anything.It means to cooperate with more evolved human beings.
Quote:Humans, like every other black body at the Earth's temperature, do emit photons. They're just IR, as per the Wein displacement law, which is why you can't see them (and even if you could detect IR, the black-body curve ensures the intensity is so low that they would be undetectable anyway). That was discovered over 100 years ago! How can you possibly bandy about ridiculously, trumpeting your supposed vast stores of knowledge hitherto untapped by scientific investigation, when you haven't yourself kept pace with real discoveries, even those that occurred over a century ago!The matter of body is being gradually replaced by a matter, which, if seen occultly, does radiate light.
I beg your pardon?? That is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. You can read Einstein's original paper (translated from German) in which he deduces the mass-energy equivalence from the first principle of special relativity and the Maxwell equations:
http://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/einstein/E_mc2/www/
This paper was published in 1905. The same year of Einstein's formulation of mass-energy equivalence.
All right, pardon me, please. That was probably a result of the sleep deprivation.
Quote:If I remember, DG spoke of three fundamental principles in the universe, and so are the three rays of Aspect.
What? Please. Never ever put words in my mouth again. I said that at present, due to the lack of a completed unified field theory, there are three fundamental forces in the universe. Strong force, electroweak and gravity. The electroweak force, by the way, used to be three: Magnetism, electricty and the weak nuclear force. But two successive unified field theories swept that away. Maxwell presented the first gauge theory of electrodynamics which you can read about here:
Relative Motion in Electrodynamics
And Weinberg, Glashow and Salam presented the electroweak gauge theory in 1967. Those three forces becoming one was a consequence of two successive unified field theories.
I'm sorry, but I don't understand how this is any less mystical. I mean no offense, but are you a person who has a hard time believing Christians that their god is a three-in-one package? (a rhetoric question) Of course there's a difference that the scientific theories are real, but... one can't help but to see parallels. Actually, the parallels are very insistent, almost irresistible.
***********************************
Well, that's an awful lot of text again.
What elements can change into the etheric state, and at what temperature does this occur? Why haven't scientists discovered this yet?How can we perceive or measure matter in the etheric state? What life forms are based on the etheric state? How do they stay alive i.e. what methods do they use to acquire energy, photosynthesis? Why are they invisible to us? You claim that they are tangible to you. What do they look like? Do they have any distinguishable effects on their surroundings? If so, what?
2) I am not a scientist so I don't know exactly. Probably because there is very little of etheric and dense interaction and none visible by naked eye. I believe this is also a question of time and a development of technology, it's succession. First a simple technology is invented, then the more complicated.
3) One of the most significant traits in esoteric notion of energy (and matter, under certain circumstances) is, that it is responsive to thought. If you want to make your consciousness include the etheric world for at least a bit, you must make it, by your effort. This means a concentration, visualization, mental exercises, and so on. This ability is usually just not awakened and may awake sooner or later through a correct kind of meditation, for example. (the one which I do works for people) As for the measurement, (or so far, only detection) you can look at some youtube videos like this one. It doesn't seem to be a coincidence, what's happening there.
4) What life forms? My information is, that etheric world is very similar to this one. With higher "octaves", like astral or manasic there are huge differences, but etheric life reputedly gets born, eats, gets old and dies. Maybe the entropy is lower and life span is somewhat higher. What life forms again? We can expect less or more an ecosystem similar to ours, including humans, our neighbours, or Space Brothers, as they are called. We see them on our skies in massive numbers and their art on our crops, recognizable by molten, not bent stems and a presence of microscopic metallic globes in the soil, regularly dispersed.
5) Why they are invisible? Already answered, by a different vibratory rate of their atoms. However, their technology allows their spacecrafts to appear visibly, become solid so they appear on radar , and then disappear instantly, by raising the vibration again. Often, the space craft is not visible, except on a photograph. (works with digital camera as well)
6) It seems to me that what I regularly perceive is usually not the etheric world in general, but a sample of it's matter infused by my own energy, so it becomes almost like a part of myself for a while, or hours. But during meditation sessions we literally lend our chakras for technical purposes of someone else. (see: Masters) Our chakras are, with our permission, used for "stepping down" of higher energy on lower, which can be afterwards used for the betterment of humanity, otherwise hardly. This process is sometimes being supervised by at least one helpful guy. I don't know if he really looked like that, or if it was only my imperfect vision, but if I wouldn't be in a deep, calm meditating state, I would be probably scared, and later I indeed was, a little. A corny, lame drawings for ripping people off on nonsense usually contains angels (women in robes with bird wings). Well, I can say, this is not quite what should always be expected of a spiritual beings to look like.
