What if...

[sadie1263]

I always wondered what Uri Geller had against silverware.

[mikemarshall]

The whole notion of ‘mind over matter’ is one that I find difficult to deal with, let alone accept. To begin with it implies a dualist concept of mental activity which is not a notion that I find persuasive. Even to use the expression ‘mind over matter’ requires us to assume that the mind is somehow NOT a material object or at least a material phenomenon.

Let me briefly outline my objections to the dualist conception of the mind. To begin with how do we (if in fact we DO) perceive an immaterial phenomenon or process? Jumbo has suggested the wind but we CAN feel the wind and also see its physical effects in sending currents of air to disperse other equally material substances. Sight is not our only sense; we also possess the faculties of touch, taste, smell and hearing. All of these senses help us to form a judgement about the physicality of an observation. It is my contention that so far NO unequivocal evidence of the existence of any kind of non-physical phenomena or processes has been adduced satisfactorily.

There is also the argument from Occam’s Razor, a principle that is often misquoted as ‘entities are not to be multiplied without necessity.’ Occam never made such a statement but he did write ‘it is vain to do with more what can be done with fewer.’ The corollary of this principle is in essence that if two rival theories each appear to explain the facts equally well but one is simpler than the other and does not require us to posit additional entities to make it work then the simpler theory is to be preferred.

It is simpler to assume the identity of mind and the brain – a physical object – than to posit an incorporeal mind that has an uncertain relationship with the brain. Of course Occam’s Razor is only a methodological principle and not a scientific law but practical experience over centuries has shown that it is almost invariably correct. Copernicus invoked it on behalf of the heliocentric view of the universe as did Einstein in explaining how his theory of relativity was a simpler account of the universe than the notion of a luminiferous ether.

Finally there is the argument from experience and from the structure of the brain. Consciousness among humans is invariably found located within a physical object, the brain. Our brain fires electrical impulses that appear to determine our actions and no thought has yet been found that did not originate within a human brain.

The brain IS matter; mental activity IS a physical process taking place within the brain. It seems impossible to regard the two things as separate in any way and if mind and matter ARE one and the same how CAN there possibly be such a thing as ‘mind over matter?’

Geller’s alleged powers of psychokinesis are simply the best known instances of that curious phenomenon. Many better but far less widely reported practitioners have achieved much more impressive results than Geller when tested under strict laboratory conditions.

Nor is it necessarily in conflict with current scientific orthodoxy to assume that psychokinesis – the alleged ability to control the movement of objects through mental activity – involves any kind of non-material force or process. If this faculty genuinely exists (and I am sufficiently persuaded by the evidence that it DOES) the obvious explanation is surely that electrical impulses are being sent out by the brain to an equally material object and that the principles behind the action are either derived from electro-magnetism or the two nuclear forces. It is an interaction of two MATERIAL elements resulting in an unusual but not mysterious PHYSICAL process.

[Hunny]

Jun 6, 2012 20:25:22 GMT mikemarshall said:

The whole notion of ‘mind over matter’ is one that I find difficult to deal with, let alone accept. To begin with it implies a dualist concept of mental activity which is not a notion that I find persuasive. Even to use the expression ‘mind over matter’ requires us to assume that the mind is somehow NOT a material object or at least a material phenomenon.

Let me briefly outline my objections to the dualist conception of the mind. To begin with how do we (if in fact we DO) perceive an immaterial phenomenon or process? Jumbo has suggested the wind but we CAN feel the wind and also see its physical effects in sending currents of air to disperse other equally material substances. Sight is not our only sense; we also possess the faculties of touch, taste, smell and hearing. All of these senses help us to form a judgement about the physicality of an observation. It is my contention that so far NO unequivocal evidence of the existence of any kind of non-physical phenomena or processes has been adduced satisfactorily.

There is also the argument from Occam’s Razor, a principle that is often misquoted as ‘entities are not to be multiplied without necessity.’ Occam never made such a statement but he did write ‘it is vain to do with more what can be done with fewer.’ The corollary of this principle is in essence that if two rival theories each appear to explain the facts equally well but one is simpler than the other and does not require us to posit additional entities to make it work then the simpler theory is to be preferred.

It is simpler to assume the identity of mind and the brain – a physical object – than to posit an incorporeal mind that has an uncertain relationship with the brain. Of course Occam’s Razor is only a methodological principle and not a scientific law but practical experience over centuries has shown that it is almost invariably correct. Copernicus invoked it on behalf of the heliocentric view of the universe as did Einstein in explaining how his theory of relativity was a simpler account of the universe than the notion of a luminiferous ether.

