[FairfieldLife] Re: and European PIGS
Rich? Yes. I own Tine and Eternity. But I don't have any money honey. I don't want it. Just enough to to eat that is all. They can stuff their money right up their fat ugly arse until they choke on it. I am a Mystic or Miss-Tick. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bhairitu noozg...@... wrote: Ask EmptyBill, he's the one that posted that not me. No I don't think Europeans are pigs but I think that many of the rich are. Are you also rich? ;-)
[FairfieldLife] Re: and European PIGS
Well that is OK then. I am a Cockney Git but living in the Shires of Albion. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, emptybill emptyb...@... wrote: Don't take it personally. PIGS is an acronym for Portugal, Ireland, Greece, Spain.
[FairfieldLife] Of whom what where and when.
Of whom what where and when. Gawd strewth Tracey woman you don't half yak on :- ))) But no problem, I like it, and I am sure the group owner would feel the same. It is the one liner sarcastic jerks that make me angry and bite back :- ) But I tell you what, if you and I were married the kids would never get fed :- ))) You say, write and ask, so much there that I can only address it a bit at a time, and later today if I may. Just a couple of bits here however. The being alone bit; and the hidden Jewel thing and its analogys as brought up. I never like this bit about casting Jewels to the swine; it is elitist. I don't see human beings as swine. They are all the same as me and as good or bad as me. I just happen to know one thing which most of them plainly don't seem to know, so it is about that which I talk and write. No point in my writing that they have got a head and two legs is there. I think they all know that. It is knowing that which makes me lonely you see. If everybody knew it then I would not be lonely. I do not mean lonely in that I live alone. I have never lived alone and I enjoy company (some of the time). I would not fancy living alone one jot. I am no frigging hermit. Added to which I am a perennial romantic :- ) Nothing I can do about that, just born that way :- )) I like watching sloppy love stories, and I cry sometimes :- ))) Tell it as it is my dear Lady. Be HONEST. Then there is the third aspect of being alone, and which applies to us all. In here there is only one person, me. I do not share this inner space with anything else, just me, alone. You are the same, we are all ALONE, in that sense. When I laugh it is only me laughing, and when I cry it is only me crying, and when I write it is only me writing. The Jewel symbolism IS a good one if one is going to use symbols. But best put this way. There is this lump of mud, and mud is all over the place, there is so much of it so it is common. However you, we, are each one proverbial handful of mud. But things ain't what they seem. For if you wash that mud away, pick it off and dump it, then deep inside that lump of mud you will find the most amazing thing that ever exists YOU, the jewel in the mud. IT IS TRUE. Know Your Self. This clearing the mud off the Jewel is called PURGATION. That means stripping off stuff which is not the Jewel until ONLY the Jewel remains. We cannot do it to ourself, it has to be done to us. You can ONLY find it in that eternal Paradesium of which I speak, it is beyond time and space and all other things brought forth from the cauldron of NO CREATED THING. You will never find it on earth, and the earth is not Paradise it is the Earth. Paradise is Paradise. It is NOT here; it does not exist in the river of time. Neither is it IN me, it is INWARDS. Heaven is NOT within me, I AM in IT, and the direction is INWARDS. When you are in that Paradesium place it is Objective, out there and all around you, one is IN IT. It is the stuff of which we are made and somehow become conscious. It is as though (although I am not sure) that all that stuff is latent consciousness, but it needs a catalyst to wake a part if it up, become conscious, become I AM. A good analogy is that of a star becoming a star and going nuclear Zap, from that stuff the star has become a star. There are no people in Paradise. There are no stars in primordial energy. They (and we) emanate from it, grow from it. Like Yeast I guess. But no thinking goes on there, and one is alone. It is also a love factory and a beauty parlour. See you later.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Self Supporting Ontological Identities - was Deepak Chopra failed etc
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, lurkernomore20002000 steve.sun...@... wrote: I've got to figure out what this refinement of experience that seems to grow in my life is all about. I like the idea of saying, this is cool, I am operating at a more quantum level of consciousness, where I am a little more aware of what I perceive to be the story behind the story. Just as a question, what is wrong with referring to the same phenomenon as, This is cool...I am becoming more and more aware of what is? That is actually more accurate, IMO, and doesn't have to borrow terms that may have nothing to do with what is going on. You are becoming more aware of things that have always been going on -- this statement covers refined perception, and it also covers enlightenment itself. I prefer plain words to explain plain experiences. Dressing the experiences up with buzzwords to make them sound more sciency just doesn't float my boat. I can see how some might prefer them, especially if they are trying to *sell* the experiences to others, but I'm not. I'm just describing my experiences, and trying to be as accurate about it as possible. So I prefer the Quaker approach -- plain. Putting more clothes on an already cool experience doesn't make it cooler; it actually detracts. And I'd like to figure out what it is that seems to be pushing me towards greater awareness about things. Since I'm rapping about language (essentially), look at the way you phrased that, Lurk. Something is IYO pushing you towards greater awareness. I have also experienced expanding awareness, but I would never be tempted to use language that implied that the cause of this came from outside myself, or that anything even had the *ability* to push me towards it. For me it's just the natural process of becoming more aware of What Already Is. *None* of these exper- iences of heightened or expanded awareness have ever been new. They -- including enlightenment experiences -- were merely heightened perception of things that had always been going on. So I would tend to describe them using that language, and not dress them up with buzzwords. For me, the word silence works better than the word samadhi to describe the subjective experience of deep transcendence. It reaches more people, and gives them more of an ability to conceive of and identify with that experience than a term borrowed from a dead language that requires a definition that has been supplied by someone else. Maybe it's the tech writer in me :-), but I think that plain is more user-friendly. Maybe I am just mood making, but my real life experience doesn't suggest this. I like the comparison between quantum phenomena and the growth of awareness. It works for me, but that's just me. No problemo. Plain works better for me. I guess that my only point in all of this is that quantum would never have occurred to you as a metaphor with which to describe your experiences of growing awareness unless someone had not planted that term *in* your awareness. It is a supplied buzzword, like samadhi, and IMO more exclusionary than inclusive. In my experience in the spiritual smorgasbord, traditions that are buzzword-heavy (be it Sanskrit terms or those borrowed from science) tend *also* to be a bit self- importance heavy. That is, the spiel presented to the followers of the tradition is how *important* these buzzword-heavy experiences are, and thus how *important* that makes *them*. By contrast, the teachers and traditions I've encountered that use plain, ordinary, everyday words to describe plain, ordinary, everyday experiences of growing awareness and enlightenment tend to *not* try to develop a feeling of specialness in their students. They emphasize the ordinariness of the experiences, and the fact that they are available to everyone. In other words, my suspicion is that the use of high- fallutin' language to describe the ordinary may be a function of the desire of some people to be perceived as high-fallutin'. I could be wrong about this, of course, but that's how I'm seein' it this morning over coffee. But what also works for me, is the notion that our world as a whole is moving in a particular direction, one where a quantum leap may be required. As Confusious say, May you live during interesting times, or something to that effect. Here we must agree to disagree. I don't see that the world is working any differently than it has at any time in its history, or that it has a particular direc- tion that it's moving in. If anything, man's inhumanity to man is greater and more widespread now than at any time in its history. A child in Africa dies every six seconds while we chow down on veggie burgers and throw the scraps away. It is good to remember that the saying you quoted was a Chinese *curse*, not a blessing. Again, isn't some of the appeal of believing that one knows the direction the world is moving in is that it's a way of saying that one
[FairfieldLife] Re: Sam Harris and Michael Shermer debate Deepak and Jean Houston
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, lurkernomore20002000 steve.sun...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: My idea of the universe is an enormous, eternal operating system. It was never created, and it never ends, thus there is no need to postulate a creator. It just is. A mystery then. What It Is. Nothing more, nothing less. I see no need to postulate an intelligence behind the functioning of the operating system because *none is necessary to describe its actions*. It seems to me that people have been trying to make sense of this operating systems, and have been fairly successful over time. As they were with the earth-centric universe? As they were with Newtonian physics? Get my point? These were *guesses*, not facts. Quantum mechanics is Just Another Guess, and in all likelihood as far from the mark as the other two. And the more they figure it out, the more advances they make, at least on the material plane. There is a mineral used to create computer chips, the mining of which has caused the genocide of tens of thousands of people in the areas of Africa in which it is found. Do you think that they would agree with your assessment of advances on the material plane? Progress is relative. They would carry on just as effectively *without* any intelligence behind them. Thus, using Occam's Razor, why clutter up an already-elegant system with some made-up intelligence interfering with it and running it. Not sure one has to make anything up. One can look at the world around them, and postulate, that there must be some intelligence at work, often with a lot predictability. That is exactly what *I* am doing, and finding no need to postulate any interfering intelligence at work. Predict- ability is not dependent on having some intelligence behind it. In fact, postulating a God who can *interfere* with predictability by creating *exceptions* to it (miracles) is the *opposite* of predictability. It seems to me that an operating system has a lot of intelligence behind it, and which designed it. Other than that it can pretty much remain behind the scenes. Here you fall back on anthropomorphic projection. Because *we* as beings have a start and an end, so much the universe. Thus it must have been created at some point. If the universe is eternal, there was no creation. Lose the notion of creation, and you lose the need for a creator. I suspect that the operating system is structured around an interplay between karma and the free will of sentient beings. Both are essential, and both are the very nature of the operating system. To postulate an intelligence running things is to disallow free will, and it seems obvious that free will exists. Sure seems like once you introduct Karma, you introduce the notion of rules, and laws. Not sure how you can have karma without some real detailed cause and effect. That is why free will is there. Karma is an *influence*, not a rule. You have stolen in the past and gotten away with it. Therefore there is a tendency -- a samskara if you prefer buzzwords -- to believe you can steal in the future. But you *don't have to*. At any moment you can *feel* the influence of the samskara tempting you to steal again, but you have the ability to not do it. Karma is not a set of rules. It's a set of opportunities. I do like that ideal of drawing bullsyes around arrows. I'm going to keep that in my repatroire. It's hardly original. I'm pretty sure I picked the phrase up here, because it so accurately describes much TM research. You start with the belief, and then find facts that support the belief. Good rappin' with you, Lurk. Please don't consider my comments in these threads criticisms of you per se. They are merely a different way of seeing things.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Sam Harris and Michael Shermer debate Deepak and Jean Houston
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, lurkernomore20002000 steve.sun...@... wrote: -- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: My idea of the universe is an enormous, eternal operating system. It was never created, and it never ends, thus there is no need to postulate a creator. It just is. I see no need to postulate an intelligence behind the functioning of the operating system because *none is necessary to describe its actions*. They would carry on just as effectively *without* any intelligence behind them. Thus, using Occam's Razor, why clutter up an already-elegant system with some made-up intelligence interfering with it and running it. This idea of an operating system. Has there ever been an opeating system without someone, or something creating it. Or can it just spring up on its own? The problem with your question, Lurk (as I mentioned before) is the assumption that it sprung up. Humans have a tough time with the concept of eternality.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Deepak Chopra failed to prove existence of God to atheists
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: Ah. I see my post worked exactly as intended. Judy can dive deep within twice a day while the Turq is stuck in his mind, left to do lucid dreaming like any spiritual baby.
