I do not expect yr agreeance, nor will I attempt to convert you to my way of thought.

however, because I like...nay, love you, I will happily cite scientific documentation supporting my case (via pm).

as it is, I'm left trying to summarize a large body of work into layman's terms (using a crappy iPhone keyboard).

the words that you quoted (and disagree with) came from Brian Greene's mouth.

that said, that wasn't an automated response. :(

how so? Physical reality is subjective. How can you prove it exists? In which way is your perception so-called reality objective? It is not, it all chemicals firing in yr brain which TELL you what is what, but those chemicals are by no means conclusive proof. Reality is all perception and perception all occurs STRICTLY in the mind. This is biology. Further, the so-called physical world does not actually exist the way your mind sees it, that is the wonderful creation of your mind's response to the stimulus of the atoms of reality interacting with you. These atoms can exist any way they chose, and this is the science behind reality being subjective. Physics and mechanics tell us exactly what theology, mysticism and hallucinogenic plants have been discussing for years and years, that reality is merely subjective, and not to get caught up on the details

Wow, dude, I can, like, float through outer space.

that dog looks so happy

Perception doesn't occur strictly in the mind. Perception is a meaningless concept without its relation to an other. Consciousness is conscious of something.

As a theist, I would have expected you to have some interpretation of existence beyond one's mind, albeit mangled with blasphemous anthropomorphism.

Looks like a sarcastic smile to me.

is that true? because there is a disorder that people think they are dead and rotting and smelling bad.

one day, i had too much to drink. i dont know if it had anything to do with it, but in the night i could see myself and my friend and his friend sleeping from the ceiling but i had no eyes? i was nothing. but i could see it all in detail. even me, laying there. i struggled to do something and open my eyes but i couldnt because i wasnt there, i was on the ceiling. it was horrible.

that is silly. ALL percpetion is in the mind. As a theists, I believe that the divine is the source of all existence, and perception is something that happens after the face. the Divine exists, we simply try to interpret, and all of our so-called reality is just a lovely hallucination our minds try to invent to narrate a story to go along with our otherwise unknowable experiences as living and existing beings. Its not that we do not exist, its that reality does not objectively exist, it is subjective to our perception.

Yes it is. And it illustrates my point perfectly.

but its true, ill google it hold on.

That sounds worryingly close to Gnosticism. And you know what happened to them.

As long as there's a Dummies version I'll be happy to read.

I bought The Fabric of the Cosmos to put on my science shelf but I just broke the spine and left it sitting next to Can You Count To A Googol.

The Cotard delusion or Cotard's syndrome,[1] also known as nihilistic or negation delusion, is a rare neuropsychiatric disorder in which a person holds a delusional belief that they are dead (either figuratively or literally), do not exist, are putrefying, or have lost their blood or internal organs. Rarely, it can include delusions of immortality.[2]

Right, subjective idealism. George Berkeley, etc.

What would you say to the claim that reality is unknowable and the known reality is not reality at all?

im just gonna pretend it is.

Me too. Have changed my posts accordingly.

[The patient's] symptoms occurred in the context of more general feelings of unreality and being dead. In January, 1990, after his discharge from hospital in Edinburgh, his mother took him to South Africa. He was convinced that he had been taken to hell (which was confirmed by the heat), and that he had died of septicaemia (which had been a risk early in his recovery), or perhaps from AIDS (he had read a story in The Scotsman about someone with AIDS who died from septicaemia), or from an overdose of a yellow fever injection. He thought he had "borrowed my mother's spirit to show me round hell", and that he was asleep in Scotland.

well, Brian Greene's Elegant Universe is pretty basic stuff.

if you don't feel like reading, the pbs site has the series.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/elegant/program.html


I recommend "The Wild West of Physics" and "Newton's Emarrassing Secret".

good stuff, and mostly right.

if you feel like coming back and arguing my "Hawking radiation is a lie" theory, please let me know;)!

the moral of my story: current quantum theory REQUIRES that there be "no less than" 10 dimensions surrounding the current 4 that you can sense.


edit:clikcn buttnz

Erm, just because you have hallucinated does not mean you have lost touch with the generally accepted reality. The ability to distinguish what you believe to be real and unreal i would think is more reflective of yr entire mental state. Psychosis compared to episodes etc.
I've unfort endured some unpleasant times with tactile, aural, and visual hallucinations not brought on by substance abuse.. I've always been aware of them happening, but also that more than likely they are not what everyone else is experiencing or that indeed they are coming from inside myself rather than outside.
Hmmm.
I'm a very spiritual person and i do belive in an interconnectedness of all things, but i also believe our minds have had plenty of time to evolve a state of consciousness that is generally on par with everyone else. I do believe that others see things in much the same way i do.. Perhaps interpreted slightly differently in terms of emotion, but not sensory wise..

my point in bringing up hallucinations are a common human experience which directly challenge the concept of an objective reality, and as floating keeps reiterated with out enough notice, is that current science largely agrees and predicts things far more surreal than any mystic or psychedelic.


I'd say that is the truest wisdom. The less you know, the better you off you become. Human life is an experience, not a recapitulation of assumptions.

I stick to my statement. Reality is not objective, so it it being the figment of individual and mutually agreed imagination, then of course something like astral projection is easily possible. Again, if we are projecting our consciousness into our bodies where and as they 'exist' currently, why not be able to project consciousness elsewhere? And I agree with Floating, in the INFINITE universe, EVERYTHING is possible. It is not a matter of "If" it is a matter of "when"

It's a very good way of describing it.

Floatingslowly, beautiful words.

