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Post by Reefs on Mar 23, 2022 20:50:20 GMT -5
Bingo! And this is where we enter LOA territory, i.e. scientists only being able to see (or prove) what they are able to believe. The worst case scenario would be that scientists only prove to themselves their own subjective (as an individual or as a group) belief system via the 'objective' scientific method. The best case scenario would be that scientists are aware of the observer effect in whatever they do, not just as it concerns their scientific instruments when they do experiments, but also as it concerns their own mental faculties when they start seeing patterns and draw conclusions. Yeah, it comes down to two main issues for me, which are actually intertwined. At least the basis of which. Firstly, that the act of perception IS the act of creation. Secondly, that the intellectual is fundamentally axiomatic. I hafta say that in my experience folks have a tendency to overshoot in their conclusions about what all that indicates, and basically end up second mountaineering. But to not allow for those facts is the opposite extreme, first mountaineering, which essentially leads to scientism. In many ways it can become as dogmatic as fundamentalist religion. Which of course, is slightly ironic. Eventually science and spiritually have to meet, and some of the current 'hard problems' of science is where that starts to happen. Idk, stuff like the Copenhagen Interpretation could perhaps even be considered as where science is starting to become more gnostic in nature.  I agree, a meeting of science and spirituality seems the best way forward, because in a sense, this would mean science going back to its roots. I find the approach of putting QM into a spiritual context especially promising. Here's a short video series, "The Law of Attraction Explained by Quantum Physics"... www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OAIuqIUUb4www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ouos2w2N2wIwww.youtube.com/watch?v=o-l5TEr_IiYwww.youtube.com/watch?v=bWO8r2XcIrEwww.youtube.com/watch?v=hvIKY6taCIgYou could actually do a one on one corresponding list of terms and concepts used in LOA/deliberate creation teachings (like A-H) and QM. So in a sense, QM is just trying to reinvent the wheel.  |
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Post by Reefs on Mar 23, 2022 21:10:35 GMT -5
I do feel science is near useless when it comes to our most pressing issues. For me personally, that means dealing with a kind of depression as well as resolving certain deeper questions. However, I think science may have a value even there, in keeping us honest. I see people sometimes attacking science because they want to carve out a safe space for a comforting belief that conflicts with something from science. Probably better if one is forced to abandon the belief and look deeper. Science can't give life meaning or assign your life a purpose. So in that sense, science will fail you. However, depression is mostly a matter of focus. If you don't focus deliberately and don't pay attention to your inner calling but instead just react to whatever enters your field of awareness in the moment and only follow the loudest voices around you, it's almost certain that you will end up depressed at some point. Just browsing thru the news these days for half an hour will already make you depressed, no matter how good your life is. And here science can actually help, because this is just about the simple mechanics of how mind works, and in that area, neurology and cognitive psychology have a lot to offer and can really help. They still can't give your life meaning or tell you your unique individual purpose, but they can help you get pointed into the right direction and lose some unhealthy mental habits that prevent you from discovering your life's meaning and purpose. In the end though, you are always on your own. No one can help you here. And the sooner you realize that, the better it will go for you. No one can tell you why you are here and what your purpose here is. You have to find that out for yourself. And until you haven't found that, you are just passing thru life but don't really live. Philosophy tries to answer existential questions, but (predictably) fails at finding any definite answers. Religion usually claims to have definite answers, but many who follow these religions will eventually discover that just knowing it conceptually doesn't cut it either. |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 23, 2022 21:12:17 GMT -5