[FairfieldLife] Beyond Time. Eternity
Beyond Time. Eternity. (Beyond the perception of changing events - - an old email to somebody) With regard to that aspect of your experience Grant, may I offer this .. (But how can one say, 'I was above the curve of time...' my kids (both in their thirties) laugh at me.) First, don't tell them :- )) One mentions these kind of things to people who are in the know to some degree or those who come looking for you. To the others you say nothing; or simply write books. The `others' do not read these kind of books YET ! Simple as that Grant. You cannot get a quart into a pint pot but the plants grow by experience and watering them well so to speak. With regard to Time. It is a funny old business is it not. The current paradigm (well, the one some live in anyway) has it that there are three dimensions of space (width breadth and depth) and one dimension of time, and that is it. This is all nonsense ! Moreover, all these phenomena are operative in ONE dimension; THIS ONE called the physical world and universe. This is not what is meant by the mystics as dimensions; they are simply Cartesian coordinates in this dimension. Moreover, even in this dimension of the physical universe Time is not a phenomenon in its own right; it is the effect of the working of other phenomena. Time is the changing face of energy not a thing in its own right. Many think of time as a kind of cosmic jam jar into which things are put and the lid is sealed to keep them in there. Have you ever heard the mystics say .. Only at the end of time can you know these things? Well, they were correct in so saying; and I say it myself. It does not mean at the end of this world or at the end of the physical universe it means when time ends FOR YOU. Time can end at any point, at any time of the day and it lasts as long as it takes to learn whatever is needed for that person to learn at that point in their development. Even in this physical universe there is no such thing as a universal time constant simply because change is due to Mass and Gravitational forces. Moreover, they like to assume that everything in the universe changes it is not so; and the physical universe is only a part of the whole Cosmos of things. All physical things change. But does consciousness grow old and rot? Of course not. Do ideas grow old and rot? Does love and passion grow old and rot? Do inspirations and ideals grow old and rot? The body grows old and rots back into the stuff that all physical forms of energy are made of. Everything at some point goes back to from whence it came even the mind and consciousness. And as YOU are MIND (not a body) then so too does that (YOU) go back to from whence you came HOME Eternity; the ground of Being and wherein one redeems this eternal knowledge, wisdom, understanding = the GNOSIS of Eternity in the Ground of Being. If that happens during a lifetime then naturally you remember it when you come back here (the second coming) into temporal perception again. If we did not come back here on occasions after that experience then nothing on earth would ever be known about it. So it obviously HAS to be known on earth as it is in Paradise (Eternity) beyond all moving time and space. And so it is, and so it is found and experienced and KNOWN to be. I KNOW. And so to do others KNOW but they are rare on earth at any one time in any one generation. Nothing is for nothing in the nature of things; and everything is for something cause and effect and more besides. However, think of it as simply steeping out of a continuum of the flow of changing events. Think of a river and you are in a boat on that river (a physical body is your boat and time travelling machine it travels through time from birth to death). But you the living life force within it are not made of the stuff of this world or the physical universe. So your boat simply pulls over to the proverbial river bank and you step out of it of it onto the `land' so to speak. Nothing made in time and space can return to the ground of being in eternity (paradise) - - ONLY YOU ! For it is what you ARE made of. But of course it is not quite as simple as that. In reality there is no hard and fast line as a river bank in that one instant there is dry land and the next there is water. Think of the land at the side of the river of change as also changing and flowing but not as fast as the river flows. Thus there is still time (and the perception of changing events - just like in your experience) but it is not physical time, it is psychic time. And it is therein that psychic events are experienced (on the inside) or projected onto the outside from the inside (like an hallucination or what I call and Extended and projected Arkon Image Emanation). Most (not all) psychic experiences (as are NDE's) are SYMBOLIC and made that way for YOUR personal understanding of something. It is an `in the meantime meal' to digest. Do not they in NDE's get the
[FairfieldLife] Re: Deepak Chopra failed to prove existence of God to atheists
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, nablusoss1008 no_re...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: Ah. I see my post worked exactly as intended. Judy can dive deep within twice a day while the Turq is stuck in his mind, left to do lucid dreaming like any spiritual baby. I see my post worked exactly as intended twice. :-) Three times, actually, if you consider that THE CORRECTOR has now wasted two posts on it -- the first as an excuse to vent her hatred, the second justifying the venting of that hatred and venting again. There will be more such venting, whether I provoke it intentionally or not. The venting of hatred is a function of the buildup of hatred. The supposed target of the hatred is merely an excuse to vent. This is all about me calling her a cunt, and her reacting by proving how much of one she is. Nabby is just jumping on the cunt bandwagon. :-) This will be the trend of her posts all week. If she can't find anything to rag on in my posts, she'll find it in someone else's posts *because she doesn't have anything else to say*. That's what defines a cunt. [ And so saying Turq exits, leaving THE CORRECTOR to either prove him correct the rest of what will be a short, short posting week for her, or not. :-) ]
[FairfieldLife] Re: Sam Harris and Michael Shermer debate Deepak and Jean Houston
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltabl...@... wrote: -- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Buck dhamiltony2k5@ wrote: Yep unitary is my experience. I feel sorry in a human way for Shirmer, Sam Harris, Gina, Curtis and Turqs, the doubting Thomas' full with lots of opinion, and denial, that It is not more of their experience too. They wrestle working so bad at denial, they are pitiable. Well if being condescending makes you feel better about yourself... You seem to have a pretty strong opinion yourself about my subjective experience. And you are denying my insights about knowledge and doubting my POV just as I am yours. I have no need for your pity, I love my life and enjoy questioning statements like this: Yep unitary is my experience. In what sense? There are ways of understanding that which match my experience of my individual life's connection to the rest of life. I have my share of mystical union with everything awareness. We may just be interpreting this experience differently since I don't view guys like Maharishi as experts in what this means. You are proposing this insight as if you are on a superior level. Why do you make such an assumption? Perhaps you are describing a state of mind with religious terms that I find quite ordinary in my own experience. Perhaps what you are making such a big fuss about and trying to use as a put-down is just another way to express being human, no more or less than the ways I choose. Maybe the specialness you are grasping at with such expressions is really an insecurity about just being another human on the same level as all other humans. In your idea of experiencing unity you behave like a sorority debutant trying to create artificial distinctions between you and me. Your pride in your beliefs reminds me of every other super religious person I have talked to. The terms change but the I am special and superior surety remains the same. I don't pity you Doug. I just disagree with your claim of special insight into how life works. I don't believe you, or Maharishi for that matter, has life all figured out. If you are enjoying your POV, fine. But you don't have to be a dick about it. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, cardemaister no_reply@ wrote: IMO, one of the best proofs of the fact that individual consciousness is subjective experience of some quantum mechanical (or possibly deeper) phenomena is that Erwin thought so? Wiki: Schrödinger stayed in Dublin until retiring in 1955. (snip for brevity) He had a life-long interest in the Vedanta philosophy of Hinduism, which influenced his speculations at the close of What is Life? about the possibility that individual consciousness is only a manifestation of a unitary consciousness pervading the universe.[7] A 'possibility'. Offered like a tru scientist to the end. That is funny. Yep unitary is my experience. I feel sorry in a human way for Shirmer, Sam Harris, Gina, Curtis and Turqs, the doubting Thomas' full with lots of opinion, and denial, that It is not more of their experience too. They wrestle working so bad at denial, they are pitiable. Have a nice day, -Buck Yes, pitiable indeed. Om, 'Forgive them father, for they know not what they are doing'. Ignorant in spiritual experience they are lost in their contending mentation. An one, he even traded his immortal soul for a guitar. Consider the source. These people are like modern day pharisee. Is an apt metaphor is pitiable for their manifest lack of deeper spiritual experience, as an old story. Dim bulbs, absent of light to see by. Have a Good Friday, -Buck
[FairfieldLife] Re: Sam Harris and Michael Shermer debate Deepak and Jean Houston
Yes, pitiable indeed. Om, 'Forgive them father, for they know not what they are doing'. Ignorant in spiritual experience they are lost in their contending mentation. An one, he even traded his immortal soul for a guitar. Consider the source. These people are like modern day pharisee. Is an apt metaphor is pitiable for their manifest lack of deeper spiritual experience, as an old story. Dim bulbs, absent of light to see by. Have a Good Friday, -Buck Yep, Good Friday has come around again this week. As a narrative we are spiritually reminded that Eternal Vigilance is the price of Liberty. Whether you believe the story or not. The passover story of slavery and exodus stands that way this week as well. In coming around, Good Friday stands holding a monumental reminder to the tyranny of pharisaical consequent in the like of a Sam Harris and these other sophists, a people dangerous to the welfare of us all contending and promoting their commotion. Their mental commotion is pitiable and yet is a good lesson in spirituality. Jai Adi Shankara, -Buck
[FairfieldLife] Re: Sam Harris and Michael Shermer debate Deepak and Jean Houston
