Dave Moore

Two people together will always read the same temperature, but with qualifiers (read below). The temperature needn't be any particular value because the requirement is that they agree, not that the temperature Is 100c. Sorry. You said one thermometer. First, however, I have to qualify your question. Two people view a single thermometer at sea level. Question: 1) Will they also tell each other what they are seeing? 2) Do they both agree outwardly that they see the same temperature? 3) Is there a camera or video involved? 4) Will they ever meet again? If so, how soon? 5) Is anyone else watching? 7) Who will be told of the outcome? Because the observer of the event will effect the outcome, and agreement requires a question. Just like in real life. Your assumption that you can be a detached bystander is wrong. Every witness collapses the question separately, because subjective reality isn't observable by any outside agency without effecting the outcome. Sound familiar? They may coincidentally agree even if they do not compare observations, but if they could never know what the boiling point ought to be, then they would have to agree outwardly to each other what they had read to come away with the same reading. In subjective reality, we are all detectors and we must be asked a question and answer in order to collapse the wave function for the other. So the wave which appears to collapse for two people, for example, is also dependent on the further agreement by each that the observation yielded a particular result. Are you confused yet, Strange?

The Buddhists haven't any clear stand on determinism or free will, but I sense that they see the question much as I do, where one can ask, "What is reality?"------------ Is it an analysis or an experience? In other words, the feeling one has choice is no different from free will as experienced. My analysis causes me to examine my reality and conclude it makes more sense as predestined. Yet, 99% of my reality finds me submerged in that reality, aware (without equivocation) during that time that I do have free will. Oddly. I find this to be a reasonable answer to the question, if unorthodox. We are so accustomed to the truth of things only emerging after analysis and yet, the sense of free will pervades thought and action so thoroughly that the answer isn't so clear. I know this may seem to make no sense, but it may be a very elegant answer after all. I've conjectured that infants learn free will, having discovered that their actions appear to follow desires and fears, but at first, they likely experience life as a sort of object that they, the witness, at first observe without a great amount of involvement. Very soon, they make a connection with that body, in a sense "move into it", as if sliding from the passenger side to the driver's seat. They soon learn how to manipulate, absorb blame, apply it too, take credit, give credit, and all of those things we call free will. Yet, they also retain a knowledge of determinism, the later understanding of forgiveness and charity, either as expected to be applied to themselves or another person or especially an animal.

I can't see free will as a choice. I choose determinism. But really, all ten dollar words aside (well, expensive for someone like me), why on Earth would probabilistic outcomes not be deterministic (not kidding around now)? Taken from a point of view where a stage play were imagined (determinism), each percept, if subject to expectation, would always produce a satisfactory outcome that proves a probabilistic universe. Am I wrong? Determinism would, like a script, reveal itself to the mind one percept at a time. You would always, like watching a movie the second time, know what "probabilistic" events were going to occur ahead of time. That's how determinism works. The movie isn't changing its script just because an unknown (to the characters) outcome is ahead. The movie would always play the same, regardless of how many times you might watch it. See, I don't know why people don't get this. It's really quite simple. Or do they call it super determinism? Nor do I find the concept of free will to be sensible. Free will can't be proven, but it sure can be desired.