All right, hear my story. Who cares about an image anyway? My reputation can't probably be any worse 
Besides our regular meditation group once per week, I meet with one or two members of that group on another day, for a shorter, separate meditation in a tearoom in a near city. So I meditated, with closed eyes, of course. It's necessary to say, that it meditation is about receiving and stepping down of high energies. This in result may have a certain visual, tactile and auditory characteristic effects, caused by flowing energy through our etheric body, but they're rather an abstract feelings. These feelings are anyway in minority, mostly it's dark, without vision. So on that evening, I was sitting in the meditation. Suddenly, I had a vision of some being approaching me. It looked like a humanoid figure in a black or dark grey cape, but where the face should be, there was an oval, very intensely shining in blue color, like an electric spark. It was quite a sinister thing indeed. The being bent forward to me and I felt it's closeness like if I'd bring my facial hairs to a statically charged screen. "He probably has something to do here so I'll let him do his job and I'll continue in doing mine," I thought. The being reached out it's hand towards me. The hand reached my left side, under my arm, on the ribs, as I felt. Next, the 'hand' did a quick sequence of scratching-like gestures, finished by a longer, horizontal 'scratch' along my rib. Then the being rose up and went away from my vision. As I continued in meditation, I felt a long surge of energy on the left side of my body.
When we finished the meditation, I mentioned this 'visit' to my colleague (an older woman). She said she did not see anyone, but she felt something approaching to her, as I said. Do you know that feeling like someone's proverbially breathing on your neck? A bit like that, I guess.
Now the interesting part. As those of you good at anatomy know, the place on my body I described is the location of a spleen, which I wasn't aware of at the moment. About a month later, my mother did an esoteric semminary for our friends at our home. There I found out, that esoteric theory says, that the spleen is responsible for dissolving the etheric energy (prana) into a blood, so it's carried around the body into cells. When the spleen is cut out, it's etheric counterpart continues to function a little, but a part of it's function is taken over by solar plexus chakra and it's not a 100% job anymore. My mother then continued in lecture with an interesting information. She mentioned kinesiology. She said, that sometimes on a kinesiologic* session the energy flow through the spleen must be adjusted like ...that and she repeated the same scratching-like gesture as I saw before, in the meditation. Holy shit, I thought, so that wasn't a hallucination... I also suspect that someone or something like that tingles me on my knee when I start dreaming instead of meditating as I should. They obviously want to keep their human convertors awake and focused, so the energy doesn't get wasted. Possibly, they are devas, which could explain their not so human appearance - as for my information, they are 'of infinite variety and colour'.
(* here kinesiology is a method of detecting a sub-conscious information by feeling a responses of a patient's muscle tension. I have seen it to work on a yes-no signal basis )
Beings who deserve worship don't demand it. Beings who demand worship don't deserve it.
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Well, as you said, your self-replicating program doesn't exist either, since it'd be dangerous for a programmer to put something like that out there. In any case, I can't help thinking that aliveness requires an opposite state of being "not alive," and I don't think a computer program could be dead. Rather, it could be made to stop operating, more like dormancy, which is something else altogether. But it could be made to start up again at any time if activated to do so.
I know. I find it very hard to imagine that we could reverse-engineer something modelled on human intelligence without it emulating the reproduction of discrete units the way biological systems do.Think of it this way. What would an AI need to have that a computer does not?