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Buck dhamiltony...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@ wrote: Well if being condescending makes you feel better about yourself... You seem to have a pretty strong opinion yourself about my subjective experience. And you are denying my insights about knowledge and doubting my POV just as I am yours. I have no need for your pity, I love my life and enjoy questioning statements like this: . . . I don't pity you Doug. I just disagree with your claim of special insight into how life works. I don't believe you, or Maharishi for that matter, has life all figured out. If you are enjoying your POV, fine. But you don't have to be a dick about it. Au contraire...he seems very *much* to have to be a dick about it. To wit: Yes, pitiable indeed. [ I, from my highly elevated position of superiority, can only feel pity for someone not as cool and full of knowledge as myself. ] Om, 'Forgive them father [ whom I can speak to as if He were a relative because I am so special ] , for they [ those lesser and less evolved than I ] know not what they are doing'. [ unlike me, who knows these things perfectly ] Ignorant in spiritual experience [ unlike me and those who think like me ] they are lost in their contending mentation. [ whereas I don't have to think any more because I just repeat what I was told to believe...only losers have to think... we truly evolved souls know ] An one, he even traded his immortal soul for a guitar. [ says the person who has shown no indication in recent months of possessing a soul, much less knowing the difference between Curtis and Robert Johnson :-) ] Consider the source. [ someone who makes his living light- ening other people's days, as opposed to someone who can only feel good about himself by considering himself superior to those he looks down on ] These people are like modern day pharisee. [ said by someone who seems unaware that the Pharisees were those who kept repeating dogma told to them by others and ragging on (or attempting to crucify) those who thought for themselves...it seems to me that the Pharisee in this picture is Buck ] Is an apt metaphor is pitiable for their manifest lack of deeper spiritual experience, as an old story. [ the old story of humans lost in ego declaring that *their* ideas (however borrowed and completely unoriginal they are) and *their* experiences are spiritual or deep,' whereas those of others are not ] Dim bulbs, absent of light to see by. [ as opposed to darkness emitters, who seem to get off on creating the *essence* of duality -- us vs. them -- while presenting themselves as deeper and more spiritual ] Doug, get real. Your whole act here -- whether parody or serious -- is an attempt to pretend that a few hundred hangers on to a dead spiritual movement in a backwater town in Iowa that no one has ever heard of are somehow special and more spiritual than others. Curtis blows more spirituality in every note of his harmonica playing than you will ever blow out of your ass with elitist rants like this one. He, after all, is playing for his equals, with no intent but to entertain and uplift. You are seeking to lift yourself by claiming that someone is beneath you. This act is really getting old. *It* -- not Curtis -- is beneath you.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Self Supporting Ontological Identities - was Deepak Chopra failed etc
Thanks for the feeback. I think you're right about the tendency to pick up on some buzz words and insert them into how we describe things. But like you, I have tried to adopt a more Quaker approach to my everyday languaage, and try to stick to basic terms, even if my vocabulary might have a fancier, more impressive word. I like that idea of silence vs. samadhi. That is pretty much just what I am talking about in this regard. Bottom line: I think the experiences I've mentioned could be better described without the sciencey terms. Another good point. I often forget that the rather extrodinary times we live in could simply be attributed to the the new technoloogies, and less to do with another of rising to a higher vibrational level agenda. So, I appreciate that reminder. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_re...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, lurkernomore20002000 steve.sundur@ wrote: I've got to figure out what this refinement of experience that seems to grow in my life is all about. I like the idea of saying, this is cool, I am operating at a more quantum level of consciousness, where I am a little more aware of what I perceive to be the story behind the story. Just as a question, what is wrong with referring to the same phenomenon as, This is cool...I am becoming more and more aware of what is? That is actually more accurate, IMO, and doesn't have to borrow terms that may have nothing to do with what is going on. You are becoming more aware of things that have always been going on -- this statement covers refined perception, and it also covers enlightenment itself. I prefer plain words to explain plain experiences. Dressing the experiences up with buzzwords to make them sound more sciency just doesn't float my boat. I can see how some might prefer them, especially if they are trying to *sell* the experiences to others, but I'm not. I'm just describing my experiences, and trying to be as accurate about it as possible. So I prefer the Quaker approach -- plain. Putting more clothes on an already cool experience doesn't make it cooler; it actually detracts. And I'd like to figure out what it is that seems to be pushing me towards greater awareness about things. Since I'm rapping about language (essentially), look at the way you phrased that, Lurk. Something is IYO pushing you towards greater awareness. I have also experienced expanding awareness, but I would never be tempted to use language that implied that the cause of this came from outside myself, or that anything even had the *ability* to push me towards it. For me it's just the natural process of becoming more aware of What Already Is. *None* of these exper- iences of heightened or expanded awareness have ever been new. They -- including enlightenment experiences -- were merely heightened perception of things that had always been going on. So I would tend to describe them using that language, and not dress them up with buzzwords. For me, the word silence works better than the word samadhi to describe the subjective experience of deep transcendence. It reaches more people, and gives them more of an ability to conceive of and identify with that experience than a term borrowed from a dead language that requires a definition that has been supplied by someone else. Maybe it's the tech writer in me :-), but I think that plain is more user-friendly. Maybe I am just mood making, but my real life experience doesn't suggest this. I like the comparison between quantum phenomena and the growth of awareness. It works for me, but that's just me. No problemo. Plain works better for me. I guess that my only point in all of this is that quantum would never have occurred to you as a metaphor with which to describe your experiences of growing awareness unless someone had not planted that term *in* your awareness. It is a supplied buzzword, like samadhi, and IMO more exclusionary than inclusive. In my experience in the spiritual smorgasbord, traditions that are buzzword-heavy (be it Sanskrit terms or those borrowed from science) tend *also* to be a bit self- importance heavy. That is, the spiel presented to the followers of the tradition is how *important* these buzzword-heavy experiences are, and thus how *important* that makes *them*. By contrast, the teachers and traditions I've encountered that use plain, ordinary, everyday words to describe plain, ordinary, everyday experiences of growing awareness and enlightenment tend to *not* try to develop a feeling of specialness in their students. They emphasize the ordinariness of the experiences, and the fact that they are available to everyone. In other words, my suspicion is that the use of high- fallutin' language to describe the ordinary may be a function of the desire of some people to be perceived as high-fallutin'. I could be wrong about this, of course, but that's how
[FairfieldLife] Re: Sam Harris and Michael Shermer debate Deepak and Jean Houston
Thanks for the feedback --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_re...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, lurkernomore20002000 steve.sundur@ wrote: -- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: My idea of the universe is an enormous, eternal operating system. It was never created, and it never ends, thus there is no need to postulate a creator. It just is. I see no need to postulate an intelligence behind the functioning of the operating system because *none is necessary to describe its actions*. They would carry on just as effectively *without* any intelligence behind them. Thus, using Occam's Razor, why clutter up an already-elegant system with some made-up intelligence interfering with it and running it. This idea of an operating system. Has there ever been an opeating system without someone, or something creating it. Or can it just spring up on its own? The problem with your question, Lurk (as I mentioned before) is the assumption that it sprung up. Humans have a tough time with the concept of eternality.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Self Supporting Ontological Identities - was Deepak Chopra failed etc
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jst...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, tartbrain no_reply@ wrote: snip thats the Primary mistake of the Intellect I found this phrase in the movement to be offensive. Oh, come *on*. You don't have to agree with it, but there's zero reason to be offended by it. It isn't a *criticism*, for pete'e sake. Must be due to the mistake of the emotions. Plus I don't believe my intellect is mistaken about the primacy of matter That isn't the mistake of the intellect. I believe it is mistaken to believe in the primacy of consciousness. (one that gets sorted out fast while under general anesthesia If you're careful to not think about it too hard.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Self Supporting Ontological Identities - was Deepak Chopra failed etc
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltabl...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, tartbrain no_reply@ wrote: snip thats the Primary mistake of the Intellect I found this phrase in the movement to be offensive. Oh, come *on*. You don't have to agree with it, but there's zero reason to be offended by it. It isn't a *criticism*, for pete'e sake. Must be due to the mistake of the emotions. Emotions can't be mistaken or not mistaken. Emotions can be due to poor reasoning, however. And that *is* a criticism. Plus I don't believe my intellect is mistaken about the primacy of matter That isn't the mistake of the intellect. I believe it is mistaken to believe in the primacy of consciousness. (one that gets sorted out fast while under general anesthesia If you're careful to not think about it too hard.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Sam Harris and Michael Shermer debate Deepak and Jean Houston
