The Supernatural and Superstition

Moontanman · July 19, 2013

Moontanman and Tar;

You are correct in that I have not really defined what I think that the supernatural is, with regard to consciousness. I forget that other people have not been studying this for 40 years, and can not read my mind. My apologies for that oversight.

So I went to Wiki and picked out the relevant things that were listed under the supernatural/paranormal and listed them below. I think that every one of these things can be real and works through consciousness outside of the body.

Please review this list and indicate which of these things you think are real, and which are supernatural.

God

angels and demons

reincarnation

prophesy

premonitions

ESP

ghosts

spirit

souls

spiritual healing

auras

channeling

near death visions

anthropomorphism

Moontanman, following is the definition of consciousness from Wiki:

"Consciousness is the quality or state of being aware of an external object or something within oneself.^[1]^[2] It has been defined as: sentience, awareness, subjectivity, the ability to experience or to feel, wakefulness, having a sense of selfhood, and the executive control system of the mind."

You will note that this does not define consciousness as being exclusively related to the brain. All life is sentient, a leaf is conscious of light, but has no brain. I made it clear from the beginning of this thread that I was not talking about the medical scientific definition of a conscious brain, so to reinterpret the word for the purpose of confusing the issue is a strawman argument.

G

Again none of these things have any empirical evidence of their existence, the number of people who believe in something has nothing to do with it's reality, your idea of consciousness is nonsense... I'm not sure what you mean by anthropomorphism, please elaborate....

How could I possibly show you a connection between consciousness and the supernatural if you disagree with my concept of consciousness and won't define what you think is supernatural?

I am under no compulsion to agree with your idea of consciousness and i have defined what supernatural is more than once. But I'll do it again, the supernatural is something outside of nature that has no testable or empirical evidence of any effect on the natural world...

It is like asking me to connect something you don't believe with something that you don't know. An answer to this request is impossible. Where is your logic?

I would ask you the same thing...

This is an assertion and it is also false. If nothing else, all of the churches, temples, etc., all over the world give empirical evidence of human belief in God. Whether or not the belief exists is already fact, so what I am trying to find out is why the belief exists. What causes the belief to exist? How does it happen? How does it work?

The number of people who believe in something has no bearing on it's reality

This is an assertion and it is also false. It may imply it, but it certainly does not require it. There is aware, and there is self aware--two different things. Did you consider the information that I gave earlier about the "Mirror" test? You can look up Mirror test in Wiki if you do not believe me.

What does the mirror test have to do with bacteria

This is an assertion and it is also false. Let us try to be honest here for one little minute. There is absolutely no evidence that Darwin's theory and idea of advancement is correct. It is correct only from our perspective and religious declarations.

The Theory of evolution is the most well supported theory in science, please show some evidence otherwise...

The facts state otherwise, as bacteria can survive quite well without humans, but we can not survive without bacteria. So which is the higher life form? Maybe we evolved to give bacteria something to do. (chuckle chuckle)

I see no connection between this and awareness.

Consider this from another perspective:

Bacterium A states: I am starting to feel bad because we are damaging these human forms, and I think that they might be aware.

Bacterium B states: Whether or not they are aware is not relevant, the fact is that they would not even survive without us, so they should be damned well grateful for the time we give them. (Life is a chuckle.)

bacteria are not known to state anything, please show how this is possible.

This is a strawman argument as I did not assert any such thing. The whole end of the video was about TV evangelists. Did you watch the video?

I asked you to ignore the religious parts...

This is nonsense.

No your interpretation of it is nonsense

This is an insult. I review every link that is offered in my threads--even when I can not see the connection or relevance of it. If you look under Forum Announcements and find the thread Science Forum Etiquette, under section II Replying to Threads, you will find the following rule:

"Read Links

If a user provides a link for more information, and you don't believe them, read the link. It may provide better information for you; if you ignore it, you may be missing vital information that supports their point. Purposefully ignoring it is strawmanning, and nobody likes that."

Purposefully ignoring information offered is also a promotion of my own ignorance, and I like to learn, so I review anything offered or give an explanation of why I did not review it--as when people provide too many similar links--2 or 3 links make the point.

Since you either do not understand, or will not disclose, your position in this matter, I have decided to review this entire thread to see if I can determine your position. After this review, I will post my thoughts here for your review. Maybe we can establish our positions and start to find a way to see some common ground. That is my hope.

G

If you watched the link then you purposely ignored what it said...

tar · July 20, 2013

Gees,

As to your list.

I have a theory, that I use to separate that which is real, and that which is supernatural. If I can think it, or feel its real, but it has no effect on you or anybody else, then its supernatural. My extension of this, is that therefore the supernatural is akin to the imaginary.

For a analogy, consider unrequited love. I could include someone in my feeling of self, think about them all the time, structure my life to be to their benefit, and they in return might not give me the time of day.

You have studied anthropomorphism. I think it is a real thing we do when we put ourselves in the shoes of an unseen other. It gives us the ability to look at ourselves through their eyes, and thereby become conscious of ourselves objectively.

But belief in the supernatural, according to my theory, would be when you consider your imagination is more correct than reality, or nature, or the objective world, that we actually share. Or in the case of most religions, when you believe you have a special connection to, or understanding, or feeling about the world, that is inaccessable to anybody that does not have the "key" you have found.

What science says, is, "show me the key" "we will try it out, and see if it works." If it works, then it is natural and real and we can all use it. If it doesn't work, then consider it supernatural, if you will, but in my book, that parks the key firmly in the imaginary category.

And along the lines of unrequited love, consider the fact that some believe they love all the people of the world, and they don't even know 7 or 8 billion of them. Sort of has to be supernatural in nature, to have such a feeling. That is, you can think it, you can feel its so, but if it has no effect on the rest of us, and the rest of the world, and the rest of the solar system...universe, then it has to be "supernatural" and exist primarily in ones imagination.

On the other hand. In support of your consideration that chemicals can be conscious, we each have a rather convincing example. Ourselves.

Regards, TAR2

Edited July 20, 2013 by tar

Gees · July 20, 2013

Tar;

I apologize. I feel like I am letting you down, and you are working so hard to understand this. But I am not sure what to do. If I bring up personal experience, then I just open myself to ridicule, and if I bring up religion, the whole thread becomes a denial of any value in religion, so I am not sure how to get my ideas across without explaining how I learned about them.

After talking about the physical aspects of hormones, I intended to go over the mental aspects, but I learned about them in a thread named, Delusions in Religion, so that is bound to stir up some trouble for me here. As far as anthropomorphism is concerned, I had an experience when my husband died that led me to understanding how anthropomorphism works, but that is personal. Not sure how to approach this.

So I was sitting here waiting for the codine to kick in so I can sleep when I saw your post, and will try to address some of the issues.

You are correct when you stated that something that is not noted by others would be supernatural as the supernatural is subjectively known.

Next you have to define if it is something that you think or something that you feel. It can sometimes be difficult to tell, but you must be sure. If is it something that you think, then it is imagination--not supernatural. It is like the difference between talking and listening, so if you have been thinking about it, you are probably imagining it. The supernatural comes to you like listening, so you don't expect it, and are not sure why you think it--sometimes it makes no sense at all because it was not on your mind and may even be irrational. Like my irrational fear that my last child would get stuck inside me and die because she could not deliver. That is ridiculous. I knew it was ridiculous but could not shake the fear and talked to my husband, mother, friends, and even the doctor about it. Eventually, I threatened the doctor and was changed to another doctor. When I went into the hospital to deliver, my labor was very fast and no doctor was there, so they held my legs together so I would not deliver until another doctor could be called in--hospital policy. She was stuck inside. When she finally delivered, she had an APGAR score of 1 at 10 minutes, which means that she was a blue lifeless ragdoll with no muscle reflex and was not breathing on her own, but had an irregular heart beat when she was ten minutes old. It was years of doctors to correct the damage from that birth. The codine must be kicking in. I wasn't going to talk about this.