I believe I've had very intense out of body experiences without the use of drugs using solely meditation. It's amazing what your mind can do for your body. Since gaining some sort of peace within my own head, I've been able to use meditation as my 'daily drug' and it's a wonderful thing really. I focus less on astral projection in my meditations sober now than when having psychedelic experiences. '

I find the concept of focusing my energy towards peace and contentment during meditation to be very rewarding. I can lower my blood pressure and relieve anxiety with little effort. It's worth looking into, ni'k. It's a head space I feel you'd like, from our conversations. You're an incredibly intelligent person. The universe is yours.

Interesting look on things, Rob. I often feel as though my meditations bring me to a somewhat spiritual nirvana.

my problem is that i have meditated before and expierienced massive difficulties arising from it, or at least from what i believed was going on at the time, but that's way too deep to go into now. i have been trying again recently more just to relax.

i did relaxation therapy once and achieved a similar state to when i first meditated, it was great, afterwards i was lying on a sofa curling up and moaning like a cat ha. it felt better than weed. i havent been able to do it the same since because i did it with an instructor, but i might try to find some audiobooks of it online and do it again.

it was basically lying on your back with your eyes closed listening to cheesy music while the instructor told you to stretch each part of your body and hold it till (which was very tense and painful) and then release it. afterwards it really did feel like the a good version of being stoned. altho the second time i tried it it wasn't as good.

there is a lot in this thread and the pm's from it that i have to read and go through more thoroughly but when i do i'll post about it again.

I am pretty sure of myself too

I would like to reiterate that I do not claim to posssess the key to astral projection, nor do I think that anyone should try it.

it's simply that, once you start thinking of things as being "impossible", you've relegated yourself to history's dead-weight.

the universe is a beautiful place, full of unseen things that simply need finding.

science and rationality should be used as tools, not crutches.

yr right bro

there is always another big bootie to slap

what you talkin bout willis

your sig image/.gif makes me think you could use a vacation sonic gail!

I do!!!!! I need one from me. I am trying to not be crazy...but i just feel crazier.

This is the central essence of Brahmanism and Vedic Hinduism, and also the very reason which I meditate/pray/vision quest/eat mushrooms

"We cannot borrow God.. We must effect His new incarnation from within ourselves. Divinity must descend, somehow, into the matter of our own existence and participate in this peculiar life-process.. The chief aim then of Indian thought is to unveil and integrate into consciousness what has thus been resisted and hidden by the forces of life and the supreme and characteristic achievement of the Brahman mind was its discovery of the Self (atman) as an independent, imperishable entity, underlying the conscious personality and bodily frame. Everything we normally know and express belongs to a sphere of change, the sphere of time and space, but this Self (atman) is forever changeless, beyond measure, beyond space and the veiling net of causality.." Heinrich Zimmer

yr just moving to fast. the cosmic change of meditation takes a LIFETIME to "unveil and integrate" heightened spiritual awareness into the plane of our everyda so-called reality. Revelation comes in microseconds, the other millions of seconds fly by rather uneventful, but the the Epiphany of Eternity, while brief, transcends the limits of time. If you want to interconnect with Eternity, you are going to have slow down my brother. take yr time

What do you think I am, dumb or something?Wow! Why don't they do a video version of every book? Save a lot of time.
I've been waiting for what seems like an age for somebody to challenge me to a "Hawking radiation is a lie" punch up. The gloves are off!

This is all you need to know about the universe.

if I did, not only would I ignore you, I would never offer to explain anything further. it's not rocket surgery, but interest often leads toward comprehension.

there are plenty of people who are smarter than I am, who don't give a flying fuck about this stuff. I accept that and move on.

I believe strongly in certain types of paranormal events, but believe that they are only "paranormal" because they are so poorly understood.


as I mentioned earlier, current quantum science requires "at least" 10 nearby dimensions. this is the minimum number, but it's suspected that the number is quite larger [inf.].

the fabric of space-time (which separates these dimensions) is thin, but extremely resilient. it will bend, sag and warp but rarely ever breaks. it is penetrated directly only by gravity and the smallest of particles (sub-Plank length).

gravity is caused by the "well" that each bit of matter creates. the more mass, the deeper the well and the greater chance for passing objects to "fall in". it is this warping of space, along with motion (you are currently moving at around 220 km/s along the galactic spur), that causes the perception of time.

Hawking radiation aka "Bekenstein-Hawking radiation" is an attempt to give black holes entropy (meaning, they're trying to explain why black holes don't gobble up the entire universe before disappearing).

Hawking's calculations for the release of "quantum gravity" require that the exiting particles fall below the Planck length before entering the event horizon.

THE PROBLEM: there is a point near the event horizon where time stops. an exiting particle of finite frequency would, at this point near the horizon, have infinite frequency and a wavelength greater than the Plank length.

MYTH: BUSTED

so, the "problem" is, you see, black holes DO NOT decay. all currently observed radiation has been from highly charged particles that barely escape the gravity well.


all black holes will "keep eating" until they reach the point where their total accretion rips open space-time and "burps" the compressed mass into a nearby (and virgin) universe.

this process continues back and forth, through "time", infinitely.

let there be light, my friend.

:)

LOL@CERN

please fucking BRING IT.

I'd like to date a rocket surgeon.. he sounds interesting.

every flight needs one when you fly long-haul.

many thanks and a thousand apologies to you, my constant friend. you have sat through (glazed over) more nut-job rants than should be allowed. and yes, I suppose I just gave Pookie page 1.

who is this at ?

the land down under.

edit: thank god for page 5.