Seasons

Bev, I can agree completely with what you say about science. Moreover, it pretty much sums up the discussion, and my view on the whole. I can only emphasise again that in my opinion, whenever science tries to claim the authority over "why" of things, the drive and motivation behind such claims is power struggle, rather than scientists being convinced that they know/ can give answers to these questions. In fact, if one looks the arguments, they are all aimed at denying the validity of the questions/ phenomena, and discrediting those who think otherwise. There are actually no claims of having any answers, only a belief in once-to-come Theory Of Everything.

Zen is my worldview of choice. By "worldview" I mean a philosophical system rather than a religious one. In fact, I don't consider myself a religious person at all, and I'm not an atheist/ materialist neither. Philosophically, I'm agnostic, no problem here with a notion that ultimate, last answers will never come, not only from science, but also philosophy and religion may never exactly explain it all.

Personally, I find the conscious universe idea very interesting. Also, the Holographic Universe/ Mind paradigm seems intuitively more pleasing to me, and it provides one with a better, more flexible framework for thinking, than the particles and forces Nuts & Bolts Universe. People like Michael Talbot, Dean Radin, Karl Pribram, David Bohm and Roger Penrose, for example, are the ones that speak to me. Further on, books like Reality's Mirror: Exploring the Mathematics of Symmetry by Bryan Bunch, and Jeremy Narby's The Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the origins of knowledge, provide an insight into a genuine mystery that, I have no doubt, is out there.

Concepts like "soul", "reincarnation" and such are so laden with historically acquired cultural "meaning" that it's impossible to use them without implying a whole lot of things, whether one wants it, or means it, or not. Having said that, I do think that "consciousness" (whatever that means!) is a core evolving entity, at the level deeper than this 4-D reality with its inherent mind/ matter duality. Both, matter and mind, are aspects, a manifestation, of consciousness. It is entirely possible, in fact, very probable, that there are ever larger orders of symmetry at which the consciousness itself becomes an aspect of a larger whole. As I said before, I have no problem with truth being elusive.

Drugs are very interesting subject matter, as well as their relationship to perception/ consciousness... let me just say here that i don't think drugs are bad (or good) of themselves, it's all matter of a particular society's drug culture. It's a (consumer) culture that converts a plant (tobacco) into industrial product designed for mass consumption (cigarette).

Gotta go now, hope to talk to you all soon.

Interzone wrote:

Personally, I find the conscious universe idea very interesting.

Well, the universe contains us, and we are conscious. Perhaps just as (some would say) certain brain cells make us conscious, we make the universe conscious.

Interzone wrote:

I do think that "consciousness" (whatever that means!) is a core evolving entity, at the level deeper than this 4-D reality with its inherent mind/ matter duality.

But how then would it be that (as seems to be the case) our consciousness is tied in closely with various material, 4-D characteristics? E.g., certain brain states are associated with unconsciousness; if I go long enough without sleep, I begin to nod off, regardless of how important it is to me to stay awake. A blow on the head produces unconsciousness, as do various drugs. I cannot become conscious of an object unless I enter into one of certain material, 4-D relationships with it, e.g., looking at it under adequate light.

Interzone, you can call your Zen practice a world view if you like. Tell me, when you have to fill out forms do you leave religion blank or cross it out and write "world view: Buddhist/new age/conscious universe"? I always hate the religion box and the race box. Hell some people I know hate picking a single gender. Those should all be essay questions and damn the demographic data!

Irina, you remind me of a XKCD cartoon where the main man dreams of a woman pleading with him not to wake up because she does not want to stop existing. Maybe sleeping is like a rolling restart on the metaconsciousness grid and if you don't get your dream cycle in, your bits of the universe get to be laggy.

religion box and the race box. I think that the governments, and all the agencies, that want to "box" people into nice neat categories will have to realize that those boxes are obsolete. Look at how many people are multi racial, hermaphrodite, spiritual but not religious.