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, lurkernomore20002000 steve.sun...@... wrote: Thanks for the feedback Thanks for perceiving it *as* feedback, and nothing more. One of the points I was trying to make about quantum physicists talking about God or astrophys- icists merely *assuming* that the universe had a starting point or a moment of creation is what I'd term the persistence of early conditioning. LONG before any of these people were taught math and the tents of science, they were taught that an all-powerful interfering being named God existed. Is there any question that they would hold to such beliefs while developing theories about the nature of the universe, and thus consciously or unconsciously color their theories with such beliefs? They were also taught just by dealing with birth and death in humans and other life forms that such things seem inevitable. Is there any question that they would then think As below, so above, and believe that the universe had a starting point (the moment of creation or the Big Bang)? I think it would be interesting to see what a scientist who had been raised with *zero* exposure to teachings about a sentient God or about the *assumability* of a universe that (like humans) was born and thus someday must die would come up with. But that is not easily accomplished. Einstein made comments about God during his lifetime, even though his newly-discovered letters indicate that he was more consistently in the atheist camp than in the God camp. Nevertheless, God freaks continue to portray the man who said in a letter to philosopher Erik Gutkind, The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weakness, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still purely primitive, legends which are nevertheless pretty childish as a fellow believer in God. My grandfather, who worked with Einstein, described him to my father as someone who was willing to chuck *any* idea out the window the moment its usefulness ended. Even his own. Being a thoughtful man, I am sure that he examined both sides of the Is there a God question all his life. But he seems to have settled firmly in the No camp. *Especially* with regard to the idea that God, if one existed, could interfere with or affect the world. He stated several times that he did not believe this. IMO that may have freed him to come up with concepts that a person who could never get *past* early conditioning that taught him that *of course* there is a God, and *of course* He can do whatever he wants could not. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, lurkernomore20002000 steve.sundur@ wrote: -- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: My idea of the universe is an enormous, eternal operating system. It was never created, and it never ends, thus there is no need to postulate a creator. It just is. I see no need to postulate an intelligence behind the functioning of the operating system because *none is necessary to describe its actions*. They would carry on just as effectively *without* any intelligence behind them. Thus, using Occam's Razor, why clutter up an already-elegant system with some made-up intelligence interfering with it and running it. This idea of an operating system. Has there ever been an opeating system without someone, or something creating it. Or can it just spring up on its own? The problem with your question, Lurk (as I mentioned before) is the assumption that it sprung up. Humans have a tough time with the concept of eternality.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Deepak Chopra failed to prove existence of God to atheists
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_re...@... wrote: snip This is all about me calling her a cunt Couldn't possibly be more wrong. Yours truly, THE CORRECTOR
[FairfieldLife] Re: Sam Harris and Michael Shermer debate Deepak and Jean Houston
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Buck dhamiltony...@... wrote: Yes, pitiable indeed. Om, 'Forgive them father, for they know not what they are doing'. Identifying with Jesus are you? I saw this on the Simpsons when they visited Jerusalem and Homer got Jerusalem Syndrome and thought he was the messiah. I hope in your case hilarity ensues just as it did for Homer. Ignorant in spiritual experience Actually worse. Experienced in spiritual experiences and consciously rejecting them as a valid source of knowledge. they are lost in their contending mentation. Use your spell check, that is spelled masturbation and if God didn't want me to do it he wouldn't have made my arms so long. An one, he even traded his immortal soul for a guitar. Actually it is a vena and a souvenir from my night together with Saraswati. Not one to kiss and tell but let me put it to you this way, she referred to the Kama Sutras as the beginner manual. But before you get all excited and start pointing your puja in her direction I gotta warn you, one night and you'll be getting drunk-texts in the middle of the night for the rest of the Yuga. Consider the source. I sense a religiously inspirited putdown... These people are like modern day pharisee. Is an apt metaphor is pitiable for their manifest lack of deeper spiritual experience, as an old story. Dim bulbs, absent of light to see by. And all because I deny that YOU among all the people of the world and through history have discovered the deepest secret of life. Seriously Doug at this point not buying into your grandiosity and hubris about your state of knowledge is a mental health kindness. It would be irresponsible to react otherwise and enable you. Have a Good Friday, It will be better than Jesus had I can assure you. But I was the first to tell him that doing what he called involuntary jello shots off of a strangers rack was a piss poor idea, even for Spring Break with the MTV cameras rolling. I sure hope the zombie Jesus gives you a big high five for your sanctimoniousness on his behalf, but do him a favor and keep your voice down because he will have emerged from partying for 3 days in hell with me. -Buck --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@ wrote: -- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Buck dhamiltony2k5@ wrote: Yep unitary is my experience. I feel sorry in a human way for Shirmer, Sam Harris, Gina, Curtis and Turqs, the doubting Thomas' full with lots of opinion, and denial, that It is not more of their experience too. They wrestle working so bad at denial, they are pitiable. Well if being condescending makes you feel better about yourself... You seem to have a pretty strong opinion yourself about my subjective experience. And you are denying my insights about knowledge and doubting my POV just as I am yours. I have no need for your pity, I love my life and enjoy questioning statements like this: Yep unitary is my experience. In what sense? There are ways of understanding that which match my experience of my individual life's connection to the rest of life. I have my share of mystical union with everything awareness. We may just be interpreting this experience differently since I don't view guys like Maharishi as experts in what this means. You are proposing this insight as if you are on a superior level. Why do you make such an assumption? Perhaps you are describing a state of mind with religious terms that I find quite ordinary in my own experience. Perhaps what you are making such a big fuss about and trying to use as a put-down is just another way to express being human, no more or less than the ways I choose. Maybe the specialness you are grasping at with such expressions is really an insecurity about just being another human on the same level as all other humans. In your idea of experiencing unity you behave like a sorority debutant trying to create artificial distinctions between you and me. Your pride in your beliefs reminds me of every other super religious person I have talked to. The terms change but the I am special and superior surety remains the same. I don't pity you Doug. I just disagree with your claim of special insight into how life works. I don't believe you, or Maharishi for that matter, has life all figured out. If you are enjoying your POV, fine. But you don't have to be a dick about it. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, cardemaister no_reply@ wrote: IMO, one of the best proofs of the fact that individual consciousness is subjective experience of some quantum mechanical (or possibly deeper) phenomena is that Erwin thought so? Wiki: Schrödinger stayed in Dublin until retiring in 1955. (snip for brevity) He had a
[FairfieldLife] Re: Self Supporting Ontological Identities - was Deepak Chopra failed etc
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jst...@... wrote: snip Must be due to the mistake of the emotions. Emotions can't be mistaken or not mistaken. Emotions can be due to poor reasoning, however. And that *is* a criticism. Oh, SNAP! Long or short, all discussions with you end up here. I'm digging the short version. Plus I don't believe my intellect is mistaken about the primacy of matter That isn't the mistake of the intellect. I believe it is mistaken to believe in the primacy of consciousness. (one that gets sorted out fast while under general anesthesia If you're careful to not think about it too hard.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Sam Harris and Michael Shermer debate Deepak and Jean Houston
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_re...@... wrote: ne of the points I was trying to make about quantum physicists talking about God FWIW, there's an erroneous assumption that because many of the early (and some of the current) quantum physicists were into mysticism, they must have connected quantum physics and mysticism. They didn't. Rather, they were into mysticism because quantum mechanics had conclusively demonstrated the limitations of science. They had to accept this, but not being able to give up on the search for knowledge, they turned away from the dead end and decided to take a different route they believed had more possibilities. (Not that they gave up science; there was plenty to work on in terms of the details.) or astrophys- icists merely *assuming* that the universe had a starting point or a moment of creation is what I'd term the persistence of early conditioning. LONG before any of these people were taught math and the tents of science, they were taught that an all-powerful interfering being named God existed. Is there any question that they would hold to such beliefs while developing theories about the nature of the universe, and thus consciously or unconsciously color their theories with such beliefs? They were also taught just by dealing with birth and death in humans and other life forms that such things seem inevitable. Is there any question that they would then think As below, so above, and believe that the universe had a starting point (the moment of creation or the Big Bang)? I think it would be interesting to see what a scientist who had been raised with *zero* exposure to teachings about a sentient God or about the *assumability* of a universe that (like humans) was born and thus someday must die would come up with. It's not the teaching about a sentient God or even the assumption that the universe must have had a beginning. It's the constant observation of human beings that everything changes. There's no way your hypothetical scientist could avoid those observations. Nor would it be necessary to avoid any of this conditioning. The steady-state theory of the universe--that it was never born and would never die-- was developed by Hoyle, Bondi, and Gold in full knowledge of, and in fact as a rebuttal to, the Big Bang theory. (Of course, their theory was subsequently disproved. But they weren't precluded by conditioning from dreaming it up.)
[FairfieldLife] Re: Self Supporting Ontological Identities - was Deepak Chopra failed etc
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltabl...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: snip Must be due to the mistake of the emotions. Emotions can't be mistaken or not mistaken. Emotions can be due to poor reasoning, however. And that *is* a criticism. Oh, SNAP! Long or short, all discussions with you end up here. I'm digging the short version. Keep your government hands off my Medicare! Outrage is just as enjoyable when it's born of poor reasoning.
[FairfieldLife] One of most translated popular books on planet earth ?