Regarding the comparison between two people together; There are many factors involved. This is quite involved--- not so much in complication of the principle, but in terms of analysis. For example, regardless of what each reads, who will be told later about the readings? And do both know what the readings "ought" to be? Are you with me so far? if, for example, both had been taught that the boiling point of water was 50 degrees, and both would not later be corrected (at least until they forgot the incident), then yes, absolutely, 50 degrees. You would never hear of the strange reading unless you could easily shrug it off as a mistake, or a lie, or some other believable scenario. You see? Sounds complicated but it is actually very simple. It allows each person to maintain their belief or at least to allow reasons that are believable that the story is questionable. So if one of the people measuring the 50 degree temperature is your brother (whom you've never known to lie), you would be less likely to even hear the story in the first place. Why not? Because of determinism. Each person would be limited to manifesting his or her own beliefs as an ideal, and if not possible given circumstances, to find a way out of the paradox. The subjective "world" of each would nicely arrange everything not by a plan, but as a lowest energy outcome in each observation or perception. But rather than thinking of the person's inner wisdom doing this, imagine it happening automatically, based on the limit of energy to shift belief. Each of us, then, is bound to a thing I call "economy of perception", where the average person is always manifesting the outcome that uses the least energy within the limitations of all who are involved (is it six degrees of separation, they say?), which is a very complicated scenario, I'll grant. And yet, simple, because the dynamic, once understood, explains it all in principle. That energy is the energy of belief / manifestation to whatever degree is necessary for each (on average). Determinism might be seen as the landscape observed from a moving train. There is the sense of choice, but it isn't real choice. The train doesn't go right or left. The rails may branch, and the engineer may think he's making a choice, but he can't know if he would have done anything else. His "choices" to switch tracks appear to be self-instigated nonetheless. He is rewarded with finding coal depots (as he knew he would) that refuel the coal car just in time each time. What he doesn't know is his train was always going to take the best route. In a determined reality, the lowest energy path is always taken. The person may not know what lies ahead, but his energy (body?) knows well. Like a pebble bouncing down a steep slope, the best path always follows gravity, mindlessly but flawlessly taking the most efficient path it can. And so our path goes as well. Just because we can't see ahead doesn't matter. Our energy "nose" knows. We may only sniff obvious energy in the present, but unbeknownst to us, we are constantly avoiding paradoxes and being steered around future belief obstacles. Regarding other comment, I agree, you are right that science doesn't say any such thing. I guess I've seen you say such things do not exist once or twice, when you said, for example, "You are wrong"---- not "You may be wrong". Wouldn't you agree? Argent, I still don't get what you are saying. Give me a clue. I'm not as smart as I seem. Does 'altogether' mean without clothing? Are you British (I know Strange is)?

Matter in what sense? To whom? I am not acknowledging any clear demarcation point separating imagination and "reality". I would go as far as to say that the only thing preventing an insane person from manifesting to a far greater degree, in the realest sense, including full-blown physical reality, is the presence of others who manifest a far more stable reality that appears consensual. In cases I have seen (and this is barring any inborn mental incapacity), is an earlier trauma that has caused a person (usu. a child) to shift his beliefs to compensate for a traumatic condition. A young man I know has been labelled schizophrenic because he hears voices in his head. He has many other problems, most (if not all) of which I believe are environmentally caused such as often occur with young people who have been through the system. Labelling is particularly damaging. Statements such as, "You may never be off of this drug", or, "You will probably never be able to work at a normal job.", and so forth, all create expectations that steer beliefs and subjective perceptions and hence, manifestations as well. This is hypnosis. Yet, it is not that hypnosis is only relegated to the mentally ill. We are all hypnotized from birth to believe in all sorts of things. We are no different than the "mentally ill". We simply have been more efficiently programmed to survive better, and nothing more. So if you agree with the last post as to how the subjective mind is influenced, a further step will have you deciding if anything exists outside of perception. If belief is what causes manifestation, you will never experience that which you don't believe, like the idea that belief causes manifestation. Simplified, but that's the idea. You would never know. Strange, you would never know or seen proven that each is manifesting his own reality. That is the most basic part of it. You would have to rely on subjective reasoning. Once you could scale that wall of disbelief, you would find that the world made far more sense than the one you left behind. Subjective reality makes more sense than objective reality. It explains everything better. Science doesn't know what to do with paranormal things except to deny they exist. They wander in the dark, unable to even imagine that consciousness is the creative force. It is incredibly irrational to think that the brain could create awareness, Almost insane, as far as I'm concerned. Yet, this is how many if not most humans think. That so-called empirical reality assembles itself as the most efficient means of using our personal energy. Our beliefs are dependent at all times on a limited energy supply. Call it "life energy". We become experts, hopefully, in economization of our energy through seeking positive beliefs and by limiting the negative ones. Positive new beliefs may boost our energy but often at the cost of self-awareness. Negative beliefs (Boy it hurts to lift weights) may be beneficial in the long run. "Sniffing" for energy is just that. If money floats your boat, at the cost of long term happiness, your lack of wisdom in pursuing instant gratification will create problems for you down the line. Without self-awareness, you have no means to judge if your decision to chase energy for energy's sake alone is the best tack to take. Every negative event we become snared by (due to lack of self-awareness) causes us to lose energy. This is the same as saying our beliefs have been rearranged against our wishes. If, for example, it is better for us to resist moving our beliefs (hence, manifestations) to please our parents as children, we might just internalize but retain, our childhood invisible playmate. In the case of my young "schizophrenic" friend, his mother sold his share of food stamps and sold herself (in his presence) for money to buy crank, and as a means of survival, he rebelled and retained the only manifestations he could trust. His bargaining with his energy probably saved his life.