Beautiful vid, btw. Scientism might be seen as a response to religious intrusion in the field of Science, Creationism et al. Not judging Scientism. Think it might be fun to join a Church of Scientism. Think of it. A Church in every neighborhood. Statues of Bruno and Sagan and Einstein everywhere. You could be high priest. I just want to be in charge of the sacred flora. Tax exemptions! Scientism holidays! Yeah, they oppose creationism and then they come up with stuff like the big bang theory. Aces!  And in a sense, we've already got a church of scientism these days, it usually comes along as rule by so-called 'experts'. What is especially interesting about the church of scientism is that religious movements usually attempt to give life meaning and people a special purpose, but the religion of scientism does the exact opposite, it basically took any meaning or purpose out of life by reducing everything to random collections or formations of particles that are ruled by laws of probability. No wonder people are depressed these days and are drifting aimlessly thru life, functioning but not really alive. Yes, the "big bang theory", if it's mis-used as a creation myth, seems like an example of scientism. Ouroboros mentioned Brian Cox above. When he was on Rogan he said something interesting. They don't really know if the universe "started" at that point. All they see is that the universe is moving apart and it was once more compressed, hotter, denser, and more ordered (entropy). It could be that that state is part of a cycle of expansion and contraction, and that the universe had no beginning, ie, it is eternal. Some people find that idea more disturbing, because it seems to remove the idea of "Creator", and just doesn't fit with the way many humans think. |
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Post by Reefs on Mar 23, 2022 21:32:14 GMT -5
Another thing... the flat-earth people have increased in numbers in recent years. It illustrates a problem with science and our society. The flat-earthers say you should only believe what you can see for yourself. That actually makes sense. The problem is you can see for yourself that the earth is round, but it requires some work, and maybe some training. As science gets more advanced, fewer people are able to follow the work and see for themselves, so scientists start to sound like high priests pushing random beliefs. A similar thing happened with some of the covid stuff. That used to be a hot topic on youtube for several years. But except for the hardcore believers, I think people seem to be done with this topic. If you strictly follow occam's razor, then you'll sooner or later throw out flat earth theory as well as big bang and black holes and all that jazz in favor of other, much simpler and much more elegant theories. And yes, science has become incredibly complex (just the language alone!) so that people tend to believe anything just because a scientist says it. That is especially problematic when scientific explanations largely depend on models. People often don't know that some of the more popular science is based largely on models, not facts. They therefore assume the science is settled, when in reality, it is just one preferred explanation out of many other, equally likely explanations. |
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Post by Reefs on Mar 23, 2022 21:55:02 GMT -5
Yes, … speaking about what you can see yourself insofar as the Earth is round …. I seem to remember once reading about how it was that the Earth was originally deduced to be spherical. Basically, if in a boat you go far enough out in the ocean so that no land is visible , i.e. just water as far as the eye can see- in any direction. Then panaramically the horizon (where the sky meets water) is always equidistant from where you stand on the deck of the boat. That holds for any ocean on Earth, and I think the range of vision is actually 2.9 miles. The reason given for this is that it is due to the curvature of the Earth, which seems pretty reasonable. I can't remember who it was, but way-back-when, some bright spark used that distance measurement to calculate the size of the planet. Which turned out to be remarkably accurate, when with the subsequent advent of satellites they were able to measure this quite accurately. Now, whenever I hear about flat-Earthers, I wonder how they go about accounting for this fact. That on the ocean the horizon is always equidistant. I assume they must have an alternative explanation of some sort, but can't imagine what that might be. The horizon issue is one of their favourites, it's a 'go-to'. I looked briefly for some of the old main players on youtube, but looks like a lot of it has been scrubbed. I haven't watched this, but the title caught my eye because this is kind of how I see it.... 