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Sceptic agenda
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Wicknight, brilliant post. Now my head hurts and I need to go lie down.
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+1, anybody who thinks the paranormal is weird just hasn't been reading enough science.
This Youtube vid explains the double slit experiment quite well, it's a bit cartoony and simplified but very worth watching
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Wicknight, brilliant post. Now my head hurts and I need to go lie down.
Tell me about it
Quantum uncertainty is weird but conclusions based on it are even weirder.
For example, some how a particle in a state of uncertainty "knows" (for want of a better term) that in the future it's probability wave will collapse to a certain point even though we know that this does not actually happen until that point in the future. The different states seem to be connected through time.0 -
Ok... cos my interest is obviously in trying to pin down things like telepathy and such, (and we are in paranormal after all) could this strange behaviour be used in any way to provide theories as to what is going on when people experience predicitive events or remote viewing or whatever? In saying this I explicitly DON'T want this to become a discussion of such things, I'm just trying to see if in any way, this could be related to things that happen out in the bigger non quantum world. Theoretically.Tell me about it
Quantum uncertainty is weird but conclusions based on it are even weirder.
For example, some how a particle in a state of uncertainty "knows" (for want of a better term) that in the future it's probability wave will collapse to a certain point even though we know that this does not actually happen until that point in the future. The different states seem to be connected through time.
And I apologise to the scientists for my lack of knowledge here, cos I know that you hate when paranormally type people basta'dise and hijack science in order to prop up questionable things.:D0 -
You are correct that individual particles such as photons or electrons behave like that. It is known as quantum uncertainty. If a particle is not being "observed" (more on what that means in a minute) it does not exist at a single point.
Something can be a wave and a particle at the same time and it doesn't become a formed object until someone observes it. With this in mind, a fair few science heads have wondered whether the phenomenon might lend credibility to some ‘yogis’, for example, who claim they can be in two places simultaneously. Likewise, some scientists are studying the theory that space can be bent and worm holes can lead to places far, far away. For those who are into the possibility of UFOs existing, putting that theory into further action might ultimately explain how a UFO can travel to Earth from planets that are light-years away...
The most important thing a person needs to take from that is that this is very weird. Very very very f00king weird. If anyone thinks this isn't weird they are not understanding it probably.
Yeah, it's definitely fcucking weird
If you fire your photon gun at B 99% of the time the electron will be at B, but some of the time it will be at C. Repeat the experiment 100 times one of the times one of the photons will be weird and appear in position C even though you fired it at position B
Initially scientists believe that this was simply down to us missing something. An electron is only at one point at any given time, but we were missing something that is happening to it that makes it be where we don't expect it to be.
I guess people’s perception of what reality is is continually being challenged. Reality as most people know it is founded on a logical geometric structure encompassing time, energy, matter, force, and gravity. I’d say quantum mechanics will succeed eventually in explaining, or at least understanding, what Newtonian mechanics has fallen on its face at doing so far. The present state-of-art research on parallel universes/space and extra space dimensions looks to have been strictly limited to the work on developing a grand unified quantum field theory and a quantum theory of gravity so far. Yeah, quantum gravity/unified field theory research has been evolving since the 1920s when these guys called Kaluza and Klein published the first papers to describe a model for the unification of gravity with electrodynamics. Many of the more prominent theories today invoke extra spatial dimensions, the existence of parallel universes/spaces, or both to unify gravity with the other forces of nature. I dunno how they’ll move on from that because it’s so vast and complex.
But this bloke called Leshan put forward a concept to explain vacuum hole teleportation around the late ‘90s, which describes the teleportation of objects throughout our universe by using the geometrical properties of space time. He pretty much said in this that there is a “zero-space” that exists outside the boundary of our universe, whereby this zero-space is a “point form” space, where the distance between any two points is always equal to zero. So it’s like distance and matter are obsolete, or at least from a conventional perspective. Leshan also calls this space a “hole.” If this is really the case, it could go some way to explaining ‘phenomena’ like telepathy and psychokinesis. Although ‘psychic powers’ such as ESP and clairvoyance and the rest appear to contradict common sense beliefs, it appears so far that they don’t violate any known laws of science.
Even Einstein, in discussing the validity of telepathy, admitted, "From physicist's point of view, we have no right to rule out the possibility of telepathy." And his Theory of Relativity says that time is not linear, but all twisted up and intermingled like a ball of wool; so it’s logical to assume from this that parallel universes or different time periods might enmesh with each other. The only crux in this is that it only applies to the present and past... so maybe that’s why you come across the odd (competant/authentic) psychic who is uncannily accurate on picking up hard facts about a person’s past, but rubbish on predicting their future.
But a researcher called Dean Radin, director at the Institute of Noetic Sciences, conducted research showing that the Central Nervous System responds to events that have not yet happened, suggesting that human consciousness has access to future events as well as to the past and present. In four separate double-blind experiments Radin found that average people respond to the content of an emotional picture before the picture is viewed. The odds of this happening are over one-hundred thousand to one. The experiment volunteers included average people as well as trained scientists. And, as dozens of people on the Paranromal or Psychics and Mediums forums have stated, there have been (a very small number of) psychics who have been able to predict exact, future events that have taken place in their lives that couldn’t have been gleaned from manipulating the use of Barnum statements or being highly accomplished cold readers. Always the same names pop up, for year after year now, with positive feedback: Joe Gough, Billy Martin, Carol Byrne, Dympna Hughes, etc...
Paranormal phenomena fall into the area of appearing to contradict both physical law and common sense experience. Many scientifically controlled experiments confirm unexplainable phenomena (like with the Two Slit Experiment). Modern quantum physics research is adding support to the possibilities that premonitions and other psychic phenomena are not only possible but conform to new understandings of physics. I mean, do some people really have premonitions about impending disaster? It sounds like something out of Final Destination, I know but investigations into disastrous plane crashes by researchers found a statistically significant number of last-minute reservation cancellations and changes. Researchers even found this phenomena connected with the sinking of the Titanic.
It’s possible that all beings have premonition abilities. Animals are known to have fled prior to the strike of natural disasters like earthquakes and tsunami. Some studies indicate that beings as primitive as earthworms are able to sense impending danger and take evasive action. You know how dog whistles are designed so only dogs can pick up the sound when they’re being summoned by it? Well, they might have more finely tuned senses, including hearing obviously, than human beings. You could say that, because animals don’t have the developed reasoning and deduction capabilities of humans, they’ve been designed to be more adept in their basic sensorial perceptions to facilitate their survival. Give them an edge, so to speak..
Speaking of edges, the Soviet military invested themselves heavily in parapsychology and paranormal phenomena and its manipulation for military advantages. The entire spectrum of parapsychology phenomena was explored by the Soviets, which resulted in the generation of a wealth of experimental data and related scientific research literature. There was psychotronic/parapsychology R&D materials that Soviet military forces took from various Nazi research centres in and around Germany at the end of WWII. A 1972 report by this scientist called LaMothe found that the techniques the Soviets studied to influence human behavior, which included: sound, light, color, odours, sensory deprivation, sleep, electromagnetic fields, biochemicals, autosuggestion, hypnosis, and parapsychology phenomena (psychokinesis, telekinesis, ESP, astral projection, clairvoyance, precognition, and dream state, etc.). This report by him became an aid in the development of countermeasures for the protection of U.S. and/or allied personnel. Btw, psychotronics is the term that was used in the former Soviet Union/Warsaw Pact countries to categorise many psychic phenomena when they were conducting scientific research.