Finally there is the argument from experience and from the structure of the brain. Consciousness among humans is invariably found located within a physical object, the brain. Our brain fires electrical impulses that appear to determine our actions and no thought has yet been found that did not originate within a human brain.

The brain IS matter; mental activity IS a physical process taking place within the brain. It seems impossible to regard the two things as separate in any way and if mind and matter ARE one and the same how CAN there possibly be such a thing as ‘mind over matter?’

Geller’s alleged powers of psychokinesis are simply the best known instances of that curious phenomenon. Many better but far less widely reported practitioners have achieved much more impressive results than Geller when tested under strict laboratory conditions.

Nor is it necessarily in conflict with current scientific orthodoxy to assume that psychokinesis – the alleged ability to control the movement of objects through mental activity – involves any kind of non-material force or process. If this faculty genuinely exists (and I am sufficiently persuaded by the evidence that it DOES) the obvious explanation is surely that electrical impulses are being sent out by the brain to an equally material object and that the principles behind the action are either derived from electro-magnetism or the two nuclear forces. It is an interaction of two MATERIAL elements resulting in an unusual but not mysterious PHYSICAL process.

...Scientists have split particles off from each other, that live paired, and found that even with distance between them, if one hits an obstacle and gets deflected, the other changes course as if it had hit the same obstacle.

But how could mere particles 'communicate' with each other. And how could that communication take no time to occur? Or if it isn't communication, then how could they have a connection where there is (seemingly) none?


...People regularly occasionally know what another is thinking, with no physical cues or cause to point to. Again, how? There seems to be the same unanswered questions here.


.....I think this is evidence that the whole universe and all the particles that form it, is connected, that there is a oneness to it.

And I've read of physicists concluding that the universe is like a "giant mind".

Indeed, it seems as if imagination is what creates physical reality to correspond with it.

............I don't know if I've made this make sense. But I'm saying why wouldn't someone be able to imagine a thing moves, and it moves?

I love the movie, "Phenomenon", where we see the main character suffer a brain cancer, that makes him smarter and smarter as the cells multiply. He becomes smart enough to understand things we cannot. He begins to move things with his mind. He explains -using a hundred square mile stand of a type of tree, as an example- that just as what seems to be thousands of "individual" trees is actually all one organism because the roots all interconnect, under the surface, so are we humans all connected to each other (*Jung concurs with his "unconscious collective"), and so is all life interconnected. And so he stands there, demonstrating how he can make a tree bend towards him, and explains -what seems most interesting of all to me- that you dont command the tree to bend, you ask it to!

(So now we've switched subjects..): "You just ask it", he says, "and of course it will "agree" (after all, you agreed with it) . But if you were to command it to do as you wish -the way we do with each other, and crop farming and virtually everything- you would make it sick!

Demanding sickens / asking gets agreeal!!!*

To me that's as meaningful and profound a revelation as there is. So..I do hope it made sense to one or two, lol! If not, watch the movie! It's really good, even just as a movie.

*Think about how we war, and argue, and fight
(ie "demand"), but we do not think to try being nice.
We think we have to "make" things in the physical
world conform to our wishes. But as in the example of
crop-farming, we deplete the land (by "demanding" what
it "must" give), while simple naked people in forests knew
better than that, and can keep a piece of land productive
indefinitely, because they respect what IT needs as well as
what they ASK of it..
Oh but I'm over-simplifying and not getting the magic of this
thought across. Well, watch the movie then! And think of
demanding versus co-operating. Intelligence cooperates.
Brutish low-brows 'demand'. So the movie shows that we are dumb!

(And as to our original topic, implies that if we were smarter we would
indeed be able to manipulate the physical world with just imagination.

I dont know that that is true. (And I dont know that it isnt).
But I loved the forward-thinking...

______________________
@ Deyana: You really did good with this thread. It's great.

[mikemarshall]

Thank you for your thoughtful and well-argued post, Hunny.

Unfortunately I cannot stay online very long tonight so I will respond to your excellent response tomorrow,

All I will briefly say is that the divisibility of an object (no matter how small) does not affect its status as a physical object.

Are you familiar with the work of Karl Pribram, David Bohm, Rupert Sheldrake and other scientists working in the field of holography, brain science and cosmology?

One of the most interesting and intriguing ideas of the last thirty years in my opinion is the notion of a holographic universe.