'Wrong but not stupid' www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8DQSM-b2ccI haven't hard a flat earth conversation in a long time, my science isn't good enough to discuss it, and I start to see their point of view, which I don't like the feeling of. The Mandela Effect is similar....it's really interesting but after a while, I don't like the way it feels. www.buzzfeed.com/morgansloss1/mandela-effects-redditIf you think of the average Joe and how he lives his life, does it really matter if the Earth is flat or a sphere? I'd say no. So why bother? You see, in medieval times they thought the earth was at the center of the universe based on what they observed about the movement of the stars and planets. And that was a reasonable conclusion. The planets and stars would move around the Earth follow the path of concentric circles. Total perfection! There was just one problem. As observed from Earth, planets, unlike stars, don't go direct all the time, they go retrograde at times and are even stationary for a while. So in order to explain that irregularity, they came up with the idea of epicycles. That fixed it for the medieval astronomers purposes. What they basically did was adding a bit more complexity to their model in order to keep it working (similar to Einstein's model of gravity, they had to invent black holes and stuff in order to keep it working). Now we know that the medieval astronomers were wrong in an almost ridiculous way (Einstein's followers most likely too), and yet it still 'worked' for them. So I'd say, if it doesn't matter and doesn't make a difference in your life, why care? In the end, as ZD likes to say, even the best and most accurate theories are just mental overlays over THIS. |
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Post by Reefs on Mar 23, 2022 22:08:10 GMT -5
Yeah, they oppose creationism and then they come up with stuff like the big bang theory. Aces! And in a sense, we've already got a church of scientism these days, it usually comes along as rule by so-called 'experts'. What is especially interesting about the church of scientism is that religious movements usually attempt to give life meaning and people a special purpose, but the religion of scientism does the exact opposite, it basically took any meaning or purpose out of life by reducing everything to random collections or formations of particles that are ruled by laws of probability. No wonder people are depressed these days and are drifting aimlessly thru life, functioning but not really alive. Yes, the "big bang theory", if it's mis-used as a creation myth, seems like an example of scientism. Ouroboros mentioned Brian Cox above. When he was on Rogan he said something interesting. They don't really know if the universe "started" at that point. All they see is that the universe is moving apart and it was once more compressed, hotter, denser, and more ordered (entropy). It could be that that state is part of a cycle of expansion and contraction, and that the universe had no beginning, ie, it is eternal. Some people find that idea more disturbing, because it seems to remove the idea of "Creator", and just doesn't fit with the way many humans think. That's a good example. It shows you how accumulating data for scientific purposes is one thing, but sifting thru that data and adding meaning to that data is quite another, maybe even more challenging. And as mentioned, I used be a member of the church of scientism and believed all that stuff about big bang and black holes. In school they would teach these mere models as established fact. So it took me a while to find out that it was just theory, an educated guess. And there are other, more elegant theories out there. They just don't get much air time, like the Electric Universe model. It explains a lot more with a lot less complexity. A while ago, I read on the weather channel about temperature records and how they had to adjust downward the hottest temperature ever measured on Earth in the desert of Libya, several decades after the fact. It was almost like detective work, someone going thru old records and notebook entries. Basically, the conclusion was that the reading wasn't done accurately at the time, due to an unfamiliar thermometer type used there. Quite fascinating. |
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Post by andrew on Mar 24, 2022 4:50:57 GMT -5
The horizon issue is one of their favourites, it's a 'go-to'. I looked briefly for some of the old main players on youtube, but looks like a lot of it has been scrubbed. I haven't watched this, but the title caught my eye because this is kind of how I see it.... 'Wrong but not stupid' www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8DQSM-b2ccI haven't hard a flat earth conversation in a long time, my science isn't good enough to discuss it, and I start to see their point of view, which I don't like the feeling of. The Mandela Effect is similar....it's really interesting but after a while, I don't like the way it feels. www.buzzfeed.com/morgansloss1/mandela-effects-reddit You see, in medieval times they thought the earth was at the center of the universe based on what they observed about the movement of the stars and planets. And that was a reasonable conclusion. The planets and stars would move around the Earth follow the path of concentric circles. Total perfection! There was just one problem. As observed from Earth, planets, unlike stars, don't go direct all the time, they go retrograde at times and are even stationary for a while. So in order to explain that irregularity, they came up with the idea of epicycles. That fixed it for the medieval astronomers purposes. What they basically did was adding a bit more complexity to their model in order to keep it working (similar to Einstein's model of gravity, they had to invent black holes and stuff in order to keep it working). Now we know that the medieval astronomers were wrong in an almost ridiculous way (Einstein's followers most likely too), and yet it still 'worked' for them. So I'd say, if it doesn't matter and doesn't make a difference in your life, why care? In the end, as ZD likes to say, even the best and most accurate theories are just mental overlays over THIS. Yep good point! |