The conclusions that were reached within the category of psychotronics by the Soviets identified two discrete skills:
- Bioenergetics: the phenomena associated with the production of objectively detectable effects such as psychokinesis, telekinesis, levitation effects, transformations of energy, i.e. the altering or affecting of matter
- Bioinformation: those phenomena associated with the obtaining of information through means other than the normal sensory channels (i.e., ESP), such as telepathy, precognition, and clairvoyance.
These phenomena involve using the mind and/or some “field” of the body to affect other minds and inanimate objects irrespective of intervening distance or elapsed time, and without engaging any conventional tools. Bioenergetics and bioinformation are two classifications that form a single branch of science the Soviets preferred to call biocommunications. Soviet biocommunications research is primarily concerned with exploring the existence of a definite group of natural phenomena controlled by laws that are not based on any known (energetic) influence. The types of biocommunication (a.k.a. psychotronics) phenomena includes special sensory biophysical activities, brain and mind control, telepathic communications or bioinformation transceiving, bioluminescent and bioenergetic emissions, and the effects of altered states of consciousness on the human psyche. Psychotronics and remote viewing provide capabilities that have obvious intelligence applications. The Soviets and their Warsaw Pact allies invested millions of dollars in psychotronics R&D because they understood this, and saw the potential payoff for military and intelligence applications.
The U.S. response to their discovery of the Soviet psychotronics R&D programmes was the Remote Viewing program. Also, the U.S. Army began the JEDI Project in 1983, which sought to increase human potential using teachable models of behavioral/physical excellence by ‘unconventional’ means.
Seriously like, there’s a wealth of factual scientific research data from around the world attesting to the physical reality of p-Teleportation and related anomalous psi phenomena. It’s too large to just ignore.
I believe quantum uncertainty and non-locality and all the weird conclusions of that for time and space are accurate, and that stuff is far, far weirder than anything that is discussed on the paranormal forum.
You would wonder to what extent can we model precisely what the brain does? Like, if we choose the set of conventional axioms that are already in place and we find that there are certain fallibilities within that framework it that don’t match the fallibilities that humans have, then we’re left with the need to develop a different model. Obviously, all of this stuff about consciousness being an intelligent kind of entity independent of the human body (and that obviously includes separation from the brain organ) is controversial because it seems to be a deep mystery and it’s a probably a deep mystery for some interesting reasons. But it looks like we have to reasess how we view the capabilities of the human brain. And the question is can we discover that model or is it something that really has to be driven by physical processes that are really kind of linked with the universe, in a way, and the observations that we can make in the universe??
I mean, in terms of mapping the brain, we’re obviously a long way from ever being able to map the brain coherently, or in all its complexity. Would the quantum domain below the cellular level to explain these phenomena of conscious human abilities? God only knows really. But at least we do know that there is no universally accepted definition of physical existence. There’s an assumption that physical reality is based on an abstract geometry, which is a consequence of logical principles. Significantly, it’s rarely mentioned that Nature is formed of a medium, because existence of such a medium cannot be defined, and that remains a philosophical problem. Plus, science of physics would be incomplete if the reason behind the existence of such a medium is deduced mathematically. And it would also be problematic to say that matter in Nature is formed of elements that exist inherently because that immediately raises questions about where these basic blocks of matter come from, or why there is something instead of nothing.
People can argue all they like till Glenda Gilson’s frickin eyebrows stop defying gravity about consciousness being an illusion, or that physical models aren’t sufficient to explain these things, but I suppose the first step would be to define what consciousness is. Well, the survival of consciousness as a belief has been recorded as far back as the time of the Chinese philosopher Confucius in 5BC. His buddy ‘Chu His’ was documented as saying then, “If a man is killed before his life span is completed, his vital spirit is not yet exhausted and may survive as a ghost”. From Jesus’ time, there’s a quote from the Book of Job (4:15):“Then a spirit passed before my face; the hair of my flesh stood up.” We still don’t know what exactly it is, though. Near Death Experiences (NDE) and Out-of-Body Experiences (OBEs) – genuine ones – are probably the closest thing to exploring what consciousness is at this point in time.
There’s a very interesting true story about this American lady called Pam Reynolds. She woke up one morning and found her head was swelling up inside (she was suffering an aneurysm), so she was rushed to a neurological institutute in Phoenix, Arizona for a tricky operation to get the thing removed from underneath her brain stem. The only way the surgeon could do that was to drain all the blood from her head, drill off the top part of her skull and manoeuvre the fluid sac from underneath that brain stem. Tough job. Anyway, while Pam was anaesthetised to the rafters while all this was going on, she felt herself moving out of her body and floating up in the air inside the operation theatre. She was able to see what surgical tools the medics were using on her body below and she heard a conversation between the surgeon and the nurses where they were talking about a major problem with the procedure and decided on an emergency re-think on how to do it. When this woman came round after the operation was (successfully) completed, all the details she related about what had occurred during the surgery on her were confirmed as being absolutely accurate by her cardiologist Dr Michael Sabom and her surgeon, Dr Robert Spetzler. And if you’re thinking, “Oh she wasn’t properly anesthetised or knocked out at all”, well, every clinical physiological sign from her body was being monitored by state-of-the-art machines.
The concept of Quantum Entanglement – how microtubules in the base of our brains that contain all the information on and processes of who we are but the info is bunched together even after physical death – might explain consciousness. It says that when we bite the dust, the information that’s held in these microtubules doesn’t die as well. Why? Because it all exists on the quantum level, which is the level on which space, energy, time and matter (basically the whole f*ckin universe) exist. Where this entanglement comes in is that these streams of information that had been stored in our microtubules all manage to stick together as an independent whole. So, the mind and body are able to exist independently of each other but our brains aren’t responsible for creating consciousness – our brains just seem to channel the intelligence that makes up our consciousness.
TBH I don't really get when people say things like Oh you so called sceptics are so cynical, you don't believe anything weird is happening.
Christ, yeah, no-one would ever have thought that, would they?... :rolleyes: :rolleyes:
TaxiManMartin wrote: »After reading and answering some threads in the paranormal forum it looks like some people just want to believe in the supernatural. They cant help it. They dont really have any proof, but are willing to say any experience they cant explain is supernatural. They arent even open to the idea that they could be mistaken at all... Let them find their "proof" and let them come back here and talk about it for a few days. Then we post what they actually experienced and how we set it up. And see if they believe that they are capable of being tricked into seeing ghosts after that...
A girl I work with told me about a type of faith healer called a Blood Healer. Supposedly only people who's surname is O Neill or something have the "power". Her dad went to see one a few times.
So the way they heal you is they rub their own magic blood on you. Just say you have a rash on your arm. They rub their blood, or a solution of their blood, into your rash, then it goes away.
I nearly died when I heard it. Anyone know more about this?
Some people will believe anything. Hey, what is this "Faith Healing"anyway? Does one really NEED to have Faith?
jick the rapper wrote: »I find the idea of "the secret" incredible!
What exactly is the reasoning behind believing that “the universe”, or whatever benevolent force is at work here, is going to provide us with what we want!
Just because we desire it so!