When I was studying neuroscience, I was constantly told not to think of the brain as a computer. The brain is not a computer. It has a feature that no computer has: (actually, I believe some now have a rudimentary version). Dynamism. A computer has a black-box system. The process by which inputs are mapped onto outputs is predetermined. However, in a brain, this is not the case. Neurological structure are said to have dynamic input-ouput. There are two primary components of this:
1) Plasticity and neurogenesis: Neural connections largely depend on stimulus. In a computer, the inputs determine the immediate state. However, in a brain, the inputs determine (a) new inputs and (b) long term outputs. Because of this, the brain does not actually have a machine state. The concept of a machine state was first put forth by Putnam in his paper on Machine-State Functionalism, but is largely considered inaccurate today by most philosophers of mind.
2) Computational dynamism: The stimulus of neurons by other neurons, the rate, pattern, etc. can determined the structural and functional nature of the other neurons. LTP is an example of this.
To put it another way, if we had a real AI you would be able to construct an injection map between "brain" states and outputs, but not between inputs and brain states, which means that the brain doesn't qualify as a computer. That's why I didn't like your suggestion of a "self-aware computer". It's a contradiction in terms.
Really, why? It's actually not known why biological organisms die. It was thought for most of history that they just suffer from wear and tear as they get older. But that's wrong. The formalization of the second law of thermodynamics showed that an open system can continue to maintain a low entropy state as long as the raw material for the metabolic processes that export entropy can continue.
"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.
-Me
Books about atheism
Yay! You didn't leave.
To be honest, I do feel that mass delusion is a fairly good unscientific summary of organized religions. But, of course, vast amounts of research in fields such as psychology and neuroscience is required to fully understand it.
Hmmm, that sounds rather agnostic.
I'm rather skeptical of that idea. I don't see how being closed-minded could stimulate new discoveries. Also, as my signature demonstrates, when people propose supernatural explanations for things they don't understand, it's basically an intellectual cop-out. Their approach can summed up as: if they don't understand it, then it must be impossible to understand. Unfortunately for the religious, any supernatural explanation I could possibly think of would be equally valid. The girl might think that God healed her leg, but what proof does she have for this? None. In all seriousness, I can claim with equal force that it was the deity of a mock religion.
Most people on this forum are extremely intelligent, but they're not scientists either. I doubt that I know much more than you about physics.
We don't have any qualms with lack of knowledge; that can be easily remedied. What we despise is anti-knowledge.
Hahahahahaha, that happens a lot. People are alway surprised by the level of discussion here.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare
Well, just because most computers at this stage are hardwired doesn't mean that eventually they couldn't be designed to be just as fluid and flexible as the human brain. In fact, from what I understand, that's the direction computer science is going now, what with quadruple processors or whatever, allowing them to multitask like the human brain (albeit in far more rudimentary amounts).
The other thing is, however plastic the human brain might be, the way it processes information is sort of predetermined by our biology. Including the case of brain damage or major surgery: the way the brain detours its damaged parts to find new pathways and restore functions, though a sign of its flexible (evolved) design (I know to be careful with that word), is still a set process with its own set of limitations.
On top of that, I see no reason why an intelligence needs to mimic the human brain, at all, to be as good or better at the job.
What its opposite might be helps define what aliveness is. There is a difference between "dead," that is, once alive and not anymore, and "inanimate," as in never was alive and has no capacity to ever be. Personally, I'm uncomfortable with the latter because it describes way too many things that have no relationship to aliveness whatsoever.
I just can't resist asking how you could be so certain of your explanation as to why corpses can't be reanimated when here you say we don't actually know why organisms die. But I have heard this idea that genetics programs a sort of "expiration date" into individual cells (thought to be a possible key to unlocking cancer, as well), and when compounded over an entire body, may lead to the organism shutting down completely. The point remains, however, that a human body that thinks and breathes is in a different category of being "alive" than an articulate, self-replicating robot with AI. That was the issue I was trying to raise.
Then it would no longer be a Turing Machine (which is actually what I've been referring to when I said "computer", a terminology mix up for which I apologize).
I know. I never suggested otherwise.
You're talking about two different things. An AI could emulate the process by which the human brain works in order to be intelligent and self-aware but could still be better or as good at the job. The former is qualitative and the latter is quantitative.
Because those are two seperate questions. This is just basic thermodynamics. We don't know why organisms die, but we do know that once they do, the loss of negentropy is impossible to retrieve.
"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.
-Me
Books about atheism
LOL So glad you're excited I'm staying.