The key to anthropomorphism is belief. People who experience this often have a life changing belief that is attached to this experience. They also often lose their fear of death. So we are talking about emotion, and it is strong emotion. If the emotion is not there, or if the emotion is fleeting, then it is definitely imagination. Anthropomorphism is not something that you "get over" tomorrow.

So belief is the key to knowing what is supernatural, which means that it is all about emotion. And how does emotion work within our bodies? Chemicals and hormones. I do not think that chemicals are conscious within our bodies, but I know little about science. I used to think that chemicals and hormones draw consciousness like a magnet draws iron, but think that maybe it is more of an activation of consciousness. But however it works, emotion causes the production of chemicals, and chemicals cause emotion--it is circular, not one way. So when people say that these experiences are caused by chemical changes in the body, they are only half right.

Regarding anthropomorphism, I am going to use my water metaphor again. When you look into still water, what do you see? Is it the water, or your own reflection? You see yourself, not the water. This is how anthropomorphism works. What you actually get is emotion, no pictures. Often people will feel like they also gained knowledge, but don't know what it is, probably because it is in the unconscious part of the mind.

But there are no pictures, so why do people believe that they have seen God? The problem here is that there is no memory slot in the brain for emotion--it does not store by itself and must be attached to thought. So if one can not store emotion in memory without thought, how would anyone remember that the event happened? Well, they wouldn't. So our efficient little brains evaluate the emotion, attach whatever it thinks matches that emotion, then stores it as a memory.

So if one is a Christian, they may have a memory of Jesus or Mary; if one is a Viking, they may have a memory of Thor; if one is near death, they may have a memory of family members that have passed and feel like home or love; if they just watched their friend die in a terrible accident, they will see their friend whole and unharmed. This is the delusion that everybody believes invalidates anthropomorphism. It is just the brain's interpretation of the emotion that was experienced.

My foot doesn't hurt anymore. I'm going to sleep.

G

tar · July 20, 2013

Gees,

Well thank you for sharing the story of the birth of your daughter, and that of your husband's growth that you felt was your own, and sorry about your foot and your pain, and whatever story is behind that.

But I have an alternative explaination, consistent with a separation between what is real and what is imaginary, that does not push emotion into an imaginary category.

Our own conscioussness is something we are subjectively sure of. There is no question about it. What we have some difficulty with, is knowing, but not fully grasping that there truely exists other consciousnesses and wills and buckets of thoughts and emotion, other than us. Areas of the world, so-to-speak, that we are not privey to.

I think people get into trouble when they up the value of their own model of the world to a status beyond its actual importance to or application to, actual outside-oneself reality. That is, if you are not actually accounting for others to exist, in and of themselves, without your help, or insights, then you have stepped over into a basically non-functioning or supernatural area, where you consider the world is going by your rules, even though everybody else doesn't realize it.

Fact is, and I am rather sure about this, other people, which there are 8 billion of, for sure, can and do have awareness of the world, without my help or knowledge, and do it, without regard for how I feel about it.

That is, I might know or think I know what is going wrong in my company for instance, and what initiatives are suspect and will fail, or will be in need of serious adjustment, and will be corrected once recognized, but that does not mean that anybody has asked me for my opinion, or that I am correct, or that if what I suspected does turn out the way I thought it would, that I could consider it a premonition, that validated a "special" connection to, and special understanding of "the greater reality" that I am privey to, by virtue of emotional awareness far beyond that of mortal man. If it turned out the way I felt it would, it just means I had a good sense about it.

Here my guess would be, that ESP for instance is not so much "another" "unknown" sense we might have, but merely a holistic amalgum of all the senses we have, focused on one consideration, outside our body/brain/heart group.

That this combinatory awareness results in a "correct" assement is not magical, or unexplainable, or a "power" that can be said to exist only in the one body/brain/heart group that "has" the feeling. It instead is something that other body/brain/heart groups can and do do on a regular basis. This primarily because we all are put together, (all us humans) in a rather similar fashion. And we have been noticing this, and telling each other about it, for hundreds of thousands of years.

To consider that as a singular "feeling" entity, you have stumbled upon a facility that no one else has noticed or experienced, is rather egotistical and deminishing of the strength and value and reality, of all that which is not of your own body/brain/heart group.

And correlarily, recognizing ones "place" in the greater scheme, assures ones belonging to it, connections to it, and amost validates ones considerations of "containing" that which is outside, having knowledge of it, and "feeling" its presence and having true influence on it, and responsibility to it.

Regards, TAR2

Gees · July 21, 2013

Note: Today's life lesson is that it is a bad idea to take the medications prescribed by the good doctors, then try to sound intelligent while typing in a philosophy forum. My apologies to all.

As to your list.

I have a theory, that I use to separate that which is real, and that which is supernatural. If I can think it, or feel its real, but it has no effect on you or anybody else, then its supernatural. My extension of this, is that therefore the supernatural is akin to the imaginary.

For a analogy, consider unrequited love. I could include someone in my feeling of self, think about them all the time, structure my life to be to their benefit, and they in return might not give me the time of day.

Tar;

In my opinion there are two problems with your theory that are obvious. The first is that you have not incorporated the attributes of the mental aspects into your thinking, the second is that you still think that it is "all in our heads".

Regarding the first; remember that emotion is inherently honest, thought is not, and this information comes from science, psychology. So using thought to decide what is real with regard to the supernatural, without considering the attributes of emotion and thought, is looking for deception. Imagination is something that is thought, not felt. The supernatural is felt.

Regarding the second; when I stated that emotion (e-motion) is external, I meant that it is external. It may feel internal, but it works externally. It is movement and connects two or more things, so when discussing unrequited love, it is an internal feeling. But it is also an external expression. There is nothing that will pump up a mood better than love and adoration being aimed at you, whether that love is returned or not.

You have studied anthropomorphism. I think it is a real thing we do when we put ourselves in the shoes of an unseen other. It gives us the ability to look at ourselves through their eyes, and thereby become conscious of ourselves objectively.

I don't see how this fits with the definition of anthropomorphism.

But belief in the supernatural, according to my theory, would be when you consider your imagination is more correct than reality, or nature, or the objective world, that we actually share. Or in the case of most religions, when you believe you have a special connection to, or understanding, or feeling about the world, that is inaccessable to anybody that does not have the "key" you have found.

Imagination is thought; the supernatural is felt--big difference. The problem with religions is that they must also interpret their information, so it is easy to get wrong. People, who experience anthropomorphism do often state that they also get knowledge, but this knowledge is dumped into the unconscious, not the rational mind. Often they will state that the knowledge becomes known to them in their dreams, but this is after they have incorporated any "knowledge" with their own thoughts, personalities, and values--so it is not necessarily true knowledge, and is probably corrupted.

A person must first determine if it is imagination or supernatural. Then they must stop themselves from getting too involved in the emotional aspect and corrupting the information. Then they must have the ability to logically analyze what actually happened, and try real hard to not incorporate their imagination into the analysis. It is not easy. An understanding of how emotion works is necessary, or deception is inevitable.

What science says, is, "show me the key" "we will try it out, and see if it works." If it works, then it is natural and real and we can all use it. If it doesn't work, then consider it supernatural, if you will, but in my book, that parks the key firmly in the imaginary category.

I think that the key is hormones, and science is already using this key. I will post the Delusions in Religion after this post so you can see what I mean.