Certainly Pribram in particular has conducted experiments that appear to show that the human brain is structured along holographic principles.

[Deleted]

Thanks, honey. I thought it might take off. I've just been reading through the last few replies and I'm fascinated. I admit I don't know as much as mike, honey and some others on this thread, but it's really good to see and learn the differing view points on here.

I think there is much we don't know about the human brain. I heard somewhere that we only use a small percentage of our full brain potential. Which means that most of the human brain is still a mystery. What are we really capable of that we don't know as yet? How to expand and tap into that very high percentage that lies dormant? Have some people found a way to at least tap into parts of their brains that most of us can't? being psychic comes to mind. Some are much more aware of what will happen or about what others are thinking than is the norm. I've heard a well known psychic say that it's even a burden for her, because she picks up on when people are sick, are going to die, their anger and other negative thoughts.

[Hunny]

Jun 19, 2012 15:48:36 GMT deyana said:

Thanks, honey. I thought it might take off. I've just been reading through the last few replies and I'm fascinated. I admit I don't know as much as mike, honey and some others on this thread, but it's really good to see and learn the differing view points on here.

I think there is much we don't know about the human brain. I heard somewhere that we only use a small percentage of our full brain potential. Which means that most of the human brain is still a mystery. What are we really capable of that we don't know as yet? How to expand and tap into that very high percentage that lies dormant? Have some people found a way to at least tap into parts of their brains that most of us can't? being psychic comes to mind. Some are much more aware of what will happen or about what others are thinking than is the norm. I've heard a well known psychic say that it's even a burden for her, because she picks up on when people are sick, are going to die, their anger and other negative thoughts.

I've noticed that diabetes has a feel. I know when someone is diabetic. They don't have to tell me. I can feel it. (You're gonna' think I'm weird, but...ya' ever ride a roller coaster? Well, it's like that feeling when the bottom drops out (when you suddenly start going downward very fast) ..I don't actually enjoy it.))

I'd like to say I can feel other things too, but ...i figure 'sensing' stuff like that is like a muscle you've never used: it needs to be worked out to work at all, and the more you use it, the stronger it gets. Well, I haven't spent any real time trying to develop these things. I just know what I occasionally sense and get surprised by. It is there!

[Deleted]

hmmm... interesting. You may be what is known as a 'sensitive'. Another word for a psychic really. Because that is all they are. They simply have the ability to sense many thing that others block out. The reason why children are more likely to have better psychic abilities...

[sadie1263]

I knew when my husband was shot at......I was asleep and woke up with my heart beating really fast....I didn't know what had happened.....but I knew it was intense and had to do with him. I knew when my german shepherd was killed. We were on a trip out of town and someone was home watching them. Someone thru firecrackers in our yard and he broke a gate to get out and away and got hit in the street, again I was asleep and woke up crying, saying we had to get home because of him......there were other dogs at home.....but I knew it was him. I didn't know when my youngest son was in his accident last year......I was asleep at the time too.....it has always bothered me that I didn't feel that one.....but sometimes I wonder if it had to do with him being unconscious.....if he wasn't putting out those signals.

My father is the best at it......any of us can think about him really hard.....need him for some reason.....and he will show up or he will call.

I believe with loved ones those emotional ties bind you in a way we don't always see......

[sadie1263]

Jun 19, 2012 17:48:50 GMT Hunny said:

I'd like to say I can feel other things too, but ...i figure 'sensing' stuff like that is like a muscle you've never used: it needs to be worked out to work at all, and the more you use it, the stronger it gets. Well, I haven't spent any real time trying to develop these things. I just know what I occasionally sense and get surprised by. It is there!

My yoga teacher was like that.....there is just a spiritual center to her that rolls off of her......makes you feel peaceful just being around her.

[Deleted]

sadie, yes, with our loved ones, we can sense it more. I know I do as well...

I live in Canada and my mom lives in the UK, a couple of years ago she had a break-in and she had to confront the attackers. It was very traumatic for her, and that very time I knew something was wrong. Even from thousands of miles away.

[toby]

Hunny posted.:-Sit in a crowd of people, pick someone at random and stare at the back of their head relentlessly.

Toby comments.:- This is very possible, when I was a Lad I used to win bets with my friends by making a girl turn and look at me, I could do it anywhere even in a car being driven.
Have not tried it for ages though (being married).