Agnostic? Perhaps.
Oh, please. I'm with you on the "too complicated" bit. As far as I'm concerned, "the human eye is TOO complex to NOT have been intelligently designed" is the same as saying "I'm too stupid to understand how it works, so it must be Skydaddy." That's not what I'm saying at all. What I'm suggesting is that idols receive some qualitative...something...by being fetishized, in the Venus of Willendorf, totem pole sense of fetishization. I've been cut down on every word I've tried to put to it, so I don't know. But my belief is that if you truly, 100% believe in the spaghetti monster (which, of course, no one does), that your brain has the capacity to alter the physical universe using Belief as a conduit for its actions. I don't know what it is, or how it works, but that's what I'd like to find out.
So what I'm saying is that Belief--in anything, my belief is in the human mind itself--has the power to heal or destruct (i.e. ulcers). So that crazy evangelical might actually experience a "miracle" that suddenly she can walk, but it was actually the power of her own mind, fetishizing an idol in which she believed 100%, that allowed her mind to do whatever it is it can do to heal her.
I realize I'm getting into some dangerous territory here, talking about things science doesn't address. But what I'm proposing is ultimately testable, I believe, by some method or another. I also think it could restore to these people a belief in themselves, rather than pandering to some cockamamie holy book and the nonsense...not to mention violence...it creates.
At this point, I'm settled in. I'd just prefer people deal with me without condescension and attitude, so we can just start to talk. I have "faith" lol that we'll get there.
And thank you for getting the irony of "irregardless." People get SO ANGRY about that joke...which is why I love saying it of course.
R
Well, fooling a human being would be interesting, but confounding a human being would be even better. But then, I suppose calculators already do that to most humans.
I don't know, though, qualitative and quantitative could be awfully confused if our computers start devising theories of physics we didn't even imagine. You never know.
Well, you know, the idea of how the physical body degrades after death is not really pertinent to the philosophical question I was posing.
Anyway, you're not all that bad of a guy, I probably prejudged. My apologies. I do think we'll have a tough time of trying to find a common platform on which to base debates, but I'm willing if you are.
Would the last human man on Earth, who obviously cannot replicate, not therefore be alive?
"It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring" -- Carl Sagan
It does not take years of study and practice to understand the meaning of terms, and their evidence to support that meaning.
Which must mean we can detect them.
All that matters is whether science can detect them? If you and other claims they exist, I presume you have some knowledge, some basis for these claims. Present that knowledge.
Can you give an example of this using the claims you are currently making.
Right, but I am well aware of the scientific method and what it entails. And I am well aware of the peer review process and what that entails. And I am further aware of scientists who have demonstrated that they are objective and fair and willing to correct their mistakes, making them trusted sources. So even though I cannot understand something, I can place trust in others to interpret and transmit the results to me.
All I want to know is two things:
1. Its identity/ontology. e.g. What exactly are these rays? Are they something different to anything scientists currently understand about the world?
2. Exactly how you know this; the evidence this idea is based on. e.g. Exactly how do you know there are three rays/four sub-rays?
This 'ray' thing reminds me an awful lot like astrology and similar pseudosciences. Saying things like "Knowing one's rays thus gives a lot of insight into our natural tendences, virtues, vices and virtues-to-be-achieved, even on a national level" sounds very suspect? What does that sentence actually mean? Do we all have 'rays'? How to we know about them? How do they affect our 'natural tendencies'? How do the effects of these rays differ on an individual and national level?
This should not be hard if both a) this 'ray' theory actually means anything and has actual evidence, and b) you actually understand it as you give the impression that you do. Someone for instance can say that our genes influences who we are. They can then explain what exactly genes are, what they do, how they are passed on, and most importantly, how we know this. I want you to do the same.
P.S. I also sense a fallacy of equivocation in this 'Love-Wisdom' business, namely, the use of the world 'attractive' to link love with gravity and atoms. Both employ the world 'attractive' in different contexts. Maybe someone else can confirm my suspicion?
Doesn't matter. It's still material, and therefore still detectable and potentially understandable.
Three what? Three types of material?
Source for this please. Which universities or institutes are conducting this research?