Is Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu From www.thetao.info http://www.thetao.info/ In ancient China about 2500 years ago, the keeper of the Imperial Library, Lao Tzu, was famous for his wisdom. Perceiving the growing corruption of the government, he left for the countryside. On his way, the guard at the city gates asked Lao Tzu to write out the essence of his understanding to benefit future generations. Lao Tzu wrote the Tao Te Ching, left, and was never heard of again. The Tao Te Ching (also called The Tao, The Dao or the Dao De Jing), by Lao Tzu, is one of the most influential books in history. It is the source of famous Chinese sayings such as Those who know do not speak, those who speak, do not know Even a 1,000 mile journey starts with a single step. Chapter 1 The Tao that can be trodden is not the enduring and unchanging Tao. The name that can be named is not the enduring and unchanging name. (Conceived of as) having no name, it is the Originator of heaven and earth; (conceived of as) having a name, it is the Mother of all things. Always without desire we must be found, If its deep mystery we would sound; But if desire always within us be, Its outer fringe is all that we shall see. Under these two aspects, it is really the same; but as development takes place, it receives the different names. Together we call them the Mystery. Where the Mystery is the deepest is the gate of all that is subtle and wonderful. Here's one I've been reading that includes the complete works of Lao Tzu: Tao Teh Ching Hua Hu Ching translated by Taoist Master Ni Hua Ching The Tao Teh Ching is one of the most frequently translated and most cherished works in the world. This ancient Chinese classic, written around 500 B.C, presents the core of Taoist philosophy and provides a bridge to the subtle truth as well as a practical guideline for natural and harmonious living. It is generally believed that Lao Tzu left behind only a single work, the Tao Teh Ching. Few people are aware that some of his later teachings were recorded (also around 500 B.C) in a book entitled the Hua Hu Ching. During a time of political turmoil in the 14th century, all copies of this work were banned and ordered to be burned. Consequently, few, if any, complete and accurate copies exist today. Fortunately, the complete teachings of the Hua Hu Ching have been preserved through the oral transmission of generation after generation of Taoist Masters to their disciples. Master Ni, heir to that orally transmitted wisdom, has translated the Hua Hu Ching and also the Tao Teh Ching. Both works are now available in one volume, The Complete Works of Lao Tzu. Master Ni, Hua-Ching is fully acknowledged and empowered as a true Master of Tao. He is heir to the wisdom transmitted through an unbroken succession of seventy four generations of Taoist Masters from 216 B.C. As a young boy, he was educated by his family and then studied more than thirty one years in the high mountains of China becoming fully achieved in all aspects of Taoist science, metaphysics and arts. His teachings carry the essence of all ancient achievement. Here's the first chapter: Tao, the path of subtle truth, cannot be conveyed with words. That which can be conveyed with words is merely a relative conception. Although names have been applied to it, the subtle truth is indescribable. One may designate Nothingness as the origin of the universe, And Beingness as the mother of the myriad things. From the perspective of Nothingness, one may perceive the gentle operation of the universe. From the perspective of Beingness, one may distinguish individual things. Although differently named, Nothingness and Beingness are one indivisible whole. The truth is so subtle. As the ultimate subtlety, it is the Gate of All Wonders. There are many other translations, some are available online for free to read or download as pdf files @ http://www.stillness.com/tao/index.html http://www.stillness.com/tao/index.html and there are several other links with free downloads another free eBook @ http://www.beatrice.com/TAO.pdf http://www.beatrice.com/TAO.pdf or buy @ http://www.beatrice.com/wordpress/tao-te-ching http://www.beatrice.com/wordpress/tao-te-ching If you can talk about it, it ain't Tao. If it has a name, it's just another thing. Tao doesn't have a name. Names are for ordinary things. Stop wanting stuff; it keeps you from seeing what's real. When you want stuff, all you see are things. Those two sentences mean the same thing. Figure them out, and you've got it made.
[FairfieldLife] UFO Spotted Over Lake Erie Near Euclid Ohio 3/11/2010
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ed_d9we588Ifeature=player_embedded
[FairfieldLife] Re: Self Supporting Ontological Identities - was Deepak Chopra failed etc
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, lurkernomore20002000 steve.sun...@... wrote: ... I have tried to adopt a more Quaker approach to my everyday languaage, and try to stick to basic terms, even if my vocabulary might have a fancier, more impressive word. I like that idea of silence vs. samadhi. ... Bottom line: I think the experiences I've mentioned could be better described without the sciencey terms. how about: loving-silent-spacious-awareness instead of sat-chid-ananda or even its translation existence-consciousness-bliss who can deny that at least a little bit, they have awareness of some love, some silence, some spaciousness ?
[FairfieldLife] UFO over Lake Erie?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_qbRyUHFCsfeature=player_embedded# http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2disi7i0tEfeature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqZ0FwW8GKIfeature=related
[FairfieldLife] Re: Self Supporting Ontological Identities - was Deepak Chopra failed etc
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, anatol_zinc anatol_z...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, lurkernomore20002000 steve.sundur@ wrote: ... I have tried to adopt a more Quaker approach to my everyday languaage, and try to stick to basic terms, even if my vocabulary might have a fancier, more impressive word. I like that idea of silence vs. samadhi. ... Bottom line: I think the experiences I've mentioned could be better described without the sciencey terms. how about: loving-silent-spacious-awareness instead of sat-chid-ananda or even its translation existence-consciousness-bliss who can deny that at least a little bit, they have awareness of some love, some silence, some spaciousness ? While I appreciate your exercise in poetry, I feel that you are projecting attributes onto an experience that in my opinion (and in my experience) does not contain them. The use of the word loving implies *duality*. some- thing that is not in the definition of samadhi as given by most teachers, and was never present in my experiences of samadhi. Who is it that feels loved? Who or what is it that loves? If you were fully absorbed in samadhi, who would be there to be loved, and by what? The very concept of love is based in duality, not absorp- tion in unity. The use of the word spaciousness also implies duality, because it requires having enough of a self present to detect such a sensory concept as space. If there is a you that can perceive something you call spaciousness, then you aren't in samadhi. I still think silence is best because it implies no attributes other than silence. And *that* is the trad- itional definition of samadhi.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Self Supporting Ontological Identities - was Deepak Chopra failed etc
Silly wabbit -- love is not object oriented -- lust is. True love broadcasts upon all -- it does not stint. Jesus loved the guy who was pounding the nails inbut no more or less than He loved His crying mother. One doesn't choose to love. Edg --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_re...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, anatol_zinc anatol_zinc@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, lurkernomore20002000 steve.sundur@ wrote: ... I have tried to adopt a more Quaker approach to my everyday languaage, and try to stick to basic terms, even if my vocabulary might have a fancier, more impressive word. I like that idea of silence vs. samadhi. ... Bottom line: I think the experiences I've mentioned could be better described without the sciencey terms. how about: loving-silent-spacious-awareness instead of sat-chid-ananda or even its translation existence-consciousness-bliss who can deny that at least a little bit, they have awareness of some love, some silence, some spaciousness ? While I appreciate your exercise in poetry, I feel that you are projecting attributes onto an experience that in my opinion (and in my experience) does not contain them. The use of the word loving implies *duality*. some- thing that is not in the definition of samadhi as given by most teachers, and was never present in my experiences of samadhi. Who is it that feels loved? Who or what is it that loves? If you were fully absorbed in samadhi, who would be there to be loved, and by what? The very concept of love is based in duality, not absorp- tion in unity. The use of the word spaciousness also implies duality, because it requires having enough of a self present to detect such a sensory concept as space. If there is a you that can perceive something you call spaciousness, then you aren't in samadhi. I still think silence is best because it implies no attributes other than silence. And *that* is the trad- itional definition of samadhi.
Re: [FairfieldLife] UFO over Lake Erie?