[toby]

Deyanna posted.;-It seems to me there is no conceivable way the metal in his hands would just bend before our eyes and with no one has much as touching it. (apart from him, but he never touched the part that was bending!).


Toby comments.:- It's a metal with an extremely low melting point, they showed how it was done on Candid Camera when they served cups of coffee with spoons made from this metal and when folk stirred their coffee, the spoon was gone.

[toby]

Deyanna posted.:-How to expand and tap into that very high percentage that lies dormant? Have some people found a way to at least tap into parts of their brains that most of us can't? being psychic comes to mind.

Toby comments.:- They say that the Apache Leader Geronimo was an adept and he used the hidden part of the brain on demand and he demanded the useage by yawning.
This enabled him to outwit the US Cavalry at every turn, to avoid every ambush they laid for him, to know which areas were safe and whhich were not.
He only lost 1 man during all the fighting with the US Cavalry in all those years, his contempories describe how he used to do what they called a yawn, opened his mouth very wide and during this time his spirit was freed and could do what he wanted, he was in control of what he was doing, it was not random.

I also read a different review that mentioned the Bushmen of the Kalahari desert are able to survive because they can harness hidden powers of the mind. I think we all could do this from when we were born which is how the human race managed to survive in a massively hostile environment, but we don't need to ! so the power lays dormant and unknown.
Folk living under continued stress do develop certain attributes so the strongest of them survive.

So-called ,'Magicians', are merely folk who practise to learn how to focus the mind, all the spells and incantations are merely to help focus so the magicians will is done.
Similarly a Gypsies crystal ball is used to focus, they cannot see anything inside the crystal ball.

If you read about the Salem Witch trials then you will learn about the Magistrates who replicated one of the spells and had startling results which nobody can explain, and they were not seriously trying !

[Hunny]

May 30, 2012 1:06:09 GMT deyana said:

Just imagine..

What if...

There really is NO God?

What if all we have is here and now? Nothing more. Zilch. No after-life of any kind, no spirits, no angels, good or bad, no hell, nothing.

And if that is so, then why do so many people in this world waste so much time on - religion, and praying to a God that may no exist?

What if all the millions, if not billions spend on Churches, temples, Mosques, Cathedrals, the Pope, (or whoever is the head of any particular religion) be all for nothing? What if when we die we finally realize this?

What does that say about us as human beings? Does it perhaps suggest that we are willing to believe just because others do? Or because it seems like the 'right' thing to do, or because we know no other way?

Any thoughts on this?

The day we find intelligent life on another planet is the day we will no longer be able to think of ourselves as the supreme species alone in the universe, as if the whole thing exists just as a home for us.

Religions should fall apart on that day (I don't know how long "believers" CAN continue to make excuses for the overwhelming number of incongruities in their "holy" book before they finally cant rationalize it as real anymore). But regardless of what people believe or don't believe, that day will show us that we aren't the center of everything, that we aren't the end-all creation of evolution - a more advanced species could or will evolve from us and make us just one of the long chain of apes that preceded us. And that's just on this planet..

You see...as HORRIBLE as humans actually behave, with their predation and war and callous amassing of wealth and making others suffer, if you compare it to the way the OTHER animals prey on each other for food and position and resource, you see that we're just a species of animal too. And actually.. just another animal (not the last or most advanced that could develop).

And given the size of the universe, the likelihood of a billion other inhabited worlds, even if we obliterated ourselves, nothing so important would be lost. Nothing more important, that is, than we deemed the coyotes as being when we tried to extinguish THEIR species...

You see, we suffer the illusion that our technology is amazing, and that this makes us amazing. Well it may seem that way to us now, but given we're only 200 years into the industrial revolution and there's endless thousands of years that still may ensue, an i-phone could be in reality only slightly less primitive a tool than a stick being used by chimps to get ants out of a hole.

All the life on Earth may just be no more significant than moss on a rock, when you consider that this planet has a 4 billion year history, and out of that it only took 70 million to produce us, after a dominant life form was extinguished. If the dinosaurs were capable of pondering, they must have thought it was all for them too... And maybe it is, while you last... --> are we important enough a species to warrant eternal life as "god-like"?

Oh, I doubt it. I don't see anything about us to suggest that conclusion.

Is there life after death? mm, well we all want that assurance don't we? I don't know any more than anyone else does if there is - though scientifically, we do seem to be the universe itself becoming sentient. That is...the entire universe and all the matter in it possesses a quality scientists call 'consciousness', and we are temporary conscious entities that form of its matter and evanesce in it. So..is consciousness -which the universe seems to actually be made of- something which cannot be destroyed? Thus will your consciousness still exist after your body ceases to function? I guess it's possible.