What exactly does this mean? You are making an empirical claims; this entails that you have empirical evidence. If you do not have empirical evidence, then you have no right to the claim.
Which people? Which books? Which lectures? Presumably they are all qualified scientists?
Practiced what exactly? And how did they confirm that it worked or not? What was supposed to happen and not happen?
What exactly is the methodology and protocols of the studies? How exactly does that mind, body, intuition and consciousness play a role? How to we objectively validate the results? I don't see how using your 'mind' and 'intuition' is really a sign of an effective study.
What experiments? How do they verify the results? Which peer-review journals?
There are gaps in science for a reason: they're yet to be filled, i.e. the evidence simply is not there? So either you have some unknown way to know things that science does not employ, or you merely have a god-of-the-gaps.
What does it mean to say it transcends it?
Red alert: invokes quantum mechanics!
Which means you're basically saying science is limited in its knowledge, and the mystics have some transcendent way of 'knowing'. (I put the assertion in bold.) The point is, to understand the empirical world requires empirical evidence, in other words: scientific evidence. To put it bluntly, if scientific methods does not confirm something then it is highly unlikely that something else will. That is not to say that we do not nor cannot experience truths about the world that science cannot yet confirm or understand, however that is quite a bit different to making empirical claims about these as-of-yet speculative and scientifically unverified experiences.
How else are we to communicate ideas if not by word or voice? Even if it can only be understood by experience we must first inform people what it is the are supposed to be experiencing, how to go about it, and how to evaluate at the experience.
"More evolved human beings?" What the fuck does that mean!!
We have ways to ensure we are objective. You're trying to inflate personal experience in to something greater than what it is, and I suspect you're conflating/equivoquating the concept of personal experience too. You say: "everything you have is a personal experience" however there is a vast difference between establishing something objectively, and establishing something subjectively. I suspect you think that because we must personally examine, interpret and take in the objective data, that therefore entails subjectively. It doesn't.
You also say that "the investigation itself becomes a personal experience" however if we are dealing with external facts about reality, then we must turn to objective methods, not subjective methods, so there is no need for the investigation to become a person experience.
The point however is confirming whether the theory is truth or false, and we can confirm this scientifically, not subjectively. Again, if we're dealing with external truths about the world, then we must be able to detect and examine it via objective methods. The fact there may be some subjective facet to this is another issue. For instance, we can objectively and scientifically study consciousness and how it is the result of physical brain processes. That is what it means to say we are scientifically studying consciousness. The inherently subjective and personal nature of conscious experiences does not negate that objective study. Your argument however appears to be like someone saying consciousness is inherently personal, therefore we cannot objectively/scientifically study it, therefore we can only look it as a personal experience.
Although we've more to learn and understand, how much 'deeper' can it get? It seems we understand quite a lot, so on what basis, other than speculation, can you say we can go "mind-bogglingly deeper."
When I say some 'other way' of knowing I mean are you suggesting we must move beyond what our current epistemology and science allows, and turn to 'something else'?
Well if nothing can currently detect is (i.e. not human or machines) then how can you say anything about it, including that it even exists? To speak of it entails you have some knowledge of it, and therefore some way to know about it.
What does it even mean to say "finer-than-material forms of matter"? If it is matter, then it it makes little difference as to how 'fine' it is: it is still matter. Also, 'material' as I used it merely denotes all that substance that exists, so saying "finer-than-material forms of matter" make little sense since it denotes something other than material, when in fact what ever it is would entail materiality.
How do you know this?
So they just know... ??!!
I do not want to hear that they intuitively think it exists, I want to know the empirical evidence they have for thinking it exists, and you have still not presented it.
Even if something belongs as a sub-set of something else, it still follows that there is a distinction; a difference. If there isn't then you're speaking of exactly the same thing, which is what you implied when you maintained that there was no difference between god, humanity and nature. If alternatively you think there is a distinction between the three, can you tell us what it is.
So your own internal intuition confirms a specific aspect of 'something' that is not only external to your self, but also external to nature?! How exactly does you intuition do this, and how do you know it is valid? Are you aware of just how faulty our intuition is?
"It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring" -- Carl Sagan
Hmmmm.