And along the lines of unrequited love, consider the fact that some believe they love all the people of the world, and they don't even know 7 or 8 billion of them. Sort of has to be supernatural in nature, to have such a feeling. That is, you can think it, you can feel its so, but if it has no effect on the rest of us, and the rest of the world, and the rest of the solar system...universe, then it has to be "supernatural" and exist primarily in ones imagination.

Mother Teresa is gone, and I am not sure that a generous spirit is supernatural.

Emotion is an external communication and affects the people around us--this is well known. But if you need examples, consider; the "party pooper" that makes everyone feel bad; the "ball of energy" that is the life of the party; the maternal figure that brings comfort; the father figure that makes people feel safe; the sneaky person, who makes people uncomfortable; the radiant person, who brings joy; the coach or motivational speaker, who seem to be able to impart strength. This is a small example of the feelings that we routinely get from other people. Often these feelings are understood unconsciously, but they exist and are real.

G

tar · July 21, 2013

Gees,

Anthropomorphism, from my old dictionary.

The attribution of human motivation, characteristics, or behaviour to inanimate objects, animals, or natural phenomena.

My suggestion, that "putting yourself in the shoes of an unseen other" is the basis of anthropomorphism, is quite on topic, and does fit the definition.

How does a bacterium feel? What would it be like to be an electron or a photon?

We can only imagine these things by putting ourselves in the others shoes. Though the capability to do this, probably developed so that we would empathize with others in our pack, and understand their motivations, and next move, so we could act in concert, it is also useful in preparing against an enemy, and therefore those two uses are both survival tools, and therefore explainable by evolution and the survival of the fittest. That we use this "capability" to imagine humans in the trees and the clouds, is not so clear cut a survival attribute.

How much "human" consciousness do you attribute to the clouds? Are the clouds motivated by the same emotions and needs and drives as a human is? I doubt it. They don't have any hormones at all, much less human ones.

We may be distant cousins to the trees and the bacterium, and share some chemical schemes, so perhaps we can put ourselves in their shoes, with at least a little shared "feeling". We do like the smell of flowers, after all, and it is a scientific fact that the many carbon based lifeforms before us, have conditioned the Earth, with complex protein molecules, that support the cycle of life on this planet. So we can "feel" a family tie to anything alive on this planet, with no need for any magic. But there is no evidence that human consciousness comes from "outside" the Earth and flits about looking for places to land, and looking for chemical combinations to "reside" in. I am thinking that anthropomorphism is a projection of ourselves upon the world, and therefore imaginary in nature. I do not think it makes any sense that the universe would have any need for human hormones, or any way to have human hormones, without first developing an Earth, and then life on it, and then animals with hormones.

You seem to be suggesting that anthropomorphism is the result of an already human consciousness permeating the universe, that we just fail to recognize. I do not think this make any sense at all. My thinking puts first things first, and things that develop or emerge from the first things, as second and third things, which are new to the universe, with respect to the first things. And I do not think the universe has yet done, what it is going to do next.

Hormones may well be important emotional considerations. Pheremones may be important commication vehicals. But it is us, that are having them. They are not supernatural in nature. They belong to us, and our condition.

Regards, TAR2

Gees,

No apology to me is required for posting under the influence of codine. My thoughts are regularly "out of the box", and I unfortuneately have no excuse at all, being completely sober as I always am.

Regards, TAR2

Gees · July 21, 2013

Anthropomorphism, from my old dictionary.

The attribution of human motivation, characteristics, or behaviour to inanimate objects, animals, or natural phenomena.

My suggestion, that "putting yourself in the shoes of an unseen other" is the basis of anthropomorphism, is quite on topic, and does fit the definition.

Ah ha! Now I get it. We are looking at this word from two different perspectives that reflect the way we think about this issue. You are considering it from a very rational mind perspective and seeing it as something that is imagined, "putting ourselves in the other's shoes". I am looking at this from the perspective of the supernatural or religion, and see it as something that is perceived--not thought.

From Wiki: "Anthropomorphism, or personification, is attribution of human form or other characteristics to anything other than a human being. Examples include depicting deities with human form and ascribing human emotions or motives to forces of nature, such as hurricanes or earthquakes."

So my understanding of anthropomorphism is more in line with what you would find under the religion section. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropomorphism

When a person believes that they have encountered a god, or angels and demons, or ghosts, or relatives when near death, it is assumed that they either imagined it, or it was delusion. That is the answer. But it is not an answer, it is a dismissal, as neither of these explanations give a cause for the experience. When we imagine something, it is an activity that we actually do, so we know we are doing it. If it is delusion, then what causes the delusion, because these people are not crazy, so something is going on. Looking for the answer to this is what brought me to emotion.

We may be distant cousins to the trees and the bacterium, and share some chemical schemes, so perhaps we can put ourselves in their shoes, with at least a little shared "feeling". We do like the smell of flowers, after all, and it is a scientific fact that the many carbon based lifeforms before us, have conditioned the Earth, with complex protein molecules, that support the cycle of life on this planet. So we can "feel" a family tie to anything alive on this planet, with no need for any magic. But there is no evidence that human consciousness comes from "outside" the Earth and flits about looking for places to land, and looking for chemical combinations to "reside" in.

Well I never said that it comes from "outside" the Earth, but Dr. Stevenson's work does suggest that there may be some flitting about.

You seem to be suggesting that anthropomorphism is the result of an already human consciousness permeating the universe, that we just fail to recognize. I do not think this make any sense at all.

I think that it is stretching things to say that there is a "human consciousness" that permeates the universe and think that it is much more likely that we interpret it as a human consciousness--anthropomorphize it. The simple fact is this; there was knowledge and awareness before there were humans, like it or not. This is evidenced by lower life forms.

Hormones may well be important emotional considerations. Pheremones may be important commication vehicals. But it is us, that are having them. They are not supernatural in nature. They belong to us, and our condition.

Agreed.

G

Following is a post that I wrote a few years ago in response to a Blog about Delusions in Religion.

Below is a paragraph from your Blog which deals with ideas about delusion and your considerations. Mine follow.

"I have heard Christians tell me that they can feel God or that they can feel His presence. One might naively assume that if God doesn't exist, then these feelings must be illusory or delusional. I say no, I don't think they are. I think these same feelings of spirituality can be felt by anyone and that only the interpretation of what the feelings indicate changes from one person to another. I know that I have definitely felt intensely spiritual feelings. When I was in early high school, I had some profoundly powerful experiences while meditating or while stargazing (albeit, some of these were probably anticipated by teenage angst brought about hormonally or through social anguish.)"

While reading the above paragraph I watched my cat jump three feet into the air to attack nothing. She does that a lot. We say she is attacking "thick pieces of air" and laugh. Many years ago a pet handbook explained that the reason cats do this is because they have an over abundance of hormones. Is she attacking delusions? That thought triggered a number of others.

I remember reading that a poltergeist was not really a ghost. That instead it was discovered that an "agent" living in the home where the poltergeist resided was the actual cause of the disturbance. That "agent" was usually young, under 20, and female. Hormones?

More recently I read an article that explained that pregnant women have psychic experiences, and if one is going to have a psychic experience, it would most likely be when pregnant. It was also noted that the reason for this phenomenon was that pregnant women were reaching out mentally for the child they carried. But pregnant women are also full of hormones.

In ancient Egypt cats were revered and thought to have some connection to the spirit world. The current explanation is that they were valuable in killing rodents/snakes, bullwhacky, they do that all over the world and no one else reveres them. I personally have long believed that their value was in their ability to attack scorpions without being damaged--good for dessert life. But I think maybe I was wrong. Maybe ancient Egyptians noted the cats' "delusions".