...But that kind of goes in the direction of the universe itself being "god" or made by a "god"...and I have a little trouble with assigning beliefs about something we know nothing of (i.e.,where the universe came from and is, etc)... we don't know, we haven't a shred of a clue. So I cant conjure up a God idea to wish upon. I can't go farther than what we know, as to making conclusions.

It'd be NICE if there was a god and an after life, but those notions are from a myth devised by cavemen (really, cavemen...

So..is it unnerving to have to face the inevitability of death then, with no God?

Yes. It is. But I just cant make that leap the cavemen made! And in the end, I can gather what scant information we possess, but still there's no way to know for sure what is what, regarding Gods and the meaning of life.

In my heart of hearts, I would like it if there was re-incarnation...for that idea makes us all equal, and due a second (and more) chances. And I'd like to come back as healthy, wealthy, smart, talented and beautiful (not that I ask much )

I would though.

Maybe I will just wish for it, just in case thought does create..

[sadie1263]

Seriously.......people think we are Supreme Species now?? Wow......I have some plants that are smarter than some people.

[chips]

Interesting thread with some well thought out comments but most seem to avoid one important fact.

You can explore religion and pick it to pieces, involve your own facts and theories just as I have done over 70 years but in the end it all boils down to faith.

During my time on this planet I have witnessed many terrible things but I was always strong, never giving in to emotion because there were people who depended on me being that way.

Then in 1990 I lost an adult daughter followed not long after by the death of my only son. Whatever way you look at it, I'd lost two of my babies and the pain was unbearable.

Both times I went through the usual grieving process, anger, looking to place blame, self blame. A bit like boating down a fast torrent until eventually the white water subsides and you enter a calm still backwater
where all is peaceful and serene.

It was in that backwater I realised I didn't have to know why, all I needed to have was faith. Life was being played out as it should.

I gathered my thoughts together and determined what I believed in.

I don't push my beliefs on anyone nor do I expect them to interfere with me.

I'm happy with my faith

[sadie1263]

Oh Chip......can't fathom having to go thru that. My youngest son was involved in a very serious car accident last year. There is no reason that he and the 3 others in his car should have survived. There were serious injuries involved and my son and one other are still recovering from their injuries. One boy will never play sports again and my son has a metal plate and pins for an ankle now, plus knee damage that will be a problem from now on. But they are all walking, breathing miracles. I struggle with the anger I have over the person responsible for this accident and with my gratitude over the gift we received and my guilt for even being angry when so many people don't survive every day.

Maybe I'm just programmed this way........but I have to give credit for that miracle, and many others that I have seen, to someone and for me that is God. I believe God can be many different things....to different people. Your life experiences and your upbringing probably shape that. If you feel the need to honor that connection by going to church every day or week or with the way you live and treat other people.....or just in quiet moments with your own thoughts, if it is in a book, or words, or in the beauty of a tree or a rainbow, that is also personal.

I believe people that don't believe in God or in a God, can still be extremely spiritual people.

One of my favorite quotes:

What we think, or what we know, or what we believe is, in the end, of little consequence. The only consequence is what we do.
—John Ruskin

[sadie1263]

And seriously......only someone with a sense of humor would have thought up an ostrich or that giant pit in an avocado........

[chips]

The odd song strikes chord

[Hunny]

Oh I remember that song. We played it in the school band at the time...

[Big Lin]

It's not actually just anthropocentric religions (did I spell that right?) that might face problems if life on other planets is discovered.

Neo-Darwinian biologists are also facing problems because it's becoming increasingly a debate within them about how to respond.

The 'official' line of the neo-Darwinists is that life is a lucky accident and that Earth just happened to be the planet that won the cosmic lottery ticket. Jacques Monod has argued that view consistently and believes that DNA is unique to Earth and could not be replicated by chance on other worlds.

For me actually (and a number of other Christians I've talked about this subject with) it would actually STRENGTHEN our religious faith. God is the God of the whole universe and I don't believe He would only love and cherish one planet.

Yes, I believe He sent Christ to Earth but how do we know what He may have done on other worlds?

If you believe in chance then intelligent life on other planets is LESS likely than if you believe in a God who can create anything anywhere in the universe.

So I think extraterrestrial life actually is a good argument in FAVOUR of the existence of God.