I don't think that's what he really meant. I think he was referring to the fact that the individual carries a gamete. Although, this is quite a hard point to wrestle with. What if he didn't carry a gamete (i.e he had been castrated)? Would he still be "biological life"? Ultimately, in this case, even though the organism has lost the ability to pass on its genetic material, it is ultimately still composed of self-replicating chemical units which compute logical responses to their environs. In The Third Revolution I spelled out, more or less, what biology is in chemical terms:
As an overall property of the biosphere, passing of genetic material from parent to progeny is an essential component of this, for without that process, such replicative chemical systems could not exist, but it would be possible for some organisms within the pool to be sterilized and lose that ability and still be called "biological".
"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.
-Me
Books about atheism
Yup.
Wow, that is some horrendously ambiguous terminology. Lol.
(Aaahh, why did you make me do a google image search!? The horror!)
So, let me see if I understand this. The religious have an "attraction" towards this...wood thing. And, because they love it a lot, the wood thing receives...something...qualitative.
Interesting concept. I think there may some validity to that. I don't know anything about neuroscience, but surely, a little adrenaline and placebo effect can go a long way.
Science addresses anything that can be addressed objectively.
http://www.southparkstudios.com/guide/914
I can't promise anything, but thanks for sticking around.
Why would people get angry about that?
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare
... or someone impotent, or infertile, etc.
No, Jerkpants, that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying we don't tend to label types of things that can't reproduce "alive", not one example of that type.
Nice try, though. You were totally trying to get me to say "yes, impotent people are dead", weren't you?
Saint Will: no gyration without funkstification.
fabulae! nil satis firmi video quam ob rem accipere hunc mi expediat metum. - Terence
Desire. In the case of an abiogenesis-modeled AI, that would by necessity be based in the desire to continue. That is, to continue to live and replicate. Without desire, you have no AI. It's as simple as that.
Saint Will: no gyration without funkstification.
fabulae! nil satis firmi video quam ob rem accipere hunc mi expediat metum. - Terence
I'm sorry if I mislead you, but such software does exist in the form of genetic algorithms. That's much closer to a finished product than either a robot that can repair itself or a dynamically re-assigning synthetic brain.
In general, that's not really the case with the type of computing environment I have in mind. But then, I've been a programmer, so we might be talking in different streams of thought. The environment in which a program finds itself is considerably different than our physical environment, so if you like, you can call it "artificial life", in the sense that "artificial selection" is something where humans do the tweaking rather than nature.
With our idea of organisms, the adaptation process that has played out thus far incorporates a death into the cycle. A life form stops the process of life for whatever reason (I defer to our resident biochemist on that issue) after some fuzzily defined period of time, and entropy takes hold.
What actually happens when a computer runs a program is more similar than you may be aware. An operating system allocates memory space for a program to operate, and when it's finished, that program no longer lives in that memory space, and chances are, it won't ever be in the same place again. You're not reanimating the program, you're creating a clone. The code has to be compiled into something that the computer environment can use, but the only "live" instances of programs are the ones running and in memory.
In the case of a genetically reassembling program, it's even closer to the process of life, and there are versions that die all the time. Programs that write slightly varying copies of themselves only exist for long enough to make copies, and then they're finished. As long as the memory exists as their environment, they can persist in the memory. Making a program that only wants to optimize its adaptation to that environment has been done, but like a life form, it's hard to get rid of something that "wants" to use the same resources you do.
I've actually written such programs, with surprising results. (The most surprising is that they're so easy to write.) I devoted a Linux box to these simple programs and ran into the odd problem that they would eventually write programs I couldn't understand! NASA has used this technique to design antenna systems that work well without anyone really knowing why at first, so I suppose if I were working in a computing department of a university, I might pursue it. But with the limitations of a single memory space, the programs don't do much other than increase their populations and then "starve" when they hit the limits of their environment. The resulting program populations reach the starvation point slower, however, and different programs "evolve" from those population crunches.
Are those populations not alive?
Saint Will: no gyration without funkstification.
fabulae! nil satis firmi video quam ob rem accipere hunc mi expediat metum. - Terence
This is kind of interesting. What's the purpose of them doing this? To repair glitches? Or is it about going where they're needed without taking up more memory than necessary? Do the original, cloned versions self-destruct once the clone is up and running?