Does no one else think this is complete tripe?
I’m as receptive as most to out there ideas, but they have to have at least some foundation in reality.
Overblood wrote:
[IMG]file:///C:/Users/Sheila/AppData/Local/Temp/msohtmlclip1/01/clip_image001.gif[/IMG]
Very often is the case with mental health problems that the person who is sick doesnt know it until they see a doctor over it.
There is much more evidence and research to support mental illnesses than there is to support paranormal happenings. Why do you think this is?
:rolleyes:
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Ok... cos my interest is obviously in trying to pin down things like telepathy and such, (and we are in paranormal after all) could this strange behaviour be used in any way to provide theories as to what is going on when people experience predicitive events or remote viewing or whatever?
Well the short answer is not really because you don't need to get down to that level in order to have information flying around the place to remote locations. You can step up a bit from the low level quantum physics and just look at electromagnetic radiation, this proves a system that could allow a person to sense information that is coming from a very far away place. We do that already with light.
The long answer ...
The biggest problem with something like telepathy isn't finding a method to transmit signals across distances. Your radio has been doing that for the last 100 years, and animals have been doing it with light for billions of years. It has long been understood that long wave length electromagnetic signals can pass through objects, and we don't need to invoke quantum uncertainty to make that work. It works because the wave lengths of the signals (different to the probability wave) are large enough that the electron or photon does not hit atoms as it passes through the object (all matter is essentially empty space with atoms dotted about, we only view things as "solid" because the wave length of light is so short that it will bang into atoms very quickly and will always be reflected, therefore we see things as solid shapes)
The big problem in demonstrating a claim such as telepathy happens is finding a bit of the brain that has evolved to actually produce some kind of signals, or depending on what type of thing we are talking about, receive some kind of signal at long wave lengths, as our eyes do at short wavelengths .
When thinking about a function in an animal it is important to ask two questions, how and why. How did the function evolve and why, as in how does it help the organism in the environment it finds itself in.
With something like light it is relatively easy to answer those questions, the how it developed is the gradual development of photo sensitive cells and the way is because light is a source of energy so animals and plants that can sense where the light is coming from can move towards it.
It is more difficult to put something like remote viewing into an evolutionary frame work. Evolution is a gradual process that requires that an adaptation provide benefit. If the ability to some how remote view a place had evolved in humans and provided benefit that it was selected by natural selection (it is easy to see potential benefits to remote viewing, such as sensing possible danger) evolutionary theory would suggest we would all be able to do it, in the same way we can all see.
It is not possible for evolution to select things in isolation so that only a handful of people in an entire species have the ability but the ability continues to survive from generation to generation.
The only way therefore that remote viewing can fit within evolution is if it is a relatively new mutation in the human species (it has not had time to die out yet) that has altered an already existing functionality in the brain to allow for this ability.
I find that difficult to see as likely considering the complexity of the ability. Again take light, we have a very complex system for processing the electromagnetic radiation that hits the eyeball. There are a number of organs that have developed over literally millions of years to be able to process this information in a way that possible to understand.
All the same challenges that processing light has would effect processing what ever information is used in remote viewing. Information comes into the brain or head and some where this information is detected and processed. It is hard to see this occurring as a mutation of some other system. If you turn on a TV that is not tuned in and see all the static you can see the challenge that the eye has to deal with. This information is not already organised, the brain organises it into understandable shapes and patterns.
So there are two biological issues to remote viewing or telepathy, the fact that we all don't seem to be able to do it (suggesting very recent mutations on a pre-existing brain functionality) and that those who claim to be able to do it are able to make out complex images (suggesting that the processing in the brain is at a complex stage already.
Those two issues are some what of a contradiction, and it is over coming that contradiction that is really where people should be focusing on if they want to see if this stuff is actually happening.
The brain can do some very peculiar things and I don't mean to sound overly negative about the idea of remote viewing. Technically there is no reason why a biological life form could not develop the ability. You don't actually have to get down to the level of quantum uncertainty to find a mechanism to allow for this, everything is constantly reflecting electromagnetic radiation at different wave lengths and frequencies, most of which pass through objects.
The issue isn't what natural phenomena could allow it to happen, there are dozens of ways that information can be transferred very far distances, more what biological systems have we evolved in order to detect this information.0 -
MrMojoRisin wrote: »Something can be a wave and a particle at the same time and it doesn't become a formed object until someone observes it.
Not exactly. It doesn't become a formed particle at a specific place until something observes it.
By "observes" scientists mean interacts with. Basically something has to hit it. That is what an observation is at a technical level, something like a photon from some where hits off something changing it and bounces back into our eyes or onto a camera or onto a photon detector.MrMojoRisin wrote: »With this in mind, a fair few science heads have wondered whether the phenomenon might lend credibility to some ‘yogis’, for example, who claim they can be in two places simultaneously
Ok if you say so, I'm not familiar with that research and I don't understand how quantum uncertainty would allow a person to exist at two places at the same time. The wave function of every single particle in a persons body is in a collapsed state because they are interacting with every other particle. Also the particle that is in an uncertain state is not existing in two places at the same time, it is technically not existing at all.
Do you have a link?MrMojoRisin wrote: »Modern quantum physics research is adding support to the possibilities that premonitions and other psychic phenomena are not only possible but conform to new understandings of physics.
...
Seriously like, there’s a wealth of factual scientific research data from around the world attesting to the physical reality of p-Teleportation and related anomalous psi phenomena. It’s too large to just ignore.
Teleportation has always been physically possible. As you mention it has been given a scientific grounding since the days of Eienstien. That has never been the issue.
The issue is whether it is feasible for someone to do it without requiring vast amounts of energy or travelling at ridiculous speeds. That is much more difficult to explain.
For example having a brief read of Leshan work it requires that you leave the universe. That may be theoretically possible, but that is not the same as saying that a guy sitting in a room can do this.
Theories of teleportation that invoke Einstein's worm holes require so much energy to simply open the worm hole that you would use more energy than is available on Earth simply to open it a few micrometers for a few milliseconds.
So while this stuff is possible it is certain not easy. That has to be taken into serious consideration when considering them as possible explanations for paranormal claims.
You can't go half way when applying science to this stuff. You can't say that science supports the idea of teleportation and then ignore that it would require you to collapse the Sun to achieve it.0 -
Not exactly. It doesn't become a formed particle at a specific place until something observes it.
By "observes" scientists mean interacts with. Basically something has to hit it. That is what an observation is at a technical level, something like a photon from some where hits off something changing it and bounces back into our eyes or onto a camera or onto a photon detector
If humans are composed of atoms and sub-atomic particles and they also possess consciousness, how can the two be separated when we’re all made of atoms? Why would all these atoms come together to make up the human mind (the mantle for consciousness) when the atoms don’t have some sort of sentience or intelligence? Why don’t these atoms just remain separated and become voids instead? That’s what I’m wondering.
