Re: [Vo]:The Science of Intention

[Edmund Storms]

At the risk of replowing the same field, of course intention and belief 
play a role at some level. For example, people can never win at the 
slots unless they have sufficient belief to actually put the coin into 
the machine and push the button.  If the expected belief is not 
fulfilled, the conclusion is that the belief was not strong enough. If 
you win, the belief was clearly justified. Educated people now know that 
the belief, in this case, had no effect except to start the process. 
While this is a trivial example, the same process occurs in all actions, 
frequently where the relationship between belief and outcome is not so 
clear. Superstition relies on this ambiguity while science attempts to 
show the underlying process. Unfortunately, many people are not educated 
enough to understand what is already known and enough true ignorance 
remains to give support to the belief in magic. To make matters even 
more confusing, while science attempts to sort out the actions in the 
material world, I believe the spiritual world can always throw in a 
joker to confuse the issue. This is how religion gets its power. In 
addition, must people feel inadequate in their ability to control 
reality using their knowledge. Instead a strong belief, which everyone 
has without effort, or faith in a God, which requires no knowledge, are 
used as a substitute for skill. It is sometimes difficult when exploring 
this subject to separate the true reality from the substitution, 
especially when the "true " reality is scary and the substitution is 
entertaining and loving.

Ed



Stephen A. Lawrence wrote:



OrionWorks wrote:

There's a popular NewAge saying which proclaims that we create our own
reality. I suspect most who ponder the ramifications of the NA phrase
take the meaning metaphorically, perhaps in the same vein as reading
certain passages from the bible, particularly Genesis. Others are
beginning to ponder the ramifications of wondering if there might
actually be more to this NA meaning. Back in the 1970s, the pre-NewAge
author, Jane Roberts, was one of the first to explore the
ramifications in a series of alleged channeled writings - the Seth
Material comes to mind.

NewAge mumbo-jumbo set aside, I suspect aspects of these ramifications
have been explored in certain SF novels.


"Waldo" and "Magic, Inc", both by Heinlein are probably the best known.  
If you've ever heard someone refer to a remote manipulator as a "waldo" 
then you've heard of the first of these.

The Childe cycle of Gordon Dickson explored a chunk of the idea in 
"Necromancer" but Dickson dropped it later on in the series (it makes 
for a rather hard to manage world).

"The Practice Effect" explores a cute variation on it; can't recall the 
author.

Many, many other books have touched on the notion that belief can make 
it so.

It's an easy proof that in an infinite universe there's a world where 
magic works.  Sadly, it's an equally easy proof that you could never 
find such a world even if you had interstellar teleportation so you 
could visit lots and lots of star systems in hardly any time.