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Post by andrew on Mar 24, 2022 6:54:44 GMT -5
I do feel science is near useless when it comes to our most pressing issues. For me personally, that means dealing with a kind of depression as well as resolving certain deeper questions. However, I think science may have a value even there, in keeping us honest. I see people sometimes attacking science because they want to carve out a safe space for a comforting belief that conflicts with something from science. Probably better if one is forced to abandon the belief and look deeper. I think it relates to 'the world' (as Reefs was suggesting). Simply, the collective is depressed. Not a bad thing in and of itself, as depression can precede significant positive change. I'm a parent of a late teen and a 20 year old, and I sometimes look through their eyes at the world and the choices they see, and compare it to when I was their age. Quite different. I'm not immune from depression of sorts. Of course the world still had a ton of problems when I was young (I was born mid 70s), but I also feel there was a collective sense of hope and optimism, which peaked in mid 90s. I would describe this as 'peak duality'. Duality had never been better. Technology seemed to be working great for us overall. The potential for improvement seemed strong. There was an innocence and fun to the cultural movements. From punk, to new romantic, to goth, to raver (to name just a few examples). Culture still existed as distinct from politics. And the so called 'American Dream' seemed like a reality, and 'seems' matters. Since then, duality has been in decline. We've lost the innocence. We can no longer separate culture from politics at all. The 'Green' issue is intrinsically depressing. Covid...lockdowns...social distancing...authoritarianism dressed as liberalism. The world is tremendously confusing (the gender issue an obvious example). We know too much. Questioning is a miserable business really, and I think many people yearn for simpler times. Again, I see all this as no bad thing, it opens the door for a potential to transcend duality. It's a challenging thing though. Reefs suggested it's about focus/attention, and I think he's right, though in practice, I know that in depression, retrieving our attention/focus isn't easy, and sometimes it's impossible. Sometimes the wave just has to pass of its own accord. I'm not giving you advice, I'm talking about my experience. It sounds like science stuff is often a good thing for you. Maybe it's part of your calling/dharma. |
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Post by zazeniac on Mar 24, 2022 7:24:38 GMT -5
Beautiful vid, btw. Scientism might be seen as a response to religious intrusion in the field of Science, Creationism et al. Not judging Scientism. Think it might be fun to join a Church of Scientism. Think of it. A Church in every neighborhood. Statues of Bruno and Sagan and Einstein everywhere. You could be high priest. I just want to be in charge of the sacred flora. Tax exemptions! Scientism holidays! Yeah, they oppose creationism and then they come up with stuff like the big bang theory. Aces! And in a sense, we've already got a church of scientism these days, it usually comes along as rule by so-called 'experts'. What is especially interesting about the church of scientism is that religious movements usually attempt to give life meaning and people a special purpose, but the religion of scientism does the exact opposite, it basically took any meaning or purpose out of life by reducing everything to random collections or formations of particles that are ruled by laws of probability. No wonder people are depressed these days and are drifting aimlessly thru life, functioning but not really alive. Like I said if there were a church, I might attend. There isn't. My life has no purpose and yet I'm as happy as "room without a roof." Probably because of it. Looking forward to a hitting session on the tennis courts today before the thunderstorms come. My knee is starting to heal. There's a Sandhill crane clucking in the back. They make a distinctive kind of sound. It's so cool. |
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Post by ouroboros on Mar 24, 2022 10:16:20 GMT -5