And why does the fundamental nature of reality have to be ‘dead’ matter? Where did that idea come from a couple of hundred years ago? Before science was established, so-called mysticism pre-dated it. If we accept that the human body, mind, and reason itself are just atoms of matter interacting with or acting on other ones, then, fundamentally, there is no life force and the indepedent will to act is cancelled out as well; in short, we have no free will. Feck all. You could only say that everything that makes us human is determined by the laws of nature and all we are is just a race of zombies (and I don’t mean in a ‘Night Of The Living Dead’ way,duh). If we were to resign ourselves to those laws, then the foundation of Christian morality that assumes an individual will to be free is completely obsolete. May as well send off all those mountains of Christian literature off to the recycling depot. If we’re just zombies, we’d all live evil lives instead of choosing the good option that’s motivated by our consciousness. If these laws of nature are absolute, then that suggests that ESP can’t be real at all.
In March 2004, The New Scientist said, "For years, well-designed studies carried out by researchers at respected institutions have produced evidence for the reality of ESP. The results are often more impressive than the outcome of clinical drug trials because they show a more pronounced effect and have greater statistical significance. What's more, ESP experiments have been replicated and their results are as consistent as many medical trials - and even more so in some
cases. In short, by all the normal rules for assessing scientific evidence, the case for ESP has been made."
In 1995, a statistician called Jessica Utts from the University of California said that there had been studies done prior to that time indicating that people exhibited abilities, albeit far from perfect, such as remote viewing and telepathy. It’s just that it has been challenging to pinpoint the underlying neurological processes that enable these abilities so far. But all of the so-called scientific ‘laws’ must have came from somewhere.
Granted, Isaac Newton figured out gravity when he was plonked under a tree and an apple from above fell on his noggin. But, of all the hundreds of things he could have thought about as a result of that happening, he chose to conclude, “Oh that’s what gravity is all about. What goes up must come down.” Plato asserted that a person is not a single entity, but both a material body and a separate spiritual soul. Similarly, he said that the material world is obviously material but an imperfect copy of a perfect spiritual realm. It was also said that sensory observations of the material world are unreliable because they only provide illusions of reality and interfere with gaining true knowledge. Apparently, true knowledge is only revealed when a person is free of sensory distractions. I guess that’s why people meditate because they want to access ‘truth’ or ‘true meaning’. Bit of a no-brainer, I s’pose. Well, monks seem to be very relaxed and functional people, so it can only be a good thing to engage in a spot of meditation. St. Augustine said you’re more likely to gain divine revelations (or experience something of a ‘paranormal’ nature basically) if you live a spiritual life that includes meditation, or at least some degree of intense introspection. Before he came to that conclusion, St. Augustine lived a life of debauchery and scepticism and he was wondering if there was anything at all that he could really believe. So eventually, with a bit of logical introspection, he said to himself that we would have to start having faith in himself and his own existence before coming to have faith in something like an omnipotent God. If anyone thinks the bloke was talking through his own arse, well, many of the assumptions made in the Western world today about thoughts, feelings, and behaviour (the bedrock of modern psychology) are based on Augustine’s early theological Christian doctrines. Free will, determinism, psychosomatism.. Loads of important things.
Early Islamic psychology said that there’s an aspect of thinking called ‘potential reason’, which includes a faculty, or special mental power, of prophecy. There was a Dominican monk called Roger Bacon during the Middle Ages who argued that people should be able to use ordinary reason and observation as valid ways to know anything of a metaphsical nature, including God. As opposed to having ‘blind belief’. In trying to figure out what prevents people from knowing or even acknowledging anything outside the world as we know it, he identified four causes of human ignorance and error. First, he identified an unjustified reliance on authorities of any kind. Second was/is the human tendency to remain enslaved to habits, customs and traditions, even in the face of contradictory evidence. And yes, I realise that the two causes could be applied to ‘believers’ in paranormal phenomena, but personally, I wasn’t connected to or aware of any authorities on anything from when I started believing in some of this phenomena as a young child. Anyway,the third cause Bacon found was a popular prejudice that blinds people to the validity of other evidence. That’s related to the way in which humans are predisposed to think, including the desire to maintain social cohesion by going along with the opinions of others no matter how ill-informed they may be. The fourth and final cause, according to him, was a person’s conceit and over-confidence in their own knowledge and ability to reason. That said, an inert obedience to a belief system based on trust omits any room for questioning. Maybe the solution to that would be to scrap any one system and formulate your own one instead.
I don’t view hardcore sceptics disdainfully but I can’t help questioning that mindset. Even Einstein said, "Pure logical thinking cannot yield us any knowledge of the empirical world. All knowledge of reality starts from experience and ends in it." Beliefs just based on trust are unchanging and considered timeless for the most part. The ancient Egyptians were living ‘proof’ of that, because they are known to have lived happily and productively for at least 3,000 years using that belief strategy. The ancient Chinese also enjoyed a highly developed and stable culture for more than 2,000 years. But look at the world today and there are diverse belief systems in place – along with violence and disorder.
Teleportation has always been physically possible. As you mention it has been given a scientific grounding since the days of Eienstien. That has never been the issue.
The issue is whether it is feasible for someone to do it without requiring vast amounts of energy or travelling at ridiculous speeds. That is much more difficult to explain.
For example having a brief read of Leshan work it requires that you leave the universe. That may be theoretically possible, but that is not the same as saying that a guy sitting in a room can do this.
Theories of teleportation that invoke Einstein's worm holes require so much energy to simply open the worm hole that you would use more energy than is available on Earth simply to open it a few micrometers for a few milliseconds.
So while this stuff is possible it is certain not easy. That has to be taken into serious consideration when considering them as possible explanations for paranormal claims.
You can't go half way when applying science to this stuff. You can't say that science supports the idea of teleportation and then ignore that it would require you to collapse the Sun to achieve it.
I’m not going half way in applying science to any of this. If I were to include every, single, little detail in trying to explain all of this on a scientific level, I would probably have the makings of a series of bloody books. It’s so vast that only a few things can be analysed at a time. As for a human being teleporting on earth... Human teleportation, or Out-of-Body Experiences (OBEs) , involve the consciousness alone of the person separating from the body – not the body itself; although there have been (rare) instances where witnesses have reported seeing the bodily form of the person. But I think that’s just a visual projection of the body.
Although OBEs have been re-created and induced in a group of volunteers in a laboratory setting a few years ago, they weren’t re-created in their entirety, in so far as, despite the volunteers saying they felt 'weird' or 'strange', none of them felt the full sense of disembodiment or the shift in perspective that characterise these authentic OBEs. The authentic cases go further than simply being awake and seeing the body and the world from a location outside the physical body. They also exceed the experience of autoscopy (AS), which is characterised by the experience of seeing one’s body in extrapersonal space.
Of the most well-known cases of OBE or bilocation was in the case of Padre Pio. His appearances on various continents were attested by numerous eye witnesses, who either saw him or smelled the odours characteristically associated with his presence, described by some as roses and by others as tobacco. Padre Pio made an appearance in the air over the town of San Giovanni Rotondo during World War II, while southern Italy remained in Nazi hands and American bombers were given the job of attacking the city of San Giovanni Rotondo. However, when they arrived in the city and were preparing to unload their munitions, a brown-robed friar appeared before their aircraft. All of their attempts to release the bombs failed. Later on, when an American airbase was established at Foggia a few miles away, one of the pilots of this incident visited the friary and found to his surprise the little friar he had seen in the air that day over San Giovanni. It was Padre Pio. The closest Padre Pio ever came to an explanation of bilocation was to say that it occurred "by an extension of his personality." So that’s something to think about... Basically bilocation is a like the projection of a double, but a double that is a thinking entity.