LOL Yes, I know. All my attempts to be less ambiguous have led me into problems here.
Googled for what? The Venus? That's the oldest known sculpture in existence!
Paraphrased, yes. By being fetishized, worshipped, especially by large groups of people, the idol receives some kind of energy that enables it to perform acts on behalf of the worshippers. In fact, it's the worshippers themselves bringing these occurences into being, not the inanimate idol. I think it might be some complex form of mass socialized telekinesis, but that's another topic I'm sure will cause me a lot of problems here. I've got a couple books on my list coming that might help, but the relatively legitimate ones are understandably hard to find.
You know it's weird: I've never thought SP was the slightest bit funny but I consider Team America to a masterpiece of unbridled genius. I need a new version of flash requiring me to quit my browser to watch that, so I'll watch it next time.
"Irregardless" seems to be like fingernails on a blackboard for a lot of people. I often get "OMFG U RIDICULOUS MORON IRREGARDLESS IS NOT A WORD!!!!!!" And I'm like "um, yeah, I realize that. That's what the =) is for." It cracks me up.
No, the design was such that it imitated life, so there was no specific point, it was just to see what would happen. The behaviour, though, was similar to bacteria. The cloning versions did, in fact, destruct, once they had "replicated" 2 versions of themselves (that is, expressed their code to a compiler with a single, minor change). They would also destruct if the program didn't persist. (That's maybe obvious, but the not-as-obvious result was that the "organisms" selected by this process lived longer -- they just wrote more code into themselves, regardless if it did anything or not.)
I should clarify that this was not my idea. I read it in a research paper, and wanted to try it. The artificial organism consisted of a compiled and uncompiled portion, in that it existed to spit out a new program (a text file) that was limited to certain functions. The functions were simply regarding space allocation in an artificial memory layer. The compiler (which was really just an interpreter) ran the program in that memory space.
As would be expected by any biologist, the population grew exponentially, but I had no way to deal with the space limitation, so the first time I ran it, my memory layer just called it quits very quickly. I never got it to work so that it was fun to watch, though, so I stopped.
What sucks is that I can't find the paper now. I'm sure I'll find it eventually.
Saint Will: no gyration without funkstification.
fabulae! nil satis firmi video quam ob rem accipere hunc mi expediat metum. - Terence
No, I wasn't trying to get you to say that! In fact, infertility/impotence, or any other real-life example, didn't even enter my thought, hence the reason for the 'last man on Earth' scenario.
I agree that it's most appropriate to label whole classes as alive or not, however that was not obvious from your original comment.
"It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring" -- Carl Sagan
Haha! I thought you were messing with me. Well, I guess "Jerkpants" makes that obvious, but still ...
Saint Will: no gyration without funkstification.
fabulae! nil satis firmi video quam ob rem accipere hunc mi expediat metum. - Terence
Luminon,
I watched your video and have seen stunts like this done by Criss Angel in Vegas among other things. My problem with this is that one can't observe from all angles to insure that there is not a heat source or electrostatic generator above it out of the view of the camera. I'd need to either observe this myself or see 4 camera angles simultaneously. I tried this myself and the only way I could get the wheel to move at all was with static electricity after developing a charge on myself and putting my finger near it. If I was at ground potential or uncharged, no motion, but as soon as I charged myself, I could make the wheel turn.
As an engineer I learned not to accept the claims of others without verification and duplication. If you did this yourself, connect an ESD grounding strap to your wrist and ground it to Earth ground. When you do so, you will not be able to move the wheel as all static electricity on your body will be at earth ground. My conclusion from simple test is the motion can be from static electricity. My best efforts were done while wearing a sweater and rubbing briskly until I was highly charged.
____________________________________________________________
"I guess it's time to ask if you live under high voltage power transmission lines which have been shown to cause stimulation of the fantasy centers of the brain due to electromagnetic waves?" - Me
"God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, - it says so right here on the label. If you have a mind capable of believing all three of these divine attributes simultaneously, I have a wonderful bargain for you. No checks please. Cash and in small bills." - Robert A Heinlein.