So I got on Google, confirmed the poltergeist thing, and found two more occurances of hormones and "delusions". Psychiatrists are now using hormones with anti-psychotic drugs to treat schizophrenia (delusions) with some success. Doctors are also using hormones to correct sleep apnea problems with older people, as it seems that they cannot drop into REM (delusional) sleep if hormone levels are off.

I checked Wikipedia and could not make sense of it, except to note that there are three classes of chemical hormones, Peptide, Lipid and Phospholipid, and Monoamines. The SEP has one reference to hormones that does not involve "feminism", and that is Connectionism involving cognitive science. Sorry, not much of a scientist.

Now we have six completely different situations where hormones are linked to "delusion". Who was the guy who said that when too many indicators point in one direction, it is time to look in that direction?

I can not say that delusion does not exist, but it appears to me that something more is also going on here. I have watched schizophrenics and thouht that they seem to have an untuned, out of focus type of radio/TV going on in their heads that they can not turn off, which would drive anyone mad. I am sure that their minds try to absorb and make sense of the information coming in, and so, if they were religious, they would apply their knowledge to the problem and "see". or interpret, angels and demons.

Science has been trying to find and identify consciousness for some time now. And I believe that "feelings" and/or "emotions" is one of the identifiers of consciousness/life. Is there any chance that these "delusions" are in reality unfocused and ill-defined connections to that consciousness? And that hormones play the role of telephone? Just a thought.

After posting this, other members there noted that monks use starvation, sleep deprivation, and intense physical discipline to help them reach enlightenment--all of these things will throw off hormone levels.

Shaman of old often used drugs to enhance their experiences, which will throw off hormone levels.

The Oracle(s) of Delphi lived in a cave that is thought to produce a gas, which would throw off hormone levels.

I have heard of two different cases where people were hospitalized and received large doses of steroids and morphine, who refused their morphine because they saw angels and demons. They would rather deal with the pain.

So this is what started my investigations into hormones, pheromones, delusions, and finally back to emotion. It appears that hormones not only connect us physically to life, but may also connect us through conscious awareness.

G

tar · July 21, 2013

Gees,

Years ago, I read a short article on the similarity between the chemicals released in the brain when a gambler "wins" and certain chemicals taken by drug addicts.

It started a "line of thought" that I have been carrying around since, where I have determined that "winning" at anything will release the same chemical "rewards" as "winning" at anything else. These brain chemicals are probably hormones by definition and chemical composition and are therefore pertinent to this discussion.

The feelings we have of well being, of being on top of the world, of feeling "good" and "right", no doubt are related to what neurotransmitters are retarding or facilitating various synaptic activities. Hormones, if you will.

Also pertinent to your recent acknowedgement that certain religious or spiritual experiences seem to be associated with sleep deprivation, being in caves, eating mushrooms, or otherwise adjusting your hormone levels, is the fact that an addict, high on his drug of choice will feel that he/she is winning, and ontop of the world, regardless of the fact that he/she is laying in the gutter, filthy and penniless, and probably closer to death, then to conscious awareness of a beneficial nature.

Consider the addiction to gambling or video games, where no one but the player, sees the value, and gets the reward.

It is in this light that I consider an "imaginary" win, different than an actual one. And in this light that I look at a cat attacking the thick portions of the air. The important thing for the cat was that it was a successful attack, and she/he won that round.

Regards, TAR2

Also, in this light, a sage reaching nirvana on a mountaintop, actually does nothing to effect the price of beans.

Sorry, but a old ryhme came to mind.

Beans, beans are good for your heart, the more you eat them, the more you fart, the more you fart the better you feel, so eat your beans at every meal.

Gees · July 21, 2013

Tar;

You do understand that the point of my last post was to compare the different circumstances where hormones seem to cause an effect of delusion, didn't you?

I must agree that your last post was not off-topic, because with consciousness nothing is really off topic. On the other hand, an honest evaluation will sometimes show that although on topic, the conversation imparts no feeling of integrity to the topic.

So, if I am understanding you correctly, you seem to think that hormones and delusions are simply ways that we learn to win, and we intentionally cause this because we are addicted to winning. I can see where this type of thinking could be applied to the monks, shamans, and seers, but question it in other circumstances.

So you think that cats intentionally cause delusions, because they are bored, and want something to attack so they can win? This is amazing. We should report this find to science as I am sure that they had no idea of a cat's abilities in this matter.

It is also clear why a young female would imitate a poltergeist, as that way she could get her temper out, throw things around, and not get blamed for it. Very clever.

Of course, women are always getting pregnant just so they can have more hormones and be a smarty pants.

And it is clear that elderly people intentionally reduce their hormone levels so that they can not drop into REM sleep. This helps them to experience memory loss, a little psychosis, maybe some alzheimers, and prepares them for being the losers that will soon die.

But I draw the line at schizophrenia. Anyone stupid enough to think that living in a nightmare, where one can not know what is real, has anything to do with winning or is acceptable or has any value at all, is too deluded in their thinking to be of any value in this conversation.

G

tar · July 22, 2013

Gees,

I used to have a cat that liked to "play". I would have my hand under the comforter on the bed and make little scratchy noises and he would pounce and try to catch and bite the "critter". He knew when I was finished with the game and just wanted to pet him through the comforter. He did not try and bite or claw the critter, when it became my hand.

I play with my dog when I come home, she jumps up on the bed, knowing that a game is afoot. I try to flip her to her side, or cover her with the blanket or a shirt, or hit one of her feet, and she trys to stay upright, avoid her feet being grabbed, and gets out from under anything I try to cover her with.

Puppies and dogs play fight. Professional sports are play fights. Mammals seem to know the difference between a game, or practice, and a real fight to the death.

This thread is about superstition and the supernatural. Both are downgraded in the literature, to pretend things. Things we imagine, that are not actually real. Thor is not really striking his hammer about, when we hear thunder. We made him up. He is pretend. However thunder really does occur.

Flowers "know" how to bloom. People "know" how to metabolize. Mitochondria "know" how to replicate. Even the stupidest among us can make a child, given a functioning human body of the opposite sex to work with.

It is unlikey that mice control the universe, or that humans do. It appears that the universe is rather in charge of itself.

That hormones are part of the complex, that makes us tick is evident. That there is "mystery" involved it how exactly a growing brain cell "knows" what connections to make to be a part of the human brain, is evident. But as complex and mysterious as it might be, we still are aware of it, exist because of it, and can not "think" or "feel", without the real, complex organism that we are, and without the emergent history that made it so, and without the surrounding environment and conditions in which we fit.

I do not believe in the soul as being some supernatural "ghost" in a natural "machine". I think the human spirit is an actual reality and that we have evolved and learned and shared to get to this point. And that reality is wonderful enough to investigate and explore, and experience, without having to make anything up about it.

"Supernatural" suggest a vantage point, that makes what is real, an illusion, a figment of the imagination of God.

I tend to think that it is rather the other way around. Reality is quite real and sufficient and evident, and imaginary explanations based on projecting ones own human motivations and capabilities unto the greater reality, are dreams that do not actually fit the case.

Regards, TAR2

Edited July 22, 2013 by tar

Gees · July 23, 2013

I am not sure if I have ever read more nonsense in my life, but I doubt it. You have compared the supernatural and ESP to Imagination, magic, the unexplainable, power, pretend, play, a feeling entity, outside knowledge, and even wondered if clouds experience emotions. Are you serious?

The supernatural, ESP, and all the rest are just interpretations of awareness and emotion. That's all. We all feel awareness and we all feel emotion, but that is all that we know about it. We don't know what it is, we don't know how it works, and apparently, we don't want to find out.

Maybe I should have watched more scary movies when I was growing up, because this hysterical reaction to emotion was more than I anticipated.

G

tar · July 23, 2013

Gees,

We all have emotion. Its not something you own. You are not the first to wonder how it is so.