I think organized religion has a place in this world. That doesn't mean that it's for everyone or that atheists or any "spiritual but not religious" box. I hadn't been to church as an adult -- I stopped by seventeen, maybe sooner. Once my parents couldn't drag me there. I may or may not stay with this or any church. I even went to Temple for two weeks last year! But I wore my cross under my shirt. (I have a Huguenot cross because the ancestry connected to my name is Huguenot, and has been traced back to France in the late 1600s.) For the past three weeks, I've gone to a very laid-back Episcopal church because Delamars (my branch of the family, anyway, going back into the mists of time) have been Episcopalians -- to my knowledge there is one Huguenot church in this country, in South Carolina (quite a commute), and the services are conducted in French, which I don't quite speak. Anyway, for me, having a community of live people with a common interest is important, I do have a very spiritual element, and it's nice to have a priest (St. Mark's has a married couple, so we have two). (The poor priests.) I disagree with some of their beliefs, but that's going to be the case at any church, so for now, anyway, I'm going. I'm enjoying the sermons as lenses through which to view a text (the Bible) because the English teacher part of me will never die.

Having said that, I'll add that people with Temporal Lobe Epilepsy (that's my special kind) tend to be "hyperreligious" -- Joan of Arc and St. Paul are suspected of having TLE. So whether I have an inside track to God or am just nutty that way (and, truly, that ain't the only way), I am deeply spiritual and enjoy the outlet. Rituals become comforting to me. It's like when you don't have to stop and listen to every word of your favorite song for it to make you feel better: after a point, that song just takes you to another place. (Or is that just me?)

I totally understand atheism, agnosticism, other forms of organized religion, people who are spiritual but not religious, whatever. Most of my best friends are atheists, as I come from an academic community. And I'm left-handed, gay but asexual (I have a partner of twenty-five years, but while we have engaged in sexual behavior, we usually don't (something that probably also comes from having no man involved). I accept people as they are, unless they've done something awful, like murder someone. I just feel good in this church. At its best, church teaches people to imitate Christ. That means people do loving things for people because they love their fellow man. I have a ways to go there, but at least I have a goal. Just to help people whenever I can.

So we're not all Bible thumpers who think people who are different are going to hell. I personally don't believe in hell. I believe in love. I have a short fuse, though, so I have to work at showing it, and at accepting disappointment.

But I have degrees in two very different fields (English and Computer Science) and a Masters' in English. I've taught at the university level. I'm no lemming. I have thought out what I'm doing and am absolutely not accepting whatever the church tells me or trying to convert people (and that is really a big deal in Christianity). Don't judge me too harshly for being a Christian. We're not all bad.

Clerk, It's OK. This is not a forum where people use the term "sheeple" or put you down for choices and beliefs. It's cool that you are doing something that you find meaningful. (I hope none of that sounds sarcastic--for some reason when I try to be nice and sincere, some people read me as sarcastic--I mean what I said at face value). I may in the future still make a passing allusion to the FSM and his noodlily appendages, but Prob123 will pipe up and balance that out too. It's just a discussion, not a chance to judge and condemn. For that you need a truly intellectual forum like fark.com

I am so glad this forum isn't like some others. I have to admit the first thousand times I was called sheeple, or all the noodlily appendage FSM, or even zombie worshiper, it didn't bother me. In truth, it now makes my skin crawl. I now am very careful about insults to other groups, and go out of my way to avoid them. I can see where minorities could have their lives ruined by the endless rhetoric.

Prob123, I can see how being treated like that would be annoying. Those kinds of things build up over time and can make anyone feel defensive or rightfully irritated. It's sort of like how for me porn never was a big deal (never even hit my radar other than to skip past it) until I had people in my life who insisted on making it a deal, and now even though the idiots are gone I notice it and cringe. I am sorry some idiots made your religion a deal.