I have discovered that no two realities are physically contiguous. Therefore, we are projecting our consciousness. Belief steers reality. Energy, of the personally acknowledged kind, controls the movement of belief. Belief manifests. Free will is an illusion, but in the experiential sense, it is quite real. Determinism is true, but only when analyzed. None of this creates paradoxes. Argent, I have no idea what you are talking about.

It's a problem of definitions. In the case of brain/mind or mind/brain, the analysis is useless. If you define awareness as fundamentally unique in aspect, it is more like 1 + symbol for 1 = 1 + symbol for 1 In other words, using a symbol of a phenomenon in the same conceptual framework with the actual phenomenon it represents cannot yield the answer. A simple formula that is instigated by the question, "What happens if I have a chair and I add another chair?" would look like this: Chair plus chair = 2 chairs. But the formula 1 plus chair = ? lacks enough information to yield a result. Awareness is not a variable that is applicable in defining brain in the same way that brain is a variable in defining frontal lobe. This is the problem with science. Science is forever limited to its basic tool kit. You ask, "Where does space end?", and they hand you a tape measure. You cannot add or subtract from infinity for conceptual reasons. Nor can you add or subtract from awareness.

Ten oz. I have repeatedly said that the only energy you will ever know as real will be the energy you feel as negative or positive. You are incapable of resisting the requirement to objectify energy. To you, it means nothing if it isn't an event that is shared. Shared means objective, provable, measurable, and physical. Your own knowledge that is absolutely proven as real to yourself means nothing to you compared to a science experiment. I do posit that we all experience at any time a state of being that is somewhere between the extremes of negative and positive. Excruciating pain and mental anguish at one end and sublime glorious ecstasy at the other. I am saying that this gradation is far more real than a science experiment. It trumps all other comers in terms of importance to the individual. It is only subjectively measurable but it is nevertheless very, very, real. Life is not a science experiment. It is a deadly serious game we are playing. We need to put our measuring tools away and get on with asking what we actually know already deep down. If you just decided to try, you might discover some things you never realized you could know. But it ain't out there. What's out there is just a lot of information.

I have to say that the idea of consciousness being a necessity is out. It's a good point about sleep but I am going deeper. I see the very fundamental quality of awareness as being absolutely divorced from the material body. It is absolutely and unequivocally different from any biological process. to think that awareness could suddenly be "invented" by nature is patently absurd. Awareness is the very embodiment of a witness, one who stand aside and witnesses a body and mind that feel pain and pleasure and desire and hope. All of that has zero function and certainly, as said, detrimental. I imagine the idea of torture, and how a DNA genome would adapt to a hive mentality where each would always consider the group. look at the world today. Wars and famine, overpopulation and greedy corporations fleecing societies, lonely people with cell phones stuck to their ears---- all because we are aware. Our awareness is our pitfall. It causes us to be selfish if nothing else. Self-centered and sick with greed. What mechanism in nature would survive better because of greed or jealousy or even anger, which often robs a person of common sense and causes his premature demise or that of his neighbor? But not even considering that, show me the gene that creates awareness! Awareness is special! It must be obvious. I guess I have to say, there really is no argument. Only someone attempting to bolster the idea that everything that exists can be dissected in a laboratory. Their desire is to see the whole of existence as measurable and finite has disrupted their minds. It completes their narrative, in their own limited world view. I can't believe we're even talking about it. Better to wonder if machines could think! That I can't solve.

Right on, Kiplngram. Also, I sense that everything has consciousness if we are projecting reality. This would mean that the thing we project is our own consciousness. I "create" you and you me, but at the same time, both of us has created volitional characters who both exist separately and also answer our expectations.