My arguments are simple. We cannot be "other than" our emotions. We rather quite belong to the world, and the world to us.

We all have human bias, all us humans that is. We all know what it feels like to be a human, and it is from that vantage point that we experience, learn about and make effort to survive in the world.

We can and do project our subjective take upon the world. We associate ourselves with it. And many parts and peices of it, and many other people return the favor. We follow the laws of nature, and we follow the laws of man (other subjective takes that we agree with).

I do not consider my opinions on the matter either nonsense nor hysterics. I try to make statements that are consistent with what I know and do not know, coupled with a guess or two about what it is that you do or do not know, and on what basis you would or would not know it.

I have experienced "a ghost" and am still working out which parts of the experience were "explainable" by objective facts that others could notice, and which were "manufactured" by my emotions and imagination, and rearranged memories, and group "hysterics".

I have had an "epiphany" on a mountain top in Germany, where I "understood" treeness, and with it, the fact that life grabbed form and structure and organisation from a universe tending toward entropy, and held on to it, and passed it on for what is just a fleeting moment in the expanse of space and time...but that does not keep me from considering what it is that I am going to have for dinner. And who I might have that dinner with. And how my society and nature assisted me in bringing that food to the table. And what endeavors I should take to ensure I have a house and a family and a table with food upon it, tomorrow night.

Regards, TAR2

science4ever · July 23, 2013

Emotion is an external communication and affects the people around us--this is well known. But if you need examples, consider; the "party pooper" that makes everyone feel bad; the "ball of energy" that is the life of the party; the maternal figure that brings comfort; the father figure that makes people feel safe; the sneaky person, who makes people uncomfortable; the radiant person, who brings joy; the coach or motivational speaker, who seem to be able to impart strength. This is a small example of the feelings that we routinely get from other people. Often these feelings are understood unconsciously, but they exist and are real.

G

G that is purely natural and has nothing to do with anything supernatural. Their ways to behave triggers similar bodily patterns in us one can see it as body language through inner mimicking of their outer behavior and we feel that in our body due to that inner mimicking so it is not some kind of supernatural energy or field that radiate it is our body that perceive their body language and tone of voice and eye movement and poster of the body and how their behavior relate to what they are saying and the words and all that together get "read" by our body and it guess base don earlier such guesses through our whole life getting feedback on our take on what it means when people show such attitudes.

Even if there existed a god we would still make up our human anthropomorphic stories because that comes natural to us to do.

We do that for real people all the time. I don't trust that we see others the way they really are. We always see them through our own bias and our way to take things. We are within a bubble of interpretation that is unique for each individual.

tar · July 24, 2013

Gees,

I too come to this thread with a chip on my shoulder. 9/11.

I read the Koran twice, after the event, once for the gist, and once for understanding.

I have come to the opinion that Allah is no god of mine. There are not, in reality virgins waiting for me by a couch by which flows a river of honey (should I believe in the Prophet, and his knowledge of the will of Allah, gained through the words of the Angel Gabriel, spoken to him in private in a cave). Nor is there boiling oil waiting for me, to spend my eternal anguish in, should I not believe.

The only explanation for his visions and the Koran, is Mohammed's imagination. He made it up. He thought it through, he retold the stories of the Bible, with his own twist, that discounted the idol worshippers, the interest collecting Jews and the Christians who believed that Allah would have any associates, like a son. He usurped Allah's power, and associated himself with Allah and told his believers, that if they disbelieved in Mohammed's words, Mohammed being but a simple messenger of Allah, then they would be in error, and suffer the boiling oil fate.

Its made up. Its the "imagination" I am talking about, that takes human emotions, and experience, and fears and needs, and projects them onto the universe, as if the universe itself has human emotions and needs. It is the anthropomorphism we are discussing.

In my take, this belief in the supernatural, is belief in the imagination and take of Mohammed. Thus and still it is true that we all believe in the universe, but we need not see it through the imagination of Mohammed. We can see it, with our own eyes, and feel it through our own emotions, and make our own models of it, using our own imaginations. And moreover, bolster our individual understandings of it, by sharing our findings with other humans, and checking our own imaginations against the imaginations of others, to determine what really is the case, and what is not really the case, and what we are going to mutually agree upon to be the case, because we wish it so, and by this consensus and mutual agreement and promise, make it so.

So, what is figurative and what is literal, when you speak of supernatural. Which of it, are you ascribing to our human projections of human imagination upon the world. And which of it are you suggesting is actual, literal reality, that we have no choice but to be subject to?

I for one reject the notion that I am subject to Mohammed's imaginary creator and judge. Allah does not exist in objective reality. Only in the minds of Moslems. As Jesus is in the hearts and minds of Christians, and Brahman is in the hearts and minds of the Buddists.

Regards, TAR

Gees · July 24, 2013

Tar;

You and Science4ever both deserve answers to your posts. It has not been my intention to ignore you, as I have been too ill to respond. The frustration that I deal with in this forum has little to do with the members, and is more about my inability to formulate the words that will help people to understand my ideas. So I never quite get to the discussion that I need because no one is on the same page, and unless the doctors do something brilliant, my health is going to cause me to run out of time.

I too come to this thread with a chip on my shoulder. 9/11.

I read the Koran twice, after the event, once for the gist, and once for understanding.

You are a smart man, so you know that 9/11 has as much to do with politics as it has to do with religion. In this thread religion is a subset of the supernatural, and the supernatural is a perspective of consciousness, so religion, God, and the supernatural are just study guides for learning about consciousness.

The only explanation for his visions and the Koran, is Mohammed's imagination. He made it up. He thought it through, he retold the stories of the Bible, with his own twist, that discounted the idol worshippers, the interest collecting Jews and the Christians who believed that Allah would have any associates, like a son. He usurped Allah's power, and associated himself with Allah and told his believers, that if they disbelieved in Mohammed's words, Mohammed being but a simple messenger of Allah, then they would be in error, and suffer the boiling oil fate.

Its made up. Its the "imagination" I am talking about, that takes human emotions, and experience, and fears and needs, and projects them onto the universe, as if the universe itself has human emotions and needs. It is the anthropomorphism we are discussing.

No. Imagination is not the only explanation, it is one explanation, and it is a poor one. If, in fact, there was no truth in Mohammed's interpretation, then it would not be a belief. It would have died out before it began. This is a truth that people like to ignore, but it can not be ignored. Consider that you go to a movie, watch the whole thing, then walk out believing that it was an absurd plot, a bad story line, and lousy acting--there was nothing believable in it. That movie will be a flop because no one can identify with it. You can watch another movie and find it to be one of the best you have ever seen, but both movies are just imagination. So what is the difference? The second movie has truth in it, it is believable, so it has value.

Religions are like this. If they have no truth, then they have no value and die off in a very short time. Islam is very old, so it has value, and it has truth. It also has a lot of other stuff, some of it imagination, some of it culture, some of it personal interpretation, some of it a guide to living and morals, but some of it is truth. So how do we discover which is which?

In my take, this belief in the supernatural, is belief in the imagination and take of Mohammed. Thus and still it is true that we all believe in the universe, but we need not see it through the imagination of Mohammed. We can see it, with our own eyes, and feel it through our own emotions, and make our own models of it, using our own imaginations. And moreover, bolster our individual understandings of it, by sharing our findings with other humans, and checking our own imaginations against the imaginations of others, to determine what really is the case, and what is not really the case, and what we are going to mutually agree upon to be the case, because we wish it so, and by this consensus and mutual agreement and promise, make it so.

I think that the issue that I have with this paragraph are the words "imagination" and "make it so". This implies that the supernatural can be whatever we wish it to be, and this is where I disagree. The supernatural is what it is, we can't change that because it would be convenient.

