--- In [email protected], "curtisdeltablues" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Damn Judy, I am only working on one cup of coffee here! Let me see if > I can make an intelligible response! > > > Coming back to this, because I think it's an > > important point: If Unity consciousness is as > > MMY defines it, and if he's in Unity consciousness, > > it isn't *up* to MMY, independently of nature, > > whether to perform siddhis. It's nature's call. > > > > So it wouldn't really be a falsifiable standard > > after all. > > I think he has already thrown his hat in to the ring of demonstrating > student's flying for marketing purposes. So it seems like nature has > spoken on this and just hasn't delivered the goods. He has used the > impression of science for his marketing and even revealed his strategy > in his "Science of Being". So it seems like it is too late for him to > claim that nature just doesn't want him to blow people away and gain > millions of followers by demonstrating something amazing.
As far as I'm aware, he hasn't made that claim. I was extrapolating from several strands of his teaching. > Maybe it was never meant as a falsifiable standard even though it was > presented that way. I may have been giving MMY too much credit for > being sincere about his interest in proofs and testing. My guess is that he believed siddhis would happen in fairly short order. I don't know what, if anything, he's said about them now that it's evident this was an overly optimistic expectation, so I don't know how he has rationalized it. > > Erwin Schroedinger's quote is interesting. If my single cup of coffee > brain can wrap around this multiple cups of coffee question... > > I don't buy his conclusion. He seems to be jumping levels of > existence unnecessarily. He starts with theory, determinism, goes to > personal experience, free will, and then lapses into poetry. Well, it's not really determinism in the philosophical sense. He explicitly qualifies it as "statistico- deterministic," by which he's presumably referring to quantum mechanics--the observations and the math, not just theory. Then he asks how can it even be statistico-deterministic when we have such a clear experience of exercising our free will? Why is the scientific fact incompatible with our most basic sense of ourselves? > I don't think his conclusion is logical at all It isn't, it's paradoxical. It's the Advaita paradox. , it is just put > together out of his imagination. He does identify it as an "inference." It sounds beautiful, but it is not > how I think of it. When he is doing science he may be the man, but in > his forays into philosophy he just sounds like an old-school Chopra. Ah, Curtis, come on. Chopra's not a physicist. Schroedinger is referencing Advaita. He isn't the only modern physicist who got into mysticism by any means. I should recommend another Wilber book to you, called "Quantum Questions: The Mystical Writings of the World's Great Physicists." It's a collection Wilber edited, and his introduction is a crystal-clear explanation of how modern physics can lead one to mysticism--but *not* in the "Tao of Physics" style at all, rather by recognizing that mysticism is completely beyond science. > We psychologically experience our free will acting as well as the > determined parts of our habits and the effects of past actions and > experiences coming into play and interacting with our will. Trying to > drop a bad habit puts this in our face clearly. Sure, but this doesn't contradict Shroedinger. As far as deciding if > the universe has some designs on our personal actions That would be the Self--yours and mine and everyone else's--not some independent entity: "I--I in the widest meaning of the word, that is to say, every conscious mind that has ever said 'I'--am the person, if any, who controls the 'motion of the atoms' according to the Laws of Nature." , this is an area > for philosophical speculations. Identifying our sense of "I" with the > "I" controlling the motion of the atoms is more poetry than > philosophy. Not that poetry is bad, I love it. I think one can say it's mystical philosophy. > So how do you understand it? As Schroedinger does; that's why I quoted him! > > > > > --- In [email protected], "authfriend" <jstein@> wrote: > > > > --- In [email protected], "curtisdeltablues" > > <curtisdeltablues@> wrote: > > > > > > > Another wrinkle: what exactly does "able to do > > > > the siddhis" actually mean in the context of > > > > Unity consciousness? Does it really mean "on > > > > demand"? > > > > > > This ends up in the broader question of free will and determinism in > > > general in any state of consciousness. Nice point about the paradox. > > > > > > I recognize, and others have pointed out, that MMY is unique in his > > > perspective of siddhis. Many other teachers claim they are > > > impediments to growth, or at lest distractions. But in his system > > > they serve a much more interesting role for me. They are indications > > > that one has gained certain masteries over the laws of nature. I > > > think they are important to distinguish "higher" states from just a > > > flowery description of what ordinary, aware people are walking around > > > in every day. Since he does demonstrate siddhis at their incomplete > > > hopping level, I can't see why he would not show the real deal. I > > > think it was commendable of him to use the performance of siddhis as > > > tests of consciousness. It gives a falsifiable standard. > > > > Coming back to this, because I think it's an > > important point: If Unity consciousness is as > > MMY defines it, and if he's in Unity consciousness, > > it isn't *up* to MMY, independently of nature, > > whether to perform siddhis. It's nature's call. > > > > So it wouldn't really be a falsifiable standard > > after all. > > > > And yes, it's all very much wrapped up in the free > > will/determinism paradox. I don't personally > > have any problem with the idea that my sense of > > free will is an illusion--that is, my "small > > self"'s sense of free will. I think we assume > > we have free will because we're dimly intuiting > > that the Self has free will. > > > > I think I've posted this quote from Schroedinger > > here before, but it's germane to this discussion: > > > > Erwin Schroedinger, in an essay called "The I That Is God," > > wrote: > > > > ...The space-time events in the body of a living being which > > correspond to the activity of its mind, to its self-conscious or > > any other actions, are...if not strictly deterministic at any > > rate statistico-deterministic....Let me regard this as a fact, as > > I believe every unbiased biologist would, if there were not the > > well-known, unpleasant feeling about "declaring oneself to be a > > pure mechanism." For it is deemed to contradict Free Will as > > warranted by direct introspection.... > > > > Let us see whether we cannot draw the correct, noncontradictory > > conclusion from the following two premises: > > > > (i) My body functions as a pure mechanism according to the Laws > > of Nature [determinism]. > > > > (ii) Yet I know, by incontrovertible direct experience, that I > > am directing its motions, of which I foresee the effects, that > > may be fateful and all-important, in which case I feel and take > > full responsibility for them [free will]. > > > > The only possible inference from these two facts is, I think, > > that I--I in the widest meaning of the word, that is to say, > > every conscious mind that has ever said "I"--am the person, if > > any, who controls the "motion of the atoms" according to the Laws > > of Nature. > > > ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> You can search right from your browser? It's easy and it's free. 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