If one's mind is damaged, it can be said that the "brain" has been damaged. Brain in quotes to signify the metaphoric. This is not a game I'm playing. I'm saying that virtually everything "out there" is a metaphor. If reality is subjective, then it stands to reason that we project a reality, a sort of stage set that appears in our consciousness as a feature of an objective world. If I insist that my own reality is the only one, that reality will arise in my awareness to "prove" I am right. If I, on the other hand, do not insist that my reality is the only one, I will experience a far more varied reality-scape. I use energy to describe a very real dynamic. I can always feel my own energy. I am aware that the phenomenon of belief is constantly manifesting in my awareness as real. I am not saying I can control my beliefs. I cannot will myself to fly. Energy is involved in manifestation if that manifestation is dependent upon moving my beliefs. I feel this resistance to moving my beliefs so I use the term, 'inertia' to describe the process. Like a weight, beliefs can be nearly impossible to move, or alter. This would be exemplified by your own difficulty in altering your own beliefs to align with mine regarding this topic. I do, however, find that I am able to access other realities more easily than most. I have many meaningful coincidences. I meet people who you will likely never meet, who seem to recognize in me a kinship of sorts regarding my ability to understand their reality, however strange. You would insist that you would know the difference between subjective and objective reality, but in truth, you are guessing. You can't prove anything is objective because you are forever limited to your perception of your body and mind. you are perceiving what you believe but you are not capable of knowing in any real way that what you are perceiving is the only reality there is. Therefore, you must insist that I, or many others who have experienced what you would call paranormal phenomena are mistaken or delusional or lying. You must, in order to maintain your energy, agree with the most fulfilling realty you know, the status quo you never drift from. It takes no energy, and often supplies energy, to agree with the consensus. To go against the consensus is anathema to protecting your energy. You can't risk it. All because of your limited energy to manifest, or "move the mass of belief". No matter where you go, this 'energy sniffing' replaces truth with agreement, . It is no accident that the greatest artists who ever lived often suffered greatly. I think of Van Gogh, who was not accepted in his lifetime, and yet who refused to take the easy energy of agreement with his culture. It destroyed him in the same way I have been destroyed in many ways. I have paid the price of holding fast against the consensus. The danger of this constant sniffing for energy is that it always amounts to ready agreement with those who already share your beliefs and a net gain of energy if you manage to acquire energy through ganging up on a weaker opponent's beliefs. You feel an onrush of energy, and you feel ebullient and satisfied. Converse to that, someone like myself can surreptitiously thwart you and three others here with ease, because I am a master of energy control and usage. I remain perhaps where I started energy-wise, but I am certainly not out gunned. The litmus test for that is how this thread is perceived by others. They can see what you cannot. That is why you and the other science team members will not outlast me here. Only a moderator might accomplish that, which would make no sense, but who knows? Even a thread about consciousness might be the wrong place to talk about consciousness. I am willing and able to discuss this topic until the proverbial cows come home, and I hope I shall. The understanding of consciousness is a hot topic these days. I see some PHD physicists on the road lecturing on mind and consciousness and I laugh a bit when I see they still append their PHD to their name, hoping that they can attract a bigger audience in doing so, while in fact they appear for the most part to know next to nothing about the topic except "How to attract a mate", or 'How to make you dreams come true", and so forth. Where energy (money and adulation of fans) is concerned, I recognize an energy sniffer. Witness Ton Campbell of 'My Big TOE'. He's all over the internet, especially YouTube. He has a lot of it right but the part where he tries to tie it all together is sorely lacking. yet, he is amazingly close. I will say this; I don't know anyone who shares my knowledge that has not undergone a thing known to Buddhists as an 'Awakening'. This is a life altering event. When it occurs (Dalai Lama, Sadhguru, Eckhart Tolle, et al) the mind shifts gears. Perception changes. It is like the mind has been supercharged. Awareness becomes extraordinary. Nothing is the same. And one feels reborn in an instant, and sees the dissolution of paradoxes where none were known to be. I would happily describe what knowledge arises out of this amazing event to anyone who is open and who shows a genuine interest in this knowledge. You