Yes, … speaking about what you can see yourself insofar as the Earth is round …. I seem to remember once reading about how it was that the Earth was originally deduced to be spherical. Basically, if in a boat you go far enough out in the ocean so that no land is visible , i.e. just water as far as the eye can see- in any direction. Then panaramically the horizon (where the sky meets water) is always equidistant from where you stand on the deck of the boat. That holds for any ocean on Earth, and I think the range of vision is actually 2.9 miles. The reason given for this is that it is due to the curvature of the Earth, which seems pretty reasonable. I can't remember who it was, but way-back-when, some bright spark used that distance measurement to calculate the size of the planet. Which turned out to be remarkably accurate, when with the subsequent advent of satellites they were able to measure this quite accurately. Now, whenever I hear about flat-Earthers, I wonder how they go about accounting for this fact. That on the ocean the horizon is always equidistant. I assume they must have an alternative explanation of some sort, but can't imagine what that might be. The horizon issue is one of their favourites, it's a 'go-to'. I looked briefly for some of the old main players on youtube, but looks like a lot of it has been scrubbed. I haven't watched this, but the title caught my eye because this is kind of how I see it.... 'Wrong but not stupid' www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8DQSM-b2ccI haven't hard a flat earth conversation in a long time, my science isn't good enough to discuss it, and I start to see their point of view, which I don't like the feeling of. The Mandela Effect is similar....it's really interesting but after a while, I don't like the way it feels. www.buzzfeed.com/morgansloss1/mandela-effects-redditThanks for the links. It was a well-reasoned and put together video by the Lady. So a lot of it comes down to the fact that they will only trust information processed with their own senses. I wonder whether they include mind as part of the sense sphere, coz doubtlessly there's an element of deduction in something like ascertaining the Earth is round. And of course that includes being perceptive enough to know when to accept certain scientific evidence, that okay, in all probability is above our own pay-grade. Really, any decision whether to accept something as empirical or not is ultimately a 'blanket' value judgement, and accordingly she pointed out a certain mistaken delineation they make in the specific type of empirical evidence they require, which basically amounts to a level of objective proof that will have been seen to be fallacious by many folks who frequent this sort of forum. Tbh, I'm disinclined to get into it any further, based on that alone. That tells me all I need to know. If I were being brutally honest I would say that I felt the title of the video was a bit generous. But I'm mindful of the fact that you concede you find yourself getting sucked into it occasionally. Clearly not too far though. I'm sure they've got some arguments that do actually track, but we're talking about the body of evidence, right. Additionally, I'm confident that the horizon example as I laid it out, should be enough for any reasonable person to deduce the fact that the Earth is indeed spherical, to the extent that I would say it's unequivocally self-evident on that point alone. So that’s before you even get a blanket judgement on all the other available evidence. Which imo would only back that up. Fwiw, I'm supremely confident no-one would be able to come up with a satisfactory counter argument to the horizon issue. |
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Post by ouroboros on Mar 24, 2022 10:24:40 GMT -5
Yeah, it comes down to two main issues for me, which are actually intertwined. At least the basis of which. Firstly, that the act of perception IS the act of creation. Secondly, that the intellectual is fundamentally axiomatic. I hafta say that in my experience folks have a tendency to overshoot in their conclusions about what all that indicates, and basically end up second mountaineering. But to not allow for those facts is the opposite extreme, first mountaineering, which essentially leads to scientism. In many ways it can become as dogmatic as fundamentalist religion. Which of course, is slightly ironic. Eventually science and spiritually have to meet, and some of the current 'hard problems' of science is where that starts to happen. Idk, stuff like the Copenhagen Interpretation could perhaps even be considered as where science is starting to become more gnostic in nature. I agree, a meeting of science and spirituality seems the best way forward, because in a sense, this would mean science going back to its roots. I find the approach of putting QM into a spiritual context especially promising. Here's a short video series, "The Law of Attraction Explained by Quantum Physics"... www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OAIuqIUUb4www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ouos2w2N2wIwww.youtube.com/watch?v=o-l5TEr_IiYwww.youtube.com/watch?v=bWO8r2XcIrEwww.youtube.com/watch?v=hvIKY6taCIgOkay, cool. I'll have a watch thru those. It doesn't surprise me. I see it as kinda an 'all roads lead to Rome' / Perennial Philosophy type thing, if that makes any sense. I suspect it's what happens when the respective material gets refined to the point where it becomes less of a doctrine and more a half decent system of pointers. They begin to intersect at the point of Truth, so to speak, … or Dhamma (the living Truth).  |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 24, 2022 11:50:58 GMT -5