That kind of takes me back to the topic of evil. It's not the demons and monsters that get under my skin. It's not even the benevolent dictators who do things for your own good that bum me out(I kind of wish Doctor Horrible would hand me the keys to a shiny new Australia). I guess if someone is simple enough to pop up and be pure evil it would be refreshing as you could kill him outright and be a hero (or take him home to tea and be on guard because, you know, evil). It's the causally normal cruelty of an otherwise nice person, the sense of humor that hits another wrong, and the banality of the very human tendency to feel good about yourself by putting others down that bugs me. Sensitivity training is a joke too, so it's not that people have a right not to be offended. It's just that there is a difference between snarky and nasty, if only in my head. It comes down to respect.

If my humor ever hits you the wrong way Prob123, I am sorry. You know I have the deepest respect for you. Over the years we have this Internet colleguegship that makes me tease you almost like a RL friend.

Irina says,

"Well, the universe contains us, and we are conscious. Perhaps just as (some would say) certain brain cells make us conscious, we make the universe conscious"

That's very well said, very good analogy, gives one an idea, an intuitive notion, of what Conscious Universe might mean/ be like, the way I see it.

Your second post, "our consciousness [been] tied in closely with various material, 4-D characteristics"... Firstly, what I said about "soul", "reincarnation" and other such concepts, applies to "consciousness", too, very much so. That's why I put the word in quote marks, and added "whatever that means!". With this in mind, what you call "our consciousness" is not Core Evolving Entity (let's call it CEE) I was talking about, but rather, an expression, or aspect of it. Our particular consciousness, awareness (of reality), the very notion of what is (real), and what is not (real), are all mediated through, and derived from, interaction between CEE and - NOT the 4-D reality - but a kind of undifferentiated (information) Matrix (matrix: "a situation or surrounding substance within which something else originates, develops, or is contained" - I would add - contained as an inherent potential which may, or may not be actualized/ expressed). The CEE "starts up" as a so-called stochastic process. It is an expression of logos that's inherent to CEE/ Matrix. Logos is simply the larger order of symmetry that in turn unifies CEE and Matrix. It's open for further discussion and critical examination.

Our perceived 4-D world is a product of this relationship between CEE and Matrix, just like our consciousness that perceives it. Hence, it's inherently conscious, just as it is inherently material. And consciousness does have a material base, indeed, but can not be reduced to it.

This also means that the physical reality does not vanish when I go to sleep. The table in my living room remains there, BUT it's not a round table anymore, red or green, made of wood or plastic, it's not even a table anymore - it just simply IS. Until I wake up, and it becomes round, multicolored, made of wood, etc... once again. Now we have crossed, or erased, the fine line that separates material science from Zen, have you noticed it? Consider also the fact that our individual personal consciousness literary gets "dissolved" when we fall asleep, or fall unconscious, for that matter. The neural activity that makes our "sober", "clear", fully awake & aware self, ceases to exist once we fall asleep, and it gets "replaced" by entirely different set/ type of neural activity. We "loose" all attributes associated with our conscious self, just like my table loses those I consciously attribute to it. It is indeed one of major mysteries of modern science, just how do we get "re-configured" every morning, over and over again, in a manner that allows us to maintain our sense of continuity/ continuous identity, throughout lifetime. And, indeed, there are cases - rare, but they are on record - of people who wake up one morning, and have no idea who in the world they are at all, no sense of identity, or, sometimes, a notion of different identity, like being displaced in spacetime.

Can you now see why, to my mind, the 20th century material science, which insists on absolute separation of subject and object, cannot truly grasp the whole, why is it ontologically unsound? And just how did they develop a "measurement problem"? What will it take to solve it..? Perhaps it will be dispelled, rather than solved, for it's all in their minds

Bev, here in Europe, religion and race are usually not "boxed", i.e. most of many forms that one is required to fill, do not contain these references. Actually, I can't quite remember ever coming across it, and my experience includes what was once a socialist Yugoslavia, the present day Republic of Croatia, and The Netherlands (a monarchy), my home for the past 20+ years.

The "big thing" here is nationality, it's all important when it comes to classifying citizenry, European Union in spite. Myself, I feel Earthling... most of the time

Obsolete as all these categories are, they are still being used as (effective) means of manipulation through separation, a good old divide & rule routine.