LOL, more like approaching airplane. On Apr 3, 2010, at 11:52 AM, nablusoss1008 wrote: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_qbRyUHFCsfeature=player_embedded# http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2disi7i0tEfeature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqZ0FwW8GKIfeature=related
[FairfieldLife] Re: Sam Harris and Michael Shermer debate Deepak and Jean Houston
Okay, thanks for elaborating on that. I follow along pretty well, and see the point you are trying to make. Apart from this consideration, however, when you introduce karma into the equation, then I think things get more personal. Like, you die. You are reborn. You have a period of reflection in between. (my notion only) You have your good and bad actions which now need to be balanced back on the earthly plane. From some of things I 've read, mostly from Rudolf Steiner, there is a pretty elaborate, yet straight forward protocal. (and by the way, he does not bring up the idea of God in describing this work out) But I am not sure how the notion of karma, and the resolution of our karma gets balanced without the intervention of some kind of higher organzizing power, divine or otherwise. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_re...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, lurkernomore20002000 steve.sundur@ wrote: Thanks for the feedback Thanks for perceiving it *as* feedback, and nothing more. One of the points I was trying to make about quantum physicists talking about God or astrophys- icists merely *assuming* that the universe had a starting point or a moment of creation is what I'd term the persistence of early conditioning. LONG before any of these people were taught math and the tents of science, they were taught that an all-powerful interfering being named God existed. Is there any question that they would hold to such beliefs while developing theories about the nature of the universe, and thus consciously or unconsciously color their theories with such beliefs? They were also taught just by dealing with birth and death in humans and other life forms that such things seem inevitable. Is there any question that they would then think As below, so above, and believe that the universe had a starting point (the moment of creation or the Big Bang)? I think it would be interesting to see what a scientist who had been raised with *zero* exposure to teachings about a sentient God or about the *assumability* of a universe that (like humans) was born and thus someday must die would come up with. But that is not easily accomplished. Einstein made comments about God during his lifetime, even though his newly-discovered letters indicate that he was more consistently in the atheist camp than in the God camp. Nevertheless, God freaks continue to portray the man who said in a letter to philosopher Erik Gutkind, The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weakness, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still purely primitive, legends which are nevertheless pretty childish as a fellow believer in God. My grandfather, who worked with Einstein, described him to my father as someone who was willing to chuck *any* idea out the window the moment its usefulness ended. Even his own. Being a thoughtful man, I am sure that he examined both sides of the Is there a God question all his life. But he seems to have settled firmly in the No camp. *Especially* with regard to the idea that God, if one existed, could interfere with or affect the world. He stated several times that he did not believe this. IMO that may have freed him to come up with concepts that a person who could never get *past* early conditioning that taught him that *of course* there is a God, and *of course* He can do whatever he wants could not. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, lurkernomore20002000 steve.sundur@ wrote: -- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: My idea of the universe is an enormous, eternal operating system. It was never created, and it never ends, thus there is no need to postulate a creator. It just is. I see no need to postulate an intelligence behind the functioning of the operating system because *none is necessary to describe its actions*. They would carry on just as effectively *without* any intelligence behind them. Thus, using Occam's Razor, why clutter up an already-elegant system with some made-up intelligence interfering with it and running it. This idea of an operating system. Has there ever been an opeating system without someone, or something creating it. Or can it just spring up on its own? The problem with your question, Lurk (as I mentioned before) is the assumption that it sprung up. Humans have a tough time with the concept of eternality.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Deepak Chopra failed to prove existence of God to atheists
On Apr 3, 2010, at 6:20 AM, nablusoss1008 wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: Ah. I see my post worked exactly as intended. Judy can dive deep within twice a day while the Turq is stuck in his mind, left to do lucid dreaming like any spiritual baby. I'm pretty sure Judy dives deep more often than that. Often 50x a week!
[FairfieldLife] Re: Sam Harris and Michael Shermer debate Deepak and Jean Houston
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, lurkernomore20002000 steve.sun...@... wrote: Okay, thanks for elaborating on that. I follow along pretty well, and see the point you are trying to make. Apart from this consideration, however, when you introduce karma into the equation, then I think things get more personal. Like, you die. You are reborn. You have a period of reflection in between. (my notion only) You have your good and bad actions which now need to be balanced back on the earthly plane. Just as a point, a belief in karma does *not* imply a belief in reincarnation. My original example of thief samskaras created by getting away with being a thief in the past works just as well if you don't believe in reincarnation at all. From some of things I've read, mostly from Rudolf Steiner, there is a pretty elaborate, yet straight forward protocal. For what? I am unfamiliar with Steiner, and thus don't know what you are referring to. ...(and by the way, he does not bring up the idea of God in describing this work out) But I am not sure how the notion of karma, and the resolution of our karma gets balanced without the intervention of some kind of higher organzizing power, divine or otherwise. Intervention would obviate and invalidate the whole idea of karma, which IMO is that *you* are supposed to learn from the results of your own actions. You steal. Something happens to your state of attention as a result; it sinks lower. You steal again, it happens again. Sooner or later you figure this out and stop stealing. There is no intervention involved with this, merely individual responsibility. I think people get all fucked up by associating the very simple, clear concept of karma with the very murky, unclear concept of reincarnation. I am talk- ing about karma in its sense as simple actions and the results of those action. I said, nor implied, anything about reincarnation in my previous posts.
[FairfieldLife] Re: UFO over Lake Erie?
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Vaj vajradh...@... wrote: LOL, more like approaching airplane. On Apr 3, 2010, at 11:52 AM, nablusoss1008 wrote: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_qbRyUHFCsfeature=player_embedded# http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2disi7i0tEfeature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqZ0FwW8GKIfeature=related I'd like to see an airplane standing still in the air and changing colours too at the same spot 9 nights in a row !
[FairfieldLife] Re: and European PIGS
Funny. I had to look it up to see if there actually was a place calling itself the Shires of Albion. Here on the West side of the pond it sounds like the name of a residential home owners association. I had to look up git also. It was proffered up as a derived slang pronunciation of beget, i.e. born of. Stroke gives woman British accent [http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/39522000/jpg/_39522754_roberts_20\ 3.jpg] Tiffany Roberts suffered a stroke four years ago An American woman has been left with a British accent after having a stroke. This is despite the fact that Tiffany Roberts, 61, has never been to Britain. Her accent is a mixture of English cockney and West Country. Doctors say Mrs Roberts, who was born and bred in Indiana, has a condition called foreign accent syndrome. This rare condition occurs when part of the brain becomes damaged. This can follow a stroke or head injury. There have only been a few documented cases. British accent Mrs Roberts discovered she had a British accent after recovering her voice following a stroke in 1999. When people first started asking me where in England I was from and a family member asked why am I talking that way, that is when I became very conscious that a part of me had died during the stroke, she said. [http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/shared/img/o.gif] [http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/img/v3/start_quote.gif] A part of me had died during the stroke [http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/img/v3/end_quote.gif] Tiffany Roberts [http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/img/v3/inline_dashed_line.gif] [http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/img/v3/videonews.gif] watch news report http://news.bbc.co.uk/media/video/39522000/rm/_39522150_accent05_twigg_\ vi.ram Four years on, she still struggles to convince people that she is a born and bred American. People in America accuse me of lying when I say I was born in Indiana. They would say 'What are you saying that for? Where in England are you from?' I would insist that I am not. A tape recording of her voice before the stroke shows Mrs Roberts used to speak with a broad and relatively deep accent. She now speaks in a much higher pitch. Doctors are still trying to find out exactly why foreign accent syndrome occurs. But Dr Jack Ryalls of the University of Central Florida, said it is a real medical condition, which can occur after a patient has a brain injury. They recover to various degrees. When they don't recover or when they only have very, very residual effects left its heard as an accent. Its a real phenomenon. It just hasn't been documented very often. Scientists at Oxford University are among those trying to get to the bottom of the syndrome. Last year, they confirmed that patients can develop a foreign accent without ever having been exposed to the accent. This is because they haven't really picked up the accent. Their speech patterns have changed. Injury to their brain causes them to lengthen syllables, alter their pitch or mispronounce sounds. These changes make it sound like they have picked up an accent. They may lengthen syllables. The first case of foreign accent syndrome was reported in 1941 in Norway, after a young Norwegian woman suffered shrapnel injury to the brain during an air raid. Initially, she had severe language problems from which she eventually recovered. However, she was left with what sounded like a strong German accent and was ostracized by her community. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, steve.brennon steve.bren...@... wrote: Well that is OK then. I am a Cockney Git but living in the Shires of Albion. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, emptybill emptybill@ wrote: Don't take it personally. PIGS is an acronym for Portugal, Ireland, Greece, Spain.
[FairfieldLife] Re: UFO over Lake Erie?
Probably he's afraid it's MMY descended in a space vehicle (akasha-vimana) to temp him with more offers of siddhis. Since he's a honeyed-stage yogin(madhu-bhumika) possessed of vision that sees only the truth (rtambhara-prajna), he knows that all kinds of highly placed beings (sthAnin) are just waiting to lead him to some type of prideful perdition. Noble sir! Take your seat here and enjoy yourself here. The pleasures are delicious and this girl is lovely. This elixir prevents age and death. Here is a space chariot (akasha vimana) and over there is a wish-fulfilling tree (kalpa-vriksha). The celestial river ManDakini, along with the siddhas and great sages all give you their blessing. Here there are unparalleled nymphs: amenable and compliant. Here your sight and hearing are celestial and your body is adamantine. Your special virtues have all merited this. Take this high position, which is unfading, ever fresh, undying and beloved of the devas. Vyasabhasya, YS 3.51 Yep, sounds so good I know that I wouldn't have the austerity to just say nyet. That's only for the big yogins. Those oh-so-clever devas! --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, nablusoss1008 no_re...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Vaj vajradhatu@ wrote: LOL, more like approaching airplane. On Apr 3, 2010, at 11:52 AM, nablusoss1008 wrote: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_qbRyUHFCsfeature=player_embedded# http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2disi7i0tEfeature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqZ0FwW8GKIfeature=related I'd like to see an airplane standing still in the air and changing colours too at the same spot 9 nights in a row !
[FairfieldLife] Maddow reviews ACORN, Climategate and other GOP Lies
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9KjQUSZXqE
[FairfieldLife] Those pesky Guardian folks
Mainstream news is giving quite a bit of press to the Guardians of the Free Republic this weekend. That may backfire as people check into what they are about. http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0403/fbi-dhs-probe-guardians-demanded-governors-resign/ I came across this group over a week ago when one site I read linked to this audio: http://recordings.talkshoe.com/TC-54318/TS-334111.mp3 The host of the show talks about the Guardian plans in the last hour of the 4.5 hour show. Interesting stuff and I thought made for some good fiction. I was a little surprised when they did carry out their plans.
[FairfieldLife] Re: UFO over Lake Erie?
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Vaj vajradh...@... wrote: LOL, more like approaching airplane. Sorry, no, not these. Approaching airplanes aren't visible for two hours straight. FAA says, according to David Shuster of MSNBC, The light pattern seems different from commercial fight paths in the area. These have appeared for nine nights in a row. NASA says it's nothing they're doing, so does the Pentagon. On Apr 3, 2010, at 11:52 AM, nablusoss1008 wrote: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_qbRyUHFCsfeature=player_embedded# http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2disi7i0tEfeature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqZ0FwW8GKIfeature=related
[FairfieldLife] Re: UFO over Lake Erie?