So, what is figurative and what is literal, when you speak of supernatural. Which of it, are you ascribing to our human projections of human imagination upon the world. And which of it are you suggesting is actual, literal reality, that we have no choice but to be subject to?

Good question. My thought is that the only way to understand what is real and what is projection is simple truths. We know that belief in God and the supernatural is common, so it is likely that there is a reason for this--simple truth. We know that different religions interpret God to be of their culture--simple truth. So we know that people consider God to be personal--simple truth. Therefore, God can not be a being, and has to be a mental abstract.

When you have six witnesses to a crime, and five of them agree on a description of the suspect, you go with that description, as it is most likely true. So what are the common descriptions of God? He is all knowing, the source of life, all about love, and he is unknowable. First, the all knowing part makes one thing clear--God does not think. When we think, what we do it compare, deduce, and extrapolate information in order to get new information, so this would be a silly waste of time for a God that already knows everything. So God is knowledge, not thought--simple truth.

God is the source of life, not the source of humans, so all life is in some way connected to God--simple truth.

God is about emotion, and that emotion can be negative or positive. This is the source of our morals, but this is also interpreted through religions and cultures, so a more valid interpretation of what causes negative and positive emotions needs to be made. We need to find the simple truth here.

What about the God is unknowable? That always looked like an intentional mystery factor to me, but what if it is true. Could God actually be unknowable? Well, if God is all knowing, then we could not wrap our puny little brains around all of that knowledge. If God is emotion, then we can not know God, because we can not know emotion--we can only experience it. Emotion must be interpreted and connected to thought before it can be known in our minds, so if God is emotion, then he can not be known except through interpretation--simple truth.

So tell me about your ghost. Where were you? Country and state. Did you have prior knowledge that a ghost was there? Was it a one time only? Were there other witnesses? What season was it? What was the weather like? What did you experience?

G

Gees · July 25, 2013

Well, apparently someone, who is less than eloquent, took exception to my last post. This is evidenced by the red -1 that has been tacked to the bottom of my post. I wonder why someone took exception to it. Could it be because I stated that there is some truth in religion? Because I stated that the supernatural is not something that we can just make up? Because I stated that simple truths can lead to truth? Or maybe it is because I made a request regarding ghosts?

My guess would be that this is about religion, and that there are some people who are so involved with hating religion that they could not find truth if it was pinned to their noses, if that truth had anything to do with religion. But maybe I am wrong. Any comments?

G

tar · July 25, 2013

Gees,

Sorry your health is failing you. But I don't find you are failing to put your ideas on the page. Not that I don't have some slight disagreement here and there, and perhaps some larger perspective differential on some points, but I think you have succeeded in putting your ideas on the page.

My solution to the underlying, or deeper meaning problem, of our inability to get our minds around "all knowledge", is the same as yours, but we put it differently. You say it is emotion that is what we don't know, I rather consider that what we don't know in a conscious, put it in words way, is what we already know, because we are here, experiencing it. Its a given.

In this sense, in line with the personal God you are talking about, we each already "know" this thing. Its unavoidable, its stipulated to such an extent, that the stipulation is stipulated. Nobody, can not know about it already, so there are no words that would refute it, and no words required to acknowledge it, and therefore no words that would do it any justice or do it any harm.

In this light, the problem with other peoples religion, is that their words about it, are insufficient to describe that thing that you already know. Or that thing you already feel has to be the case without any argument or description required or possible. So its quite impossible for another to have a special key or understanding, to a thing already unlocked, ubiquitous, true and present.

Any words about it are suspect for one reason or another. You either can't know what you are making up about it, or you are talking about something that is already assumed in the statement. In either case, none can claim special, unique association to this thing, and none can deny special, unique association to this thing.

So, yes, the Koran has truth in it. But its wrong for Mohammed to usurp the power and truth of reality, and associate it with himself and those that believe in his words, and claim that therefore anyone not believing in the prophet is in error. It simply is not his power and truth to dispense. Not his exclusively. And its power and truth that obviously has already been dispensed and already is in everybody elses, and everything elses possession.

The ghost story will have to come later...I have to shower for work.

Regards, TAR2

Gees · July 25, 2013

Sorry your health is failing you. But I don't find you are failing to put your ideas on the page. Not that I don't have some slight disagreement here and there, and perhaps some larger perspective differential on some points, but I think you have succeeded in putting your ideas on the page.

Tar;

I should not have brought up my health, and you don't have to be sorry, but if you are, then you can apologize for making me jealous. I would love to be able to jump in the shower and go to work--I loved my job. I think that the work we do is a treasure that we give to ourselves, so enjoy it while you have it.

As far as my ideas are concerned, this is what I know. There are 34 people following this thread and I have -4 points. Since I have discussed and introduced many different topics and provided links and references to many of my ideas, it appears to me that my ideas are not worth noting. Or people are simply waiting for me to fail, so that is why they are following this thread.

Most of what I have been doing so far is trying to dislodge many of the ideas from religions and the supernatural superstitions that corrupt our understanding of consciousness. If we were in fact discussing my ideas, we would be talking about why life cannot spontaneously start in space, why it started around the equator, and why it diversifies more often around the equator. Why some species hibernate, why a child that fell in a river and was "dead" for more than 15 minutes can recover fully, what water has to do with consciousnes, what temperature has to do with consciousness, and why density affects consciousness. We would be discussing universal truths and body language and language, and what these things tell us about consciousness. I have not come close to discussing my ideas.

My solution to the underlying, or deeper meaning problem, of our inability to get our minds around "all knowledge", is the same as yours, but we put it differently. You say it is emotion that is what we don't know, I rather consider that what we don't know in a conscious, put it in words way, is what we already know, because we are here, experiencing it. Its a given.

True, but that is introspective. Consider that when you see something, a vision is stored in your brain; when hearing, a sound is stored; but the act of seeing or hearing is not stored--that is experienced. Emotion and feeling work the same way, so what we feel is stored by the thoughts that accumulate around our emotions. Emotion, by itself, is not stored in the brain any more than seeing or hearing is, but we know that hearing comes from the ears and seeing comes from the eyes, but where does emotion come from? Emotion and feeling work through chemicals, but chemicals in a jar are not emotional, they have no feeling, so they do not really produce feeling. I think that they connect us to feeling and emotion, and the connection is, or is to, consciousness.

In this sense, in line with the personal God you are talking about, we each already "know" this thing. Its unavoidable, its stipulated to such an extent, that the stipulation is stipulated. Nobody, can not know about it already, so there are no words that would refute it, and no words required to acknowledge it, and therefore no words that would do it any justice or do it any harm.

Agreed. And if words are not necessary, then there is no reason to dispute the idea that all life knows this stipulation as language is not required. All life has a knowledge of what we call God.

In this light, the problem with other peoples religion, is that their words about it, are insufficient to describe that thing that you already know. Or that thing you already feel has to be the case without any argument or description required or possible. So its quite impossible for another to have a special key or understanding, to a thing already unlocked, ubiquitous, true and present.

Any words about it are suspect for one reason or another. You either can't know what you are making up about it, or you are talking about something that is already assumed in the statement. In either case, none can claim special, unique association to this thing, and none can deny special, unique association to this thing.

Agreed. So I see only two ways to avoid religious differences. Either all people have to be of the same language and society, or all people have to respect the differences in other's society/religion. Since people have a tendency to group, causing different dialects and customs within the same country, it is unlikely that all people could be of the same society--so I recommend respect.

So, yes, the Koran has truth in it. But its wrong for Mohammed to usurp the power and truth of reality, and associate it with himself and those that believe in his words, and claim that therefore anyone not believing in the prophet is in error. It simply is not his power and truth to dispense. Not his exclusively. And its power and truth that obviously has already been dispensed and already is in everybody elses, and everything elses possession.