But there is also the huge amount of information to be learned. All this is full of new concepts and the ways how they interact with each other.
As for the rays, they are energies, quote: ...whose interaction at every conceivable frequency creates the solar systems, galaxies and universes, end quote. How exactly, on what frequencies or levels is that done, is described in the given theory. The theory says, that a human being is a monad, reflecting itself as a soul, reflecting itself as a personality, having mental, astral and physical body. Thus we have the monad, soul, personality, mental, astral and physical rays. The monadic is usually left out (I don't know why yet, probably a technical detail) and the three latest have also their sub-rays which may change their influence during lifetime. We know, that having a certain ray influencing the physical body creates a certain type, if someone is tall or short, fat or skinny, clumsy or agile, etc. If we read up which ray is characteristic for such an appearance, we may find out what physical ray we have. Generally said, the soul and personality rays are the most important, but the personality's own rays decides, how are that qualities expressed. For example, a brain (physical body) on a right ray may be a relatively powerful brain, but it doesn't decide how and what is it used for.
b) I understand something of about it, but not nearly everything, specially not in relation to the scientific worldview. I can fail on what do you want from me also for a simple reason, that the science does not yet have these concepts. They are present in esotericism, but they're all relative. Everything is relative there, and there is no end to that relativity, so there may be still deeper, infinite understanding of everything. What I can say, are thus only relative truths, sounding shallowly to what you are used to hear in science. There's a theory, and I'm too busy to verifying if it even works as a whole. What you would want are things like Occam's razor, to make this theory as small as possible to see if it's still working, but we're not there yet. It's all in the beginning and it's only a sketch of future sciences, in this case, psychology.
I believe that the vibration which astronomers have discovered, the ‘orgone’ of Wilhelm Reich, and the higher etheric levels of matter are one and the same. Scientists today recognize matter as being solid, liquid and gaseous but esoterists know that there are four further states of matter above gas known as the 4th, 3rd, 2nd and 1st plane of etheric matter. So instead of three planes, there are actually seven planes of matter.
All matter is a precipitation of light and so the field of matter is light precipitated into seven more or less material planes.
We may see a person who gradually becomes (quote) kind, wise, full of knowledge and light and respect for all, filled with enthusiasm for life, justice and sharing. (e.q.) But that's rather an ending result. I can speak from many people's experience, that when someone begins a spiritual path (starts to meditate, for example) there often are all sorts of disasters coming at him or her. It is, because that path can not be entered, if there is too much of unresolved karma on that individual, and that must be "burned up", so there's no unnecessary burden to the self-development. That's why it's all triggered. Meditation is a way of this personality contacting a higher part of the human being. The person is a reflection of the soul in physical matter, and by meditation we attempt to put these two in contact, co-operation and eventually, in a full at-one-ment. However, before the co-operation is started, the soul decides to test it's reflection, the man or woman, by a series of trials to see if his or her interest is serious. The trials are a diffcult situations in life, which may involve overcoming our fears, vices, weaknesses, or just a sudden situations demanding a cold-blooded action. So this is what actually happens to people, when they begin to practice what they read.
There is much more to it, tenths of books, and I can't write them all here. You would have better to calm down, download the books and start reading patiently, one thing after another.
As for the transcendent way of knowing, there is a given information in books, and it's up to every reader to verify it according to his abilities, and decide for himself if it is correct and useful for the science. So far, things I've been able to verify personally, turned out positively, as for their existence, validity and importance. This gives me a certain confidence.
As for my supposed argument, that would be more complex. According to my information, the consciousness is a soul quality, passed down and shadowed by many filters, like the mind, emotions and then the physical brain. There are thus more factors than just the brain, though it is the most obvious one. I don't have a major general objection, I'm just always inclined to use the esoterics as a road map for designing a scientific hypotheses and predictions.
As for the intuition, it is characteristic by it's inherent correctness. The problem is that we tend to mistake illusions and desires for intuition, it requires to purify the mind and character before it becomes really recognizable. We may act according to intuition and then we can see if the result is correct, and thus we develop our intuition and judgement.
Beings who deserve worship don't demand it. Beings who demand worship don't deserve it.