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jst...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Vaj vajradhatu@ wrote: LOL, more like approaching airplane. Sorry, no, not these. Approaching airplanes aren't visible for two hours straight. FAA says, according to David Shuster of MSNBC, The light pattern seems different from commercial fight paths in the area. These have appeared for nine nights in a row. NASA says it's nothing they're doing, so does the Pentagon. It's probably not a UFO but God, here to smite Curtis for having traded his soul for a guitar. The fact that God has been thus visible hanging in the air over Lake Erie for two hours straight nine nights in a row is that He is not very bright, and hasn't figured out that Lake Erie is nowhere near Washington, D.C., where Curtis lives.
[FairfieldLife] Re: UFO over Lake Erie?
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jst...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Vaj vajradhatu@ wrote: LOL, more like approaching airplane. Sorry, no, not these. Approaching airplanes aren't visible for two hours straight. FAA says, according to David Shuster of MSNBC, The light pattern seems different from commercial fight paths in the area. These have appeared for nine nights in a row. NASA says it's nothing they're doing, so does the Pentagon. That won't convince the Vaj who has permanently put on his dark brown Buddhist sunglasses. On Apr 3, 2010, at 11:52 AM, nablusoss1008 wrote: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_qbRyUHFCsfeature=player_embedded# http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2disi7i0tEfeature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqZ0FwW8GKIfeature=related
[FairfieldLife] Re: Sam Harris and Michael Shermer debate Deepak and Jean Houston
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltabl...@... wrote: But before you get all excited and start pointing your puja in her direction Hold it right there. Just got my minimum daily requirement of LOL. I gotta warn you, one night and you'll be getting drunk-texts in the middle of the night for the rest of the Yuga.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Sam Harris and Michael Shermer debate Deepak and Jean Houston
I was a little rushed in my initial reply, and did not intend to bring in reincarnation as a forgone conclusion. But, I must say that in my system of belief, I cannot make sense of the idea of karma without reincarnation. A few other comments below In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_re...@... wrote: Intervention would obviate and invalidate the whole idea of karma, which IMO is that *you* are supposed to learn from the results of your own actions. You steal. Something happens to your state of attention as a result; it sinks lower. You steal again, it happens again. Sooner or later you figure this out and stop stealing. There is no intervention involved with this, merely individual responsibility. I don't really see this. Seems to me it can take a good long time for us to learn certain lessons, and usually our body gives out before we do. I view this as a pretty practical matter. It seems obvious to me that a lot of good actions go unrewarded, and a lot of bad actions go unpunished in the span of one lifetime. The only way I can make sense of this is through this idea of reincarnation. I think people get all fucked up by associating the very simple, clear concept of karma with the very murky, unclear concept of reincarnation. I am talk- ing about karma in its sense as simple actions and the results of those action. I said, nor implied, anything about reincarnation in my previous posts. Fine, of course. But aside from all this theoretical stuff. Do you believe in reincarantion? What's all this surfing the bardo all about, if I have the correct term. I don't quite see the case you are making about how karmic accounts get settled in the span of one lifetime, and would like to know, as a practical matter if you really do as well. Fine to say, could be this, or could be that, but what do you believe.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Sam Harris and Michael Shermer debate Deepak and Jean Houston
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jst...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: ne of the points I was trying to make about quantum physicists talking about God FWIW, there's an erroneous assumption that because many of the early (and some of the current) quantum physicists were into mysticism, they must have connected quantum physics and mysticism. They didn't. Rather, they were into mysticism because quantum mechanics had conclusively demonstrated the limitations of science. They had to accept this, but not being able to give up on the search for knowledge, they turned away from the dead end and decided to take a different route they believed had more possibilities. (Not that they gave up science; there was plenty to work on in terms of the details.) or astrophys- icists merely *assuming* that the universe had a starting point or a moment of creation is what I'd term the persistence of early conditioning. LONG before any of these people were taught math and the tents of science, they were taught that an all-powerful interfering being named God existed. Is there any question that they would hold to such beliefs while developing theories about the nature of the universe, and thus consciously or unconsciously color their theories with such beliefs? They were also taught just by dealing with birth and death in humans and other life forms that such things seem inevitable. Is there any question that they would then think As below, so above, and believe that the universe had a starting point (the moment of creation or the Big Bang)? I think it would be interesting to see what a scientist who had been raised with *zero* exposure to teachings about a sentient God or about the *assumability* of a universe that (like humans) was born and thus someday must die would come up with. It's not the teaching about a sentient God or even the assumption that the universe must have had a beginning. It's the constant observation of human beings that everything changes. There's no way your hypothetical scientist could avoid those observations. Nor would it be necessary to avoid any of this conditioning. The steady-state theory of the universe--that it was never born and would never die-- was developed by Hoyle, Bondi, and Gold in full knowledge of, and in fact as a rebuttal to, the Big Bang theory. (Of course, their theory was subsequently disproved. But they weren't precluded by conditioning from dreaming it up.) I just finished reading Biocentrism by Robert Lanza. MD. He cites the idea that human awareness of an experiement actually changes the result - an oft-cited idea by New Agers and spiritual folk of many types. In reading a critque of the book, and also talking to a scientist friend, it turns out that the common New Agey notion (which I often quoted in the past) of human awareness having an effect on an experimnent is wrong - at least so far as can be measured now. In the classic quantum experiment, electrons shimmering around a nucleus in a wave form - but not yet collapsed into matter or really locatable - can be affected by any physical interference. Once that interference occurs, they collapse from the wave state into form. But as I understand it (and I could be wrong but this is what scientists are saying) just having someone think about the experiment or the electrons or aware of it, does nothing measurable. You really have to interfere in a physical way, and so far human thought alone does not do that. So this misunderstanding of the experiment by New Agers is pretty huge, and to most scientists it looks like spiritual people grasping for confirmation of their beliefs in a domain they don't accurately understand. The experiment about splitting an electron and having each aware of (respionding to) the behavior of the other across huge distances, instantaneously, is true and still puzzling to physicists, from what I have heard.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Sam Harris and Michael Shermer debate Deepak and Jean Houston
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, lurkernomore20002000 steve.sun...@... wrote: In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: Intervention would obviate and invalidate the whole idea of karma, which IMO is that *you* are supposed to learn from the results of your own actions. You steal. Something happens to your state of attention as a result; it sinks lower. You steal again, it happens again. Sooner or later you figure this out and stop stealing. There is no intervention involved with this, merely individual responsibility. I don't really see this. Seems to me it can take a good long time for us to learn certain lessons, and usually our body gives out before we do. I view this as a pretty practical matter. It seems obvious to me that a lot of good actions go unrewarded, and a lot of bad actions go unpunished in the span of one lifetime. The only way I can make sense of this is through this idea of reincarnation. I think you're seeing the issue of reward or punishment in physical terms. The Tibetan school of thought (which I subscribe to) does not see karma as purely physical. Physical repercussions of one's actions may take some time, as you say. But there is an aspect of karma that is immediate. Your state of attention drops *instantly* if you perform an action that is not life-supporting, and rises *instantly* if you perform an action that is. If you are sensitive to the fluctuations of attention, you can notice these drops and rises even at the *thought* of an action, before you perform it. Those in an already-low state of attention may not notice this, but someone who is more aware of the fluctuations of attention and how to interpret them notices immediately. Over time, someone wise gravi- tates towards those actions that result in a higher state of attention. What enables them *to* do this is free will. If the karma -- the samskaras or tend- encies generated by past actions -- were the *only* factor, you'd be in a closed loop. There would be no way to ever escape from it. Free will means that it is possible to more quickly discern these drops in attention and thus avoid the problem before it comes. This works just as well given the one lifetime model as it does given the multiple lifetime model. I think people get all fucked up by associating the very simple, clear concept of karma with the very murky, unclear concept of reincarnation. I am talk- ing about karma in its sense as simple actions and the results of those action. I said, nor implied, anything about reincarnation in my previous posts. Fine, of course. But aside from all this theoretical stuff. Do you believe in reincarantion? Yes. Based on personal experiences (memories) that indicate to me that the Tibetan model for life, death, and the rebirth cycle are accurate. I don't *know* that these memories are correct, of course, but I have enough faith in them to put more trust in the reincarnation model than in the one life model. What's all this surfing the bardo all about, if I have the correct term. I don't quite see the case you are making about how karmic accounts get settled in the span of one lifetime, and would like to know, as a practical matter if you really do as well. I think some samskaras can be resolved in an instant, much less within one lifetime. The Buddhist buzzphrase is Recognition is liberation. Perceive the onset of a samskara early and use your intent to stop it in its tracks, and in their model that samskara is *much* less likely to never arise again. I have certainly had this experience many times in my life. As for the idea of settling accounts, I have nothing to say because I don't believe in such a concept. There is nothing out there keeping score in my opinion. Your account is your current state of attention. *It* is all that keeps score, and all that needs to. Fine to say, could be this, or could be that, but what do you believe. I believe that the Tibetan model of death being a transition much like falling asleep and the Bardo being a state similar to dreams is accurate. I won't know for sure until I bite the big one myself, but I'm hoping I get to surf the Bardo and play the game again. If I'm wrong and the world just goes black along with any self or self-identity, big deal. I won't even be there to know about it, much less be there to be disappointed. :-)