Yes, the "big bang theory", if it's mis-used as a creation myth, seems like an example of scientism. Ouroboros mentioned Brian Cox above. When he was on Rogan he said something interesting. They don't really know if the universe "started" at that point. All they see is that the universe is moving apart and it was once more compressed, hotter, denser, and more ordered (entropy). It could be that that state is part of a cycle of expansion and contraction, and that the universe had no beginning, ie, it is eternal. Some people find that idea more disturbing, because it seems to remove the idea of "Creator", and just doesn't fit with the way many humans think. That's a good example. It shows you how accumulating data for scientific purposes is one thing, but sifting thru that data and adding meaning to that data is quite another, maybe even more challenging. And as mentioned, I used be a member of the church of scientism and believed all that stuff about big bang and black holes. In school they would teach these mere models as established fact. So it took me a while to find out that it was just theory, an educated guess. And there are other, more elegant theories out there. They just don't get much air time, like the Electric Universe model. It explains a lot more with a lot less complexity. [...] Black holes by themselves are not scientism. They used to be "theory", but now we've observed them with telescopes and, more recently, via gravitational waves. There may be some "scientism" associated with black holes - I don't know. Maybe somebody talking about how they are doorways to an astral plane or something. The details of general relativity are difficult, but the basic idea is not. Light is effected by gravity. You can see it even with planets and stars, with a telescope. "Gravitational lensing" - the light bends around the object. Get a massive enough object, and the light can't get out of the gravity well, and that's a black hole. |
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Post by andrew on Mar 24, 2022 13:23:24 GMT -5
The horizon issue is one of their favourites, it's a 'go-to'. I looked briefly for some of the old main players on youtube, but looks like a lot of it has been scrubbed. I haven't watched this, but the title caught my eye because this is kind of how I see it.... 'Wrong but not stupid' www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8DQSM-b2ccI haven't hard a flat earth conversation in a long time, my science isn't good enough to discuss it, and I start to see their point of view, which I don't like the feeling of. The Mandela Effect is similar....it's really interesting but after a while, I don't like the way it feels. www.buzzfeed.com/morgansloss1/mandela-effects-redditThanks for the links. It was a well-reasoned and put together video by the Lady. So a lot of it comes down to the fact that they will only trust information processed with their own senses. I wonder whether they include mind as part of the sense sphere, coz doubtlessly there's an element of deduction in something like ascertaining the Earth is round. And of course that includes being perceptive enough to know when to accept certain scientific evidence, that okay, in all probability is above our own pay-grade. Really, any decision whether to accept something as empirical or not is ultimately a 'blanket' value judgement, and accordingly she pointed out a certain mistaken delineation they make in the specific type of empirical evidence they require, which basically amounts to a level of objective proof that will have been seen to be fallacious by many folks who frequent this sort of forum. Tbh, I'm disinclined to get into it any further, based on that alone. That tells me all I need to know. If I were being brutally honest I would say that I felt the title of the video was a bit generous. But I'm mindful of the fact that you concede you find yourself getting sucked into it occasionally. Clearly not too far though. I'm sure they've got some arguments that do actually track, but we're talking about the body of evidence, right. Additionally, I'm confident that the horizon example as I laid it out, should be enough for any reasonable person to deduce the fact that the Earth is indeed spherical, to