Another well-known instance of bilocation took place back in 1774, when St. Alphonsus Liguori was said to have lapsed into a trance while preparing for a mass he was going to do. When he came out of the trance he reported that he had visited the bedside of the dying Pope Clement XIV. His presence was then confirmed by those attending the Pope despite him being four days travel away in those times, and not appearing to have left his original location at all.
Bilocation is said by some people to be a physical, rather than a spiritual, phenomenon, and that a person experiencing it is supposedly able to interact with their surroundings as normal, including being able to experience sensations and to manipulate physical objects exactly as if they had arrived through natural means. This makes it distinct from astral projection. In most instances, bilocation is said to be involuntary and not to have been directed by the individual concerned in terms of time or space. I’m undecided about that, tbh.
I realise that the generally accepted scientific theories of physics provide no mechanism by which bilocation of macroscopic objects could occur; that, yeah, for electrons from nitrogen molecules, the wave-particle character exists simultaneously. Of course you’d wonder that, if photons and other quantum particles can be in two places at once, why can’t we as well? The Copenhagen interpretation says that any measurement or other “observation” by a human (as opposed to a thing, yes, like a photon detector) collapses the wave function of any given particle’s superposition into one manifested position. We ‘see’ the world through our macroscopic senses every moment. Our observation instantaneously collapses any other potentials than the one we are perceiving. So there goes the possibility of a particle’s superposition in our eyes fecking off out the window. Damn.
But the ‘many worlds’ theory adopts a different approach, saying that it is not observation which collapses the wave function into one ‘reality’, but that it’s that the superpositions move into alternative realities and manifest in parallel universes. Schroedinger’s cat thought experiment echoes much of Aristotle’s ancient musings about material objects being an imperfect projection of its ideal form in another, ‘perfect’ world. His experiment was developed to show, in a sense, how ridiculous the Copenhagen interpretation really was when taken to its logical classical conclusion, because the many worlds theory results in two cats in two different universes, one alive and the other very much dead.
In the early 1990s, a theory was put forward by Sir Roger Penrose that takes a totally different approach as to why classical objects do not exhibit quantum effects. Going against the grain, Penrose chose to investigate gravity, which had been ignored before then because it’s obviously a much weaker force than electromagnetism and the nuclear strong and weak forces at the quantum level. Einstein himself spent 30 years after his development of special relativity trying to figure out how to include gravity in the quantum picture and failed.
According to Penrose, there may be something called quantum gravity operating at the levels of the extremely small – the Planck Scale - which is roughly equal to 1.6 x 10 -35 m or about 10 -20 times the size of a proton. This quantum gravity, he speculates, may well induce collapse of the wave function through a process called objective reduction, which is when self-collapse of a quantum state occurs after a critical threshold in quantum gravity has been reached.
One vital aspect of this objective reduction is the fact that it is non-computable. In other words, self-collapse doesn’t happen just because of some algorithmic, calculable event. It occurs unpredictably, which may, strangely enough, indicate that a “conscious” or proto-conscious process is occurring at the quantum level in our brains.
Himself and his assistant researcher concluded:
“An essential feature of consciousness might then be a large-scale quantum-coherent state maintained for a considerable time. OR ( objective reduction) then takes place because of a sufficient mass displacement in this state, so that it indulges in a self-collapse which somehow influences or controls brain function. Microtubules seem to provide easily the most promising place for these requirements.”
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Electromagnetic forces?MrMojoRisin wrote: »If humans are composed of atoms and sub-atomic particles and they also possess consciousness, how can the two be separated when we’re all made of atoms? Why would all these atoms come together to make up the human mind (the mantle for consciousness) when the atoms don’t have some sort of sentience or intelligence? Why don’t these atoms just remain separated and become voids instead? That’s what I’m wondering.
I'm not sure I understand what you're asking here, as far as my understanding goes, consciousness/sentience is the product of a certain arrangement of atoms.
Yup, you're right there (or at least, that resonates with what I think).MrMojoRisin wrote: »If we accept that the human body, mind, and reason itself are just atoms of matter interacting with or acting on other ones, then, fundamentally, there is no life force and the indepedent will to act is cancelled out as well; in short, we have no free will. Feck all.
You mustn't underestimate the illusion of free will.MrMojoRisin wrote: »You could only say that everything that makes us human is determined by the laws of nature and all we are is just a race of zombies (and I don’t mean in a ‘Night Of The Living Dead’ way,duh). If we were to resign ourselves to those laws, then the foundation of Christian morality that assumes an individual will to be free is completely obsolete. May as well send off all those mountains of Christian literature off to the recycling depot. If we’re just zombies, we’d all live evil lives instead of choosing the good option that’s motivated by our consciousness. If these laws of nature are absolute, then that suggests that ESP can’t be real at all.
We are like more intellectually complex zombies, yes, but such is reality that once we realise this it doesn't mean we can stop and just drift through life unthinkingly. Considering we don't know the future, free will is a bit of a silly concept to start with.
I can't fathom how you think this would make us lead evil lives. I mean, for a start, why not good lives? But ultimately, why would determinism mean that we would all live uniform lives?
And why couldn't ESP be real in a deterministic context?0 -
Electromagnetic forces?
I'm not sure I understand what you're asking here, as far as my understanding goes, consciousness/sentience is the product of a certain arrangement of atoms.
Yeah, but I was just pondering why that arrangement of those atoms that apparently compose consciousness/a person’s soul are assumed to be part of the human brain. How the heck are they (consciousness and the brain of a person) physically connected when something like consciousness has been shown to survive and exist independently beyond brain death and/or complete death? That’s what I was asking. I’m sure this is just one of those great mysteries that nobody knows the foggiest about in a conclusive sense,though...
You mustn't underestimate the illusion of free will.
We are like more intellectually complex zombies, yes, but such is reality that once we realise this it doesn't mean we can stop and just drift through life unthinkingly. Considering we don't know the future, free will is a bit of a silly concept to start with.
I can't fathom how you think this would make us lead evil lives. I mean, for a start, why not good lives? But ultimately, why would determinism mean that we would all live uniform lives?
I accept that free will is an illusory concept. At best it’s just random will that people have; the sort of will that directs people to act spontaneously or to supposedly ‘defy convention’. The reason why I personally accept that we don’t have free will is because our will is heavily influenced by our external environment, and also by our own personal autonomy that’s coloured by physical health and fundamental physical needs. I suppose all we really have is freedom of action really. The word "freedom" does not mean "freedom from causality or materialism", it means "freedom from compulsion or restraint". So, if will exists (and I think it does), it can exert its influences through causal relations. And causality provides constraints, but not an absence of freedom. Gravity obviously limits the conditions under which a person can fly, but it doesn’t prevent flying. The causal sequences that determine nerve stimulation that results in muscular action give the will the freedom to manifest itself in the world. So, a person’s skeletal muscles are commanded by voluntary nerves acting through the brain, but a person has the power to control those involuntary responses. The regulator of those involuntary responses such as blood pressure , heart beat, and the amount of blood flow to various parts of the body is the autonomic nervous system.
When a person is in a highly relaxed state, they can be healed or physiologically re-programmed through a sort of re-learning process. I suppose the human will lies at the heart of any sort of relaxation therapy because the person themselves is the active agent in the mind-body encounter; to me, that signifies that a person can become something above the animal that, say, reacts to threats via signals in their environment and so on.