[FairfieldLife] Re: Sam Harris and Michael Shermer debate Deepak and Jean Houston
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, wayback71 waybac...@... wrote: snip I just finished reading Biocentrism by Robert Lanza. MD. He cites the idea that human awareness of an experiement actually changes the result - an oft-cited idea by New Agers and spiritual folk of many types. In reading a critque of the book, and also talking to a scientist friend, it turns out that the common New Agey notion (which I often quoted in the past) of human awareness having an effect on an experimnent is wrong - at least so far as can be measured now. In the classic quantum experiment, electrons shimmering around a nucleus in a wave form - but not yet collapsed into matter or really locatable - can be affected by any physical interference. Once that interference occurs, they collapse from the wave state into form. But as I understand it (and I could be wrong but this is what scientists are saying) just having someone think about the experiment or the electrons or aware of it, does nothing measurable. Well, it never was just having someone think about the experiment that was said to collapse the wave function; it was specifically having someone look at the measurement apparatus that did it (which may be what you're saying). Supposedly, until somebody looked at it, the measurement apparatus itself was in a superposition of states. There's a good layperson's explanation of the measurement problem by theoretical physicist Shantena Sabbatini here: http://www.shantena.com/media/Thequantummeasurementproblem.pdf Sabbatini has his own interpretation, which preserves the idea that the observer plays a role, but not because the observer collapses the wave function. I can't paraphrase his approach (I can barely grasp it!), but he says the conditions of our knowing make [the world appear classical]. How or if that stands up against what you're talking about, I haven't a clue... Sabbatini, BTW, is a mystic, a Taoist. You really have to interfere in a physical way, and so far human thought alone does not do that. So this misunderstanding of the experiment by New Agers is pretty huge, and to most scientists it looks like spiritual people grasping for confirmation of their beliefs in a domain they don't accurately understand. It's an unwarranted extension of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, that observing the measurement collapses the wave function, which was itself a reasonable guess given the experimental evidence. But it isn't entirely fair to blame the New Agers, because there have been a number of physicists (not just Hagelin!) who have extended it in this manner as well. The experiment about splitting an electron and having each aware of (respionding to) the behavior of the other across huge distances, instantaneously, is true and still puzzling to physicists, from what I have heard. It's part of the same problem, actually. Here's another interesting angle, from Roger Penrose (who argues that neurons in the brain are affected by quantum mechanical processes, incidentally): http://discovermagazine.com/2005/jun/cover/article_view?b_start:int=0-C= http://tinyurl.com/yhyeptg He incorporates gravity into quantum mechanics and suggests that gravity is what collapses the wave function.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Sam Harris and Michael Shermer debate Deepak and Jean Houston
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_re...@... wrote: I'm hoping I get to surf the Bardo and play the game again. If I'm wrong and the world just goes black along with any self or self-identity, big deal. I won't even be there to know about it, much less be there to be disappointed. :-) It WOULD be a shock, although a pretty short one, if if all fades to black at the end. Somehow, I don't see that happening. Even if I don't have any concrete experience of it, I just KNOW there's a subtle, or atral body in there somewhere.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Sam Harris and Michael Shermer debate Deepak and Jean Houston
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jst...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, wayback71 wayback71@ wrote: snip I just finished reading Biocentrism by Robert Lanza. MD. He cites the idea that human awareness of an experiement actually changes the result - an oft-cited idea by New Agers and spiritual folk of many types. In reading a critque of the book, and also talking to a scientist friend, it turns out that the common New Agey notion (which I often quoted in the past) of human awareness having an effect on an experimnent is wrong - at least so far as can be measured now. In the classic quantum experiment, electrons shimmering around a nucleus in a wave form - but not yet collapsed into matter or really locatable - can be affected by any physical interference. Once that interference occurs, they collapse from the wave state into form. But as I understand it (and I could be wrong but this is what scientists are saying) just having someone think about the experiment or the electrons or aware of it, does nothing measurable. Well, it never was just having someone think about the experiment that was said to collapse the wave function; it was specifically having someone look at the measurement apparatus that did it (which may be what you're saying). Supposedly, until somebody looked at it, the measurement apparatus itself was in a superposition of states. My understanding is that looking at the apparatus did not collapse the wave function, you have to interfere physically in some obvious manner. But hey, I am no quantum physicist. There's a good layperson's explanation of the measurement problem by theoretical physicist Shantena Sabbatini here: http://www.shantena.com/media/Thequantummeasurementproblem.pdf Sabbatini has his own interpretation, which preserves the idea that the observer plays a role, but not because the observer collapses the wave function. I can't paraphrase his approach (I can barely grasp it!), but he says the conditions of our knowing make [the world appear classical]. How or if that stands up against what you're talking about, I haven't a clue... Sabbatini, BTW, is a mystic, a Taoist. You really have to interfere in a physical way, and so far human thought alone does not do that. So this misunderstanding of the experiment by New Agers is pretty huge, and to most scientists it looks like spiritual people grasping for confirmation of their beliefs in a domain they don't accurately understand. It's an unwarranted extension of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, that observing the measurement collapses the wave function, which was itself a reasonable guess given the experimental evidence. But it isn't entirely fair to blame the New Agers, because there have been a number of physicists (not just Hagelin!) who have extended it in this manner as well. The experiment about splitting an electron and having each aware of (respionding to) the behavior of the other across huge distances, instantaneously, is true and still puzzling to physicists, from what I have heard. It's part of the same problem, actually. Here's another interesting angle, from Roger Penrose (who argues that neurons in the brain are affected by quantum mechanical processes, incidentally): http://discovermagazine.com/2005/jun/cover/article_view?b_start:int=0-C= http://tinyurl.com/yhyeptg He incorporates gravity into quantum mechanics and suggests that gravity is what collapses the wave function. Thanks Judy for all the links. I appreciate the time you spent. I will read them all, but it will take me some time...
[FairfieldLife] Re: Sam Harris and Michael Shermer debate Deepak and Jean Houston
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, wayback71 waybac...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, wayback71 wayback71@ wrote: snip But as I understand it (and I could be wrong but this is what scientists are saying) just having someone think about the experiment or the electrons or aware of it, does nothing measurable. Well, it never was just having someone think about the experiment that was said to collapse the wave function; it was specifically having someone look at the measurement apparatus that did it (which may be what you're saying). Supposedly, until somebody looked at it, the measurement apparatus itself was in a superposition of states. My understanding is that looking at the apparatus did not collapse the wave function, you have to interfere physically in some obvious manner. But hey, I am no quantum physicist. I just wanted to clarify the original idea, not contest the newer one you were talking about. snip Thanks Judy for all the links. I appreciate the time you spent. I will read them all, but it will take me some time... Only if you're so moved! I'd come across them recently and figured I'd toss them in the pot.
[FairfieldLife] Post Count
Fairfield Life Post Counter === Start Date (UTC): Sat Apr 03 00:00:00 2010 End Date (UTC): Sat Apr 10 00:00:00 2010 59 messages as of (UTC) Sat Apr 03 23:47:04 2010 10 authfriend jst...@panix.com 10 TurquoiseB no_re...@yahoogroups.com 8 lurkernomore20002000 steve.sun...@sbcglobal.net 5 nablusoss1008 no_re...@yahoogroups.com 4 steve.brennon steve.bren...@yahoo.com 3 tartbrain no_re...@yahoogroups.com 3 curtisdeltablues curtisdeltabl...@yahoo.com 2 wayback71 waybac...@yahoo.com 2 emptybill emptyb...@yahoo.com 2 anatol_zinc anatol_z...@yahoo.com 2 Vaj vajradh...@earthlink.net 2 Buck dhamiltony...@yahoo.com 2 Bhairitu noozg...@sbcglobal.net 1 wle...@aol.com 1 It's just a ride bill.hicks.all.a.r...@gmail.com 1 Duveyoung no_re...@yahoogroups.com 1 do.rflex do.rf...@yahoo.com Posters: 17 Saturday Morning 00:00 UTC Rollover Times = Daylight Saving Time (Summer): US Friday evening: PDT 5 PM - MDT 6 PM - CDT 7 PM - EDT 8 PM Europe Saturday: BST 1 AM CEST 2 AM EEST 3 AM Standard Time (Winter): US Friday evening: PST 4 PM - MST 5 PM - CST 6 PM - EST 7 PM Europe Saturday: GMT 12 AM CET 1 AM EET 2 AM For more information on Time Zones: www.worldtimezone.com
[FairfieldLife] How it is GE pays less income taxes than you do
http://www.forbes.com/2010/04/01/ge-exxon-walmart-business-washington-corporate-taxes_print.html http://tinyurl.com/yk4vgyu -- A Montana rancher got in his pickup and drove to a neighboring ranch and knocked at the door. A young boy, about 9, opened the door Is your Dad home? the rancher asked. No sir, he isn't, the boy replied. He went into town. Well, said the rancher, Is your Mother here? No sir, she's not here either. She went into town with Dad. How about your brother, Howard? Is he here? No sir, He went with Mom and Dad. The rancher stood there for a few minutes, shifting from one foot to the other and mumbling to himself. Is there anything I can do for you? the boy asked politely. I know where all the tools are, if you want to borrow one. Or maybe I could take a message for Dad. Well, said the rancher uncomfortably, I really wanted to talk to your Dad. It's about your brother Howard getting my daughter, Suzie, pregnant.' The boy considered for a moment. You would have to talk to Pa about that, he finally conceded. If it helps you any, I know that Pa charges $500 for the bull and $50 for the hog, but I really don't know how much he gets for Howard.