the extent that I would say it's unequivocally self-evident on that point alone. So that’s before you even get a blanket judgement on all the other available evidence. Which imo would only back that up. Fwiw, I'm supremely confident no-one would be able to come up with a satisfactory counter argument to the horizon issue. Yes. I'm definitely not arguing their case, and I feel there's a lunacy to the whole thing (though lunatics can be right of course). As someone that has been strongly conspiracy oriented, I definitely believe that powerful groups are brilliant at cover-ups, at weaving narratives, and manipulating people's conditioning, but the idea of a 'flat earth' cover up is very extreme indeed, even by my standards. The level of cover-up and manipulation would be extraordinary. So bearing in mind my lack of science skill, I was considering it mainly from this angle. Would it be possible to cover it up? In the end, I went with 'no'....partly because of a sense of discordance with the whole thing, partly because I don't resonate with their religious beliefs, and partly because, at a rational level, I don't think a cover-up of this level would be possible. I guess if I was really interested, I'd look closely into the science of it all, but... I'm just not inclined. I'm happy to park it in the back of mind as 'extremely unlikely'. |
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Post by ouroboros on Mar 24, 2022 14:29:20 GMT -5
Thanks for the links. ... Yes. I'm definitely not arguing their case, and I feel there's a lunacy to the whole thing (though lunatics can be right of course). As someone that has been strongly conspiracy oriented, I definitely believe that powerful groups are brilliant at cover-ups, at weaving narratives, and manipulating people's conditioning, but the idea of a 'flat earth' cover up is very extreme indeed, even by my standards. The level of cover-up and manipulation would be extraordinary. So bearing in mind my lack of science skill, I was considering it mainly from this angle. Would it be possible to cover it up? In the end, I went with 'no'....partly because of a sense of discordance with the whole thing, partly because I don't resonate with their religious beliefs, and partly because, at a rational level, I don't think a cover-up of this level would be possible. I guess if I was really interested, I'd look closely into the science of it all, but... I'm just not inclined. I'm happy to park it in the back of mind as 'extremely unlikely'. Yes, I trust my own judgement as to Tim Peake's impeccable character. |
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Post by laughter on Mar 24, 2022 14:37:20 GMT -5
About that, maybe consciousness also has no "mass", or the entire universe is conscious, "photons" included? I've never heard this 4D everything-moves-at-c idea, and I don't see how it could work. The vectors do not add up. If you have a link with more explanation, please share. There's a book called "The Self-Aware Universe: How Consciousness Creates the Material World" that is still on my reading list. It's these kind of concepts where science and spirituality meet, which I think is the best way forward for science at this point. Goswammi, yes, one of the last in a series of books before I stumbled onto Tolle. Much of what he wrote escaped my interest until after Tolle. One of the most fascinating topics he covers has nothing to do with the physical world, but he offers a metaphor for the existential delusion involving √-1 as a model for self-referential thinking. As I recall he doesn't frame it in exactly those terms, but that's the bottom line of it. The problem with modeling consciousness and the entanglement of consciousness with what we perceive as physicality is that the models imply a material answer to the question of self-inquiry. There are two general forms of the answer that I've perceived, and any such answer comes along as an essentially subconscious assumption that the modeler isn't really all that aware of in the process. One is that consciousness emerges from the complex action of the physical world, which incorporates elements of both unpredictable chaos, and predictable order. The other is that consciousness is an innate characteristic of reality itself - which sounds alot like some of our pointing. The two different assumptions can be related to each other but can also be distinguished from one another. This is all a cultural artifact that's been long in the making, and I suspect that the discovery of QM was catalytic to it. As ZD likes to point out (or, at least, as I'll paraphrase him), what if none of these thoughts about consciousness arise, what if none if it is either true, or false. What then?  Seems to me that these assumptions underlie the folly of scientism, and even replacing a localized, physically embodied observer with some other sort of observer doesn't seem to me to cure that folly. |
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