Anyway, some people believe in evolution with a purpose; that it’s a designed growth process, not a fortuitous selection process (as opined by Darwin). Along the same lines, wouldn’t you wonder how consciousness might fit into all that and for what purpose? The story goes that consciousness is something that grows as life passes upwards through progressive levels of existence – from mineral to plant to animal to superhuman (or pure spirit, as I personally believe). I mean, are we all but bystanders in a history of the universe that dictates that the survival of only species – not individuals – is governed by natural law? And even then the adaptive advantage that a person must have to ensure their survival comes about only by accident?
Well, where does that leave the development of industry of every persuasion (brought about by individual contributions that make up a collective force)? What’s the f*cking point so? Why do we bother our holes contributing anything to the world through sustained effort throughout our lives when anything we create can easily break down and degenerate back to feck all? When you think about it, everything (including ourselves as humans) is predisposed to breaking or failing. For a species that’s dictated by natural laws to do our damndest to survive, I think it’s gas how we have the same orifice for drinking and eating and breathing as well. What a crap design, when choking can send us off packing in a matter of minutes. Crap.
Oh, I was just being sort of facetious when I said that an absence of free will would lead people to lead evil lives. But seeing as the supposedly free will of a person is connected to the value they accord to things like love and friendship, it makes me worry a bit for there to be no freedom attached to human will. But what would actually result in a heartless person would be the nature of the choices they make. Because there are always external constraints on the range of actions we can meaningfully try to undertake, any sense of responsibility lies within the person and the choices they make (however unfree they really are).
If someone could be arsed, they could theorise that a series of evolutionary re-births, i.e. reincarnation of the entire human species, could fundamentally be experienced at the individual level. Like, in other words, each person holds a responsibility for developing themselves spiritually – whatever their understanding of that is – to subsequently lead lives that serve to sustain the earth and, ultimately, the future of the human species. I don’t think that the earth itself could ever be completely obliterated (as fabulous a job as humans have been doing to cause that possible outcome thus far); the worst that could happen is that the whole of humanity could be killed off, with the earth continuing on its merry way. Just like it did before any people/primates (initially) were plonked on it.
And why couldn't ESP be real in a deterministic context?
Oh yeah, I think ESP slots in nicely into the concept of determinism. I reckon ESP in society might have been more commonplace in ancient civilisations, like the Chinese in the early BCs, the Babylonians, the Incas, and the Mayans, etc. They weren’t so perturbed by environmental hazards like bubonic plagues, wars, and the distractions of modern technology that emerged much later, so they had the luxury of developing their minds and ruminating on spiritual matters. Thought transference is as natural as gravity and magnetism. All it is is the evolution of a thought that’s accompanied by a sort of galvanic discharge from the grey matter of the brain, and as this vibration passes beyond the periphery of the brain into the ether – and no-one has a clue how far it may extend – it’s very conceivable that the eventual evolution of thought in the human brain may affect a distant planet. I don’t think ESP, and all within it, are as ‘paranormal’ as people believe nowadays.
Today’s so-called ‘occult arts’ were once a part of the establishment – common sense ways of thinking in the mainstream of their time – and not a source of simple answers to complicated questions that many critics perceive them to be today. Why is it that these same critics who don’t believe in the afterlife, and whatever else that’s seen as bullsh!t, nevertheless can accept the unseen cold dark cosmic matter and evaporating black holes that modern science offers? There was a time when science and the occult happily coexisted under the same roof, one scarcely discernible from the other in method and practice. How they parted company and why one was relegated to the dark shadows while the other came to bask in the limelight of mainstream belief is worth looking at. But who decides what is rational, what unknown there is to fear, and what lies within the realm of causal explanation? I s’pose that’s where common sense comes in. But all common sense is is just a culturally shared belief – a manner of viewing and relating to the world we (or most people) agree upon and out of habit adopt as part of our way of life. What makes superstition (which literally means ‘to stand above cause’ – ha, interesting!) a pejorative or insidious term is just the implied deep-seated connection with belief in a direct connection between you and me and the ‘powers of evil’.
Now, common sense for most people is based on the firm conviction that the material world that consists of anything supposedly superstitious or paranormal has no direct link with or power over the human condition. I understand that and I accept that to a degree. I suppose the very thought of someone who would believe in the efficacy of material objects in dealing with human matters is very bothersome to the human mind, even if playful versions of old customs (touch wood, fingers crossed, etc) still survive. But how is it that most people don’t find praying to God (or whatever it is the person believes in) silly? Yeah, you get people who are Atheists, but I reckon that it’s feck all more than a badge they wear. If those Atheists found themselves in a terrifying, life-threatening situation where all options of physical extrication had been exhausted, I bet my two legs that they wouldn’t be long pleading to something divine for assistance or strength.
Generally, of course it’s understandable that some people scoff at the existence of spirits because they don’t acquire proof that satisfies them. Well, a spirit isn’t part of the ordinary world anyway, so it does make sense that it can’t be experienced through the state of mind through which we sense everyday things. The question has always been, does reality consist only of what we perceive in normal conditions of life? And is it really fair to say that what anyone sees, feels, or hears in any other conceivable state of mind unreal (excluding hypnogogic states, chemically induced delerium, and proven psychiatric illness)? Well, as I said before, the likes of Plato and Aristotle would pretty much have said (if you read their books), “Why not?”.
The major flaw in the grand sea of scepticism is that one (or two, or more, etc) sceptic’s logic makes the mistake of applying their own system of understanding how the world works to somebody else’s interaction with it. Well, regardless of what anyone chooses to believe in that vein (and the belief war will roll on), I might be so bold to say that all of us ultimately have no physical dominion over physical nature. We’re just intellectually complex zombies who are (supposed to be – but we’ve made a balls of it so far) guardians of earth, of which we are an appendage.
Tbh, I don’t think everyone should know all of the answers to anything mysterious or ‘paranormal’ yet because the truth would seriously disturb their belief of and trust in the world as we know it. Things such as spirits reside in another parallel world (whether you think that’s hogwash or not, I don’t mind) and that’s where they should rightfully stay really. What happens when people talk about experiencing apparitions and spirit sightings and all the rest is that that parallel world sometimes collides with this one. Now, I can’t for the life of me explain in scientific terms how exactly that works, but it does. Like I’ve said on numerous occasions before, the only way you’ll believe in something like spirits or the afterlife, or whatever, is when you experience something unexplainable of that nature for yourself. Ideally, someone else would be present with you when that happens. Anyway, I don’t believe that every, single person should, or needs, to experience any of this stuff unless they’re open to it. If they’re not open to it (as most hardcore sceptics seem to be), sure that’s grand altogether, but it’s not anyone’s (including myself) place to deride or savage someone else’s personal experiences, or beliefs even. Questioning it is fine obviously. Anyway, it’s all a matter of choice. Do your own thing.
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MrMojoRisin wrote: »Yeah, but I was just pondering why that arrangement of those atoms that apparently compose consciousness/a person’s soul are assumed to be part of the human brain. How the heck are they (consciousness and the brain of a person) physically connected when something like consciousness has been shown to survive and exist independently beyond brain death and/or complete death? That’s what I was asking.
When was a persons consciousness show to survive and exist independently of their brain?