Agreed. But I doubt that Mohammed did this intentionally with malice. It is my thought that he did this while looking to his own people and their problems. Whether it is called prophesy, visions, premonitions, or something else, it is very difficult to discern what comes to you and what comes from you when attempting to understand prophesy. This is because it works through the unconscious mind, so it is a lot like dreaming and must be interpreted. imo

G

Moontanman · July 25, 2013

Tar;

I should not have brought up my health, and you don't have to be sorry, but if you are, then you can apologize for making me jealous. I would love to be able to jump in the shower and go to work--I loved my job. I think that the work we do is a treasure that we give to ourselves, so enjoy it while you have it.

As far as my ideas are concerned, this is what I know. There are 34 people following this thread and I have -4 points. Since I have discussed and introduced many different topics and provided links and references to many of my ideas, it appears to me that my ideas are not worth noting. Or people are simply waiting for me to fail, so that is why they are following this thread.

Most of what I have been doing so far is trying to dislodge many of the ideas from religions and the supernatural superstitions that corrupt our understanding of consciousness. If we were in fact discussing my ideas, we would be talking about why life cannot spontaneously start in space, why it started around the equator, and why it diversifies more often around the equator. Why some species hibernate, why a child that fell in a river and was "dead" for more than 15 minutes can recover fully, what water has to do with consciousnes, what temperature has to do with consciousness, and why density affects consciousness. We would be discussing universal truths and body language and language, and what these things tell us about consciousness. I have not come close to discussing my ideas.

True, but that is introspective. Consider that when you see something, a vision is stored in your brain; when hearing, a sound is stored; but the act of seeing or hearing is not stored--that is experienced. Emotion and feeling work the same way, so what we feel is stored by the thoughts that accumulate around our emotions. Emotion, by itself, is not stored in the brain any more than seeing or hearing is, but we know that hearing comes from the ears and seeing comes from the eyes, but where does emotion come from? Emotion and feeling work through chemicals, but chemicals in a jar are not emotional, they have no feeling, so they do not really produce feeling. I think that they connect us to feeling and emotion, and the connection is, or is to, consciousness.

Agreed. And if words are not necessary, then there is no reason to dispute the idea that all life knows this stipulation as language is not required. All life has a knowledge of what we call God.

Agreed. So I see only two ways to avoid religious differences. Either all people have to be of the same language and society, or all people have to respect the differences in other's society/religion. Since people have a tendency to group, causing different dialects and customs within the same country, it is unlikely that all people could be of the same society--so I recommend respect.

Agreed. But I doubt that Mohammed did this intentionally with malice. It is my thought that he did this while looking to his own people and their problems. Whether it is called prophesy, visions, premonitions, or something else, it is very difficult to discern what comes to you and what comes from you when attempting to understand prophesy. This is because it works through the unconscious mind, so it is a lot like dreaming and must be interpreted. imo

G

Most of what I have been doing so far is trying to dislodge many of the ideas from religions and the supernatural superstitions that corrupt our understanding of consciousness. If we were in fact discussing my ideas, we would be talking about why life cannot spontaneously start in space

The easiest way to answer that is no liquid water in space...

,

why it started around the equator,

What exactly makes you think it did?

and why it diversifies more often around the equator.

Equatorial habitats tend to be more stable

Why some species hibernate,

They hibernate to avoid climactic conditions they cannot survive...

why a child that fell in a river and was "dead" for more than 15 minutes can recover fully,

A child's small body allows his body temperature to fall swiftly which protects his brain from oxygen starvation...

what water has to do with consciousnes,

You've lost me on this one, please elaborate...

what temperature has to do with consciousness,

I am not sure what you mean here, please elaborate...

and why density affects consciousness.

Again, please explain what you mean or give a citation...

We would be discussing universal truths

I would like to see one of those...

and body language and language, and what these things tell us about consciousness.

An interesting idea...

I have not come close to discussing my ideas.

Maybe you should have...

Gees · July 25, 2013

Maybe you should have...

No, I should not have. Any discussion would have to be with someone who is at least in the same book as I am, if not on the same page. An honest understanding of religion, God, and the supernatural/paranormal is required before attempting to comprehend consciousness. So Consciousness 101 could be considered a break-down of the supernatural. Consciousness is not simple to understand.

You will receive no citations, elaborations, or references regarding any of my ideas, and if I decide to discuss them, it will be a discussion--not a debate. If you again feel that you have the right to demand that I support a position, just because you believe that I hold it, then make more demands. I will simply leave the thread. Enough is enough.

G

Moontanman · July 26, 2013

No, I should not have. Any discussion would have to be with someone who is at least in the same book as I am, if not on the same page.

So all you have been looking for are cheerleaders instead of honest discourse?

An honest understanding of religion, God, and the supernatural/paranormal is required before attempting to comprehend consciousness.

I for one have an honest understanding of those, that is unless I have to agree with you... Did you really think you have the only honest understanding of those things?

So Consciousness 101 could be considered a break-down of the supernatural. Consciousness is not simple to understand.

I understand the complexity of the subjects, I simply disagree with you...

You will receive no citations, elaborations, or references regarding any of my ideas, and if I decide to discuss them, it will be a discussion--not a debate. If you again feel that you have the right to demand that I support a position, just because you believe that I hold it, then make more demands. I will simply leave the thread. Enough is enough.

G

I suggest you read the rules you agreed to when you joined this forum, you will find that you are indeed required to back up positive claims with evidence, not your beliefs...

Gees, I have not asked anything of you that is not asked of me or any other member. You have made many more assertions than I have called you on in this thread, I asked you for evidence of what you claim to be true, that is how a discussion works, if you simply looking for people who share your world view then this is probably not the best place to find them.

Again I hope you will consider what I have said after you read the rules that apply to me and everyone else ...

Edited July 26, 2013 by Moontanman

Gees · July 26, 2013

So all you have been looking for are cheerleaders instead of honest discourse?

I for one have an honest understanding of those, that is unless I have to agree with you... Did you really think you have the only honest understanding of those things?

I understand the complexity of the subjects, I simply disagree with you...

I suggest you read the rules you agreed to when you joined this forum, you will find that you are indeed required to back up positive claims with evidence, not your beliefs...

Gees, I have not asked anything of you that is not asked of me or any other member. You have made many more assertions than I have called you on in this thread, I asked you for evidence of what you claim to be true, that is how a discussion works, if you simply looking for people who share your world view then this is probably not the best place to find them.

Again I hope you will consider what I have said after you read the rules that apply to me and everyone else ...

Moontanman;

Although a little condescending, all of your above statements sound reasonable and intelligent. This would make anyone reading them think that you are reasonable and intelligent. But there is a bit of a perversity here.

Following are the assertions that I made in post # 143. The post that initiated this conversation:

ideas from religions and the supernatural superstitions that corrupt our understanding of consciousness

True, but that is introspective.

Consider that when you see something, a vision is stored in your brain; when hearing, a sound is stored; but the act of seeing or hearing is not stored--that is experienced

Emotion and feeling work the same way, so what we feel is stored by the thoughts that accumulate around our emotions

Emotion, by itself, is not stored in the brain any more than seeing or hearing is

Emotion and feeling work through chemicals, but chemicals in a jar are not emotional, they have no feeling, so they do not really produce feeling.

And if words are not necessary, then there is no reason to dispute the idea that all life knows this stipulation as language is not required.

All life has a knowledge of what we call God.

Either all people have to be of the same language and society, or all people have to respect the differences in other's society/religion.

But I doubt that Mohammed did this intentionally with malice. It is my thought that he did this while looking to his own people and their problems

Whether it is called prophesy, visions, premonitions, or something else, it is very difficult to discern what comes to you and what comes from you when attempting to understand prophesy.