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To recap...MrMojoRisin wrote: »
There’s a very interesting true story about this American lady called Pam Reynolds. She woke up one morning and found her head was swelling up inside (she was suffering an aneurysm), so she was rushed to a neurological institutute in Phoenix, Arizona for a tricky operation to get the thing removed from underneath her brain stem. The only way the surgeon could do that was to drain all the blood from her head, drill off the top part of her skull and manoeuvre the fluid sac from underneath that brain stem. Tough job. Anyway, while Pam was anaesthetised to the rafters while all this was going on, she felt herself moving out of her body and floating up in the air inside the operation theatre. She was able to see what surgical tools the medics were using on her body below and she heard a conversation between the surgeon and the nurses where they were talking about a major problem with the procedure and decided on an emergency re-think on how to do it. When this woman came round after the operation was (successfully) completed, all the details she related about what had occurred during the surgery on her were confirmed as being absolutely accurate by her cardiologist Dr Michael Sabom and her surgeon, Dr Robert Spetzler. And if you’re thinking, “Oh she wasn’t properly anaesthetised or knocked out at all”, well, every clinical physiological sign from her body was being monitored by state-of-the-art machines.
The concept of Quantum Entanglement – how microtubules in the base of our brains that contain all the information on and processes of who we are but the info is bunched together even after physical death – might explain consciousness. It says that when we bite the dust, the information that’s held in these microtubules doesn’t die as well. Why? Because it all exists on the quantum level, which is the level on which space, energy, time and matter (basically the whole f*ckin universe) exist. Where this entanglement comes in is that these streams of information that had been stored in our microtubules all manage to stick together as an independent whole. So, the mind and body are able to exist independently of each other but our brains aren’t responsible for creating consciousness – our brains just seem to channel the intelligence that makes up our consciousness.0 -
Please do not be so condescending and dismissive. It's not a badge I wear, it's an honest lack of belief in a god. I refuse to converse with you if you have this attitude towards me.MrMojoRisin wrote: »Yeah, you get people who are Atheists, but I reckon that it’s feck all more than a badge they wear. If those Atheists found themselves in a terrifying, life-threatening situation where all options of physical extrication had been exhausted, I bet my two legs that they wouldn’t be long pleading to something divine for assistance or strength.
And anyway, an atheist hoping a god existed if in mortal peril doesn't prove anything besides the fact that people become more irrational when scared.
If you wish to understand my position and treat my lack of belief as sincere, then I shall engage with you.0 -
MrMojoRisin wrote: »To recap...
There’s a very interesting true story about this American lady called Pam Reynolds. She woke up one morning and found her head was swelling up inside (she was suffering an aneurysm), so she was rushed to a neurological institutute in Phoenix, Arizona for a tricky operation to get the thing removed from underneath her brain stem. The only way the surgeon could do that was to drain all the blood from her head, drill off the top part of her skull and manoeuvre the fluid sac from underneath that brain stem. Tough job. Anyway, while Pam was anaesthetised to the rafters while all this was going on, she felt herself moving out of her body and floating up in the air inside the operation theatre. She was able to see what surgical tools the medics were using on her body below and she heard a conversation between the surgeon and the nurses where they were talking about a major problem with the procedure and decided on an emergency re-think on how to do it. When this woman came round after the operation was (successfully) completed, all the details she related about what had occurred during the surgery on her were confirmed as being absolutely accurate by her cardiologist Dr Michael Sabom and her surgeon, Dr Robert Spetzler. And if you’re thinking, “Oh she wasn’t properly anaesthetised or knocked out at all”, well, every clinical physiological sign from her body was being monitored by state-of-the-art machines.
The concept of Quantum Entanglement – how microtubules in the base of our brains that contain all the information on and processes of who we are but the info is bunched together even after physical death – might explain consciousness. It says that when we bite the dust, the information that’s held in these microtubules doesn’t die as well. Why? Because it all exists on the quantum level, which is the level on which space, energy, time and matter (basically the whole f*ckin universe) exist. Where this entanglement comes in is that these streams of information that had been stored in our microtubules all manage to stick together as an independent whole. So, the mind and body are able to exist independently of each other but our brains aren’t responsible for creating consciousness – our brains just seem to channel the intelligence that makes up our consciousness.
Wishful thinking my friend, you just don't want to die.0 -
Please do not be so condescending and dismissive. It's not a badge I wear, it's an honest lack of belief in a god. I refuse to converse with you if you have this attitude towards me.
I actually had NO IDEA WHATSOEVER that you were/are an atheist. Not a clue. So, why don't you follow your own advice and stop being condescending and dismissive towards me by wrongly and prematurely assuming I was referring directly to you and you alone when I wrote about atheists?And anyway, an atheist hoping a god existed if in mortal peril doesn't prove anything besides the fact that people become more irrational when scared.
I disagree. People in life-threatening situations will not have a good chance of remaining alive if they allow themselves to be overwhelmed by irrational fear. Fear isn't irrational when the threat presented to the person is indeed very real, i.e. being held captive by four blokes armed with guns. Or would there need to be scientific proof of those four armed blokes shoving a gun into someone's face as well?? Just in case it might be 'science gone awry', ya know?If you wish to understand my position and treat my lack of belief as sincere, then I shall engage with you.
It was never my wish from the outset to understand anyone's position because that had already been crystal clear to me. I wasn't looking to engage with anyone specific either - I was just presenting my own viewpoint (as I had not done that in detail previously). I'm fairly puzzled why nobody else apart from the usual users around here has had anything to say on this topic. What's that all about (rhetorically)? 0 -
Wishful thinking my friend, you just don't want to die.
Point one: There is nothing wishful about my thinking. The story (and others I have came across) speaks for itself, and several eminent scientists, including Dr Francis Collins, believe in an afterlife.
Point two: I am not your friend.
Point three: Actually, I can't wait to die. I'm really looking forward to it, as much as I lead a good life here. No fear or apprehension whatsoever.0 -
I know you didn't know. But if it's directed towards all atheists, it's directed towards me, and I find that insulting.MrMojoRisin wrote: »I actually had NO IDEA WHATSOEVER that you were/are an atheist. Not a clue. So, why don't you follow your own advice and stop being condescending and dismissive towards me by wrongly and prematurely assuming I was referring directly to you and you alone when I wrote about atheists?
I didn't say fear was irrational, I said fear causes irrational behaviour.MrMojoRisin wrote: »I disagree. People in life-threatening situations will not have a good chance of remaining alive if they allow themselves to be overwhelmed by irrational fear. Fear isn't irrational when the threat presented to the person is indeed very real, i.e. being held captive by four blokes armed with guns. Or would there need to be scientific proof of those four armed blokes shoving a gun into someone's face as well?? Just in case it might be 'science gone awry', ya know?
There's scientific evidence that points towards us been biased towards believing in anything which will help us survive. This doesn't make what we would believe in in such circumstances true.0 -
I know you didn't know. But if it's directed towards all atheists, it's directed towards me, and I find that insulting.
Just as I find it insulting when people who have a personally justifiable belief in some aspects of the paranormal are told by irascible individuals with no professional medical expertise that they're suffering from a mental illness. And so on and so on.I didn't say fear was irrational, I said fear causes irrational behaviour.
I know you didn't, but you correlated fear stemmed from a real-life threatening situation with irrational behaviour, which is irrational in itself.There's scientific evidence that points towards us been biased towards believing in anything which will help us survive. This doesn't make what we would believe in in such circumstances true.
I have never stated that my belief in an afterlife has been prompted by my belief that it will sustain my physical survival. I couldn't give two sh!ts whether it would or not. In any case, it sounds absurd.
My maternal grandmother believes in the use of tiger worms to enrich her pot plants. Will that help her survive?0 -
So don't stoop to their level. This isn't true of all atheists.MrMojoRisin wrote: »Just as I find it insulting when people who have a personally justifiable belief in some aspects of the paranormal are told by irascible individuals with no professional medical expertise that they're suffering from a mental illness. And so on and so on.
I don't understand.MrMojoRisin wrote: »I know you didn't, but you correlated fear stemmed from a real-life threatening situation with irrational behaviour, which is irrational in itself.
It's a subconscious thing.MrMojoRisin wrote: »I have never stated that my belief in an afterlife has been prompted by my belief that it will sustain my physical survival. I couldn't give two sh!ts whether it would or not. In any case, it sounds absurd.
On a very simplistic and hypothetical level, people might have evolved to have a tendency towards believing in religion/god/an afterlife to reduce the chance of them getting depressed/motivating them. This doesn't mean any of this actually exists.
(We're probably getting way off topic here....)0 -
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So don't stoop to their level. This isn't true of all atheists.
I haven't stooped to their level. I didn't spit any venomous derision at atheists with regard to their mental equilibrium; an attitude that has been bandied about voluminously by various anti-paranormalists in the Paranormal, Psychics and Mediums, and here in the Skeptics Corner.
As regards the reality of being an atheist... I'll admit that I find it inconceivable that anyone would have a belief in nothing. Why? Because I have been surrounded by people who do believe in something divine all my life. Of the hundreds of people I have met and who I have known well throughout the years who brought up the subject of belief systems (however briefly), not a single one of them was an atheist. I'm talking about people I have known and know who run the full gamut of every age group, sex, background, creed, and nationality. Every single one of them expressed a belief in some type of god.
All of my favourite musicians/singers had/have a belief in a god, and I don't mean in a cheesy hyper-Christian way either. Kanye West, The Beatles, U2, Kings Of Leon, Ray Charles, Muse, Johnny Cash, Led Zeppelin, Radiohead, Public Enemy, Nirvana, Jimi Hendrix, The Doors, David Bowie, The Smiths, Black Sabbath, The Killers, The Kinks, The Rolling Stones, etc, etc. The list goes on and on.I don't understand.
To believe that someone exhibiting irrational behaviour to a situation that presents REAL threats (and, thus, a cause for REAL and RATIONAL fear) is an irrational concept, because being afraid when your life is clearly endangered is completely rational and perfectly understandable. If I was, say, wrongfully thrown into a really sh!tty Thai prison (like that bloke Colin Martin was before) for several years, where my life could end at any moment in those inhuman conditions, I could see that it would be completely rational to be scared out of my fcuking wits. On the same note, I'd remain conscious of at least trying to keep my cool externally so that I'd stand a better chance of getting out of that hellhole intact eventually.It's a subconscious thing.
When I have been hypnotised to a subconscious state of mind and the hypnotherapist has unearthed this concept from me, then I might give it some serious consideration. As I'm always saying, you can only believe something through personal experience.On a very simplistic and hypothetical level, people might have evolved to have a tendency towards believing in religion/god/an afterlife to reduce the chance of them getting depressed/motivating them.
I don't use my belief in anything to motivate me or to avoid lapsing into a depressed state. I use my friendship and relationship and family ties, as well as work and leisure time, to deal with those things. Much the same as a hell of a lot of people I know.This doesn't mean any of this actually exists.
According to yourself a few other stragglers, yeahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh0 -
It's a subconscious thing.
On a very simplistic and hypothetical level, people might have evolved to have a tendency towards believing in religion/god/an afterlife to reduce the chance of them getting depressed/motivating them. This doesn't mean any of this actually exists.
(We're probably getting way off topic here....)
To a degree, I agree with you on that. Theo nly thing I would differ on is that theres a probability (and I would suspect a decently high one) that not all people who might believe in god/afterlife etc etc might do so because it basically makes them feel better about life. Some obviously do, many others probably dont so its not really a complete answer as you are only explaining the reasoning of a percentage.0 -
Some obviously do, many others probably dont so its not really a complete answer as you are only explaining the reasoning of a percentage.
A lot of people have done research into the area and say that the evidence and such is sound enough to found a belief in the supernatural.
Priests and ministers for example follow their faith because they believe it to be true because of study, mostly.0 -
*edit* - I'm not too sure of the connection between the quote and your post0
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Genghiz Cohen wrote: »A lot of people have done research into the area and say that the evidence and such is sound enough to found a belief in the supernatural.
Priests and ministers for example follow their faith because they believe it to be true because of study, mostly.
But wouldn't you wonder how the priest/minister came to even think the priesthood is their 'calling'? Like, yer man Tom Cruise was very serious about forging a career in the priesthood when he was a young fella, and as far as I know, he didn't have a formidable secular background that would have informed that choice. Then you get these saints from centuries ago like St. Teresa of Avila who apparently 'knew' from childhood that she wanted to commit to the path of God,or whatever. I mean,your average child isn't going to be roaming around the place thinking in their head that they definitely want to be a nun or a priest. Well, a lot of today's kids either want to be footballers, pop stars or wans who are famous just for being famous. I suppose the social conditioning of different eras has a strong bearing on children's ideas and ideals. St. Teresa of Avila obviously didnt have a telly or dopey 'celeb mags' when she was a little tyke.0 -
*edit* - I'm not too sure of the connection between the quote and your post
You said some people only believe because it makes then feel better, I just said that priests have to spend a lot of time thinking and studying before they are ordained. They look at the Bible and other sources then decide that there is enough evidence to establish a belief. Sort of an addendum to your post, I think.
TBH, I would be very sketchy about believing what any celebrity says about faith or political stances, it could all be just to boost fame.MrMojoRisin wrote: »But wouldn't you wonder how the priest/minister came to even think the priesthood is their 'calling'? Like, yer man Tom Cruise was very serious about forging a career in the priesthood when he was a young fella, and as far as I know, he didn't have a formidable secular background that would have informed that choice.MrMojoRisin wrote: »Then you get these saints from centuries ago like St. Teresa of Avila who apparently 'knew' from childhood that she wanted to commit to the path of God,or whatever. I mean,your average child isn't going to be roaming around the place thinking in their head that they definitely want to be a nun or a priest. Well, a lot of today's kids either want to be footballers, pop stars or wans who are famous just for being famous. I suppose the social conditioning of different eras has a strong bearing on children's ideas and ideals. St. Teresa of Avila obviously didnt have a telly or dopey 'celeb mags' when she was a little tyke.
The stump of Rathkeale can't be cut with a chainsaw, apparently.
These stories get embellished over time, days in the case of the stump. I would imagine St. Teresa was a normal little girl who wanted to grow up to be just like mommy. The idea that she always wanted to be a nun or whatever is an adorable image, probably false though.
Maybe she was visited regularly by a nice nun or some such and wanted to be like her, I don't know, I could happen.0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfPeprQ7oGc
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