This is because it works through the unconscious mind, so it is a lot like dreaming and must be interpreted

Twelve assertions, and each and every one of them could, and probably should, be questioned. Were any of them questioned? No. Did you even ask for clarity on any issue? No. Did you ask for elaboration, references, a citation? No.

What you did was ask for a detailed explanation of all of the things that I stated that I could not discuss. You seem to look for the things that I don't care about and have no position on, or the things that I specifically state that I won't discuss, and question only those things. This is not debate, it is not discussion, it is not even conversation--it is a perversion of information. Then you throw the rules in my face and state that I must have a nonsensical debate over these issues that you have carefully selected. And I am supposed to believe that this is accidental? Your accidents are too consistent. So if you want me to leave the thread that badly, I am out of here.

Note to all: Socrates was a very passionate man, and his passion was vested in what he liked to call the "virtues". Socrates has been said to leave his opponents "a quivering mass of jelly" after his questioning, but some of his opponents were not so easily intimidated, so instead of quivering, they were enraged. Socrates could "sting people and whip them into a fury", which is probably why he was condemned to death by his own people.

The following statement was part of the warning given to me by Imatfaal:

I did ask for the thread to get back to the substance; if there is any more discussion about rules, the protocols of debate etc. I will close the thread.

Because you were so kind in giving me this warning, I would like to return the favor. So I would like to warn you that if you do not close this thread, you will look like a damned liar. Because:

You need a ruling on the rules.

Your protocols of debate are not really protocols and do not even bear a similarity to procedures or any kind of reasonable process.

Your etcetera is invalid as it follows words that are invalid, so this also needs to be refined.

G

tar · July 26, 2013

Gees,

We, you and me, that is, I think, are in the same chapter, if not on the same page. Moontanman is also on the same chapter, but its in a different book on the subject. I think. I believe that you and I have accepted, or have come to a certain agreement or relationship with the world that we are in and of, that allows us to ask a question, or float a possible answer in a more informal, on our own authority basis. Not that we don't require evidence, or that we are not aware of the need for verification, but that we allow a little more wiggle room, in the particular book we are both reading, than is normally allowed in an official science text.

For instance, between Gees and TAR I might be able to say "we" referring to all life on Earth, and expect that you understood the meaning I was trying to convey, where between Moontanman and TAR, "we" might not extend past humans with any meaning. But thats just a feeling I get. I might be wrong.

But back to the topic and our different perspective on this. If consiousness is a thing, floating around, finding bodies to inhabit, it would be contrary to my take. In my take, life grabbed form and structure from a universe tending toward entropy. That means life is a victory in and of itself. We are our own reward. We have already won. Just by being. And human life and consciousness is a especially nice thing, because we have come up with language, so that we can share the experience. Now, being universe material ourselves, we can also ascribe this victory to the universe, but there is nothing supernatural required in the transaction. Anything we can do, or think or feel is obviously something that the universe can accomplish. if this were not a fact, that matter and energy can be conscious, then we couldn't possibly be conscious. Since we are, then its not only possible, but obviously a fact.

That we are matches to the Earth, and its pressure and it's chemical composition, and its temperature, and its cycles, is no mystery, because its from here that we emerged. Its here that we fit, because its here that we are fitting.

--------

Ghost story.

I was about 18, so it was 1970 or 71. Sometime between spring and fall, because the green leaves were out. In rural PA, south of Allentown.

I was living with my Aunt and Uncle and two cousins on a farm. My female cousin, slightly younger than I, was house sitting for a traveling family. Once a day she would go over to the house, a mile or two away and feed the dogs, and cats and make sure the place was intact, and the plants were watered and so on.

Now, this young lady was wired a little differently than my male cousin and I were. For instance, we had this electric can opener that would regulary shock her, that neither my cousin or I could ever get to shock us, no matter how hard we tried, sticking one hand in the sink and so on. Well she came back from the house one day and told us she heard the piano playing in the other room, and nobody else was in the house. We didn't believe her. Then she came back and said the furniture by the piano was in a different orientation than how she had left it. We thought she was mistaken. Then she came home shaking, saying she was by the piano, and a man put his hand on her shoulder, and she was not going back. A group of brave, disbelieving male 18 year olds, my cousin and two or three friends and I escorted her over in our station wagon. Two went in the house with her as I and two others waited by the car, smoking cigarettes. The house group came rushing out saying "let's go". There was a definite feeling that we should go, in the air. We piled in the car, and it did not start. On the hood of the car, was a rag doll. Mind you, we were leaning against said car, and none of us had put it there, nor noticed it getting there. We opened the hood and the distributor cap was off. Not loose. Off, laid upside down, next to the distributor. We replaced it and proceeded directly down the quarter mile driveway to the road. Standing at the road, to the left of the driveway was a man dressed in southern garb, all in white, with a white southern plantation style hat. We did not know him, he was not from around there, and he looked out of place, yet we did not stop. I think I remember looking right in his eyes as we passed, and leaving remained the thing to do.

We spent the next weeks trying to figure the event out, talking with neighbors and such. The house was visited and kept by my cousin, always accompanied, without further incident until the owners returned, and they too were told the story.

In the telling of the story to a neighbor 3/4 of a mile in the other direction, an incident at her house was disclosed. A house guest of hers, sleeping downstairs had reported that a man, dressed all in white, with a white hat had come down the stairs in the morning, walked right passed her, through the kitchen and out the back door, across the field, toward our house. The hostess had insured the guest, that there was only one bedroom upstairs, and only her and her husband had been in it, and there was no man to have come down the stairs.

Questions were asked, information was learned, and it turned out that a man, a real man used to live in farmhouse C, dress all in white, and take a path to church which passed through our farm. It also was learned that he later had owned and lived in the house where my cousin had house sat, and hung himself from the lamp post at the end of his driveway.

Regards, TAR2

Gees,

We cross posted. I said we might be in the same chapter, before a read your last tirade.

Lighten up. You are taking yourself too seriously. We are all intelligent, civil folk around here. You need not lecture us, nor threaten.

Regards, TAR2

And I don't think (or feel) anybody is quivering.

Edited July 26, 2013 by tar

Moontanman · July 26, 2013

Well you know me Tars, I'm a nuts and bolts kind of guy...

**imatfaal** · July 26, 2013

!

Moderator Note

Gees - you were told in no uncertain terms that responses to moderation within a thread were unacceptable. Any further responses to moderation will be removed to the trashcan thread.

!

Moderator Note

...
Thank you for reviewing my moderation - there was no need for this, and in fact we prefer it if the thread goes back to the topic rather than become an argument with the modnote. Please bear this in mind....
...
Do not respond within the thread to this moderation - you can report this message if you feel it is unjust

You do not have the liberty to refuse requests for information made about a substantive claim nor to chose which assertions other members should challenge.

Please take the time to go through your posts and Moontanman's requests and start filling in some detail - for claims of fact a simple link to wikipedia, to an article or even a reputable newspaper will suffice initially. If you wish to resile from a point previously affirmed it would be appreciated if you were to be clear on that. Please re-read the rules of the forum regarding soap-boxing.

I have been called worse than a damned liar - but only by people who actually know me! Please return to the substantive debate.

Do not respond within the thread to this moderation - you can report this message if you feel it is unjust.

...

Because you were so kind in giving me this warning, I would like to return the favor. So I would like to warn you that if you do not close this thread, you will look like a damned liar. Because:

You need a ruling on the rules.

Your protocols of debate are not really protocols and do not even bear a similarity to procedures or any kind of reasonable process.

Your etcetera is invalid as it follows words that are invalid, so this also needs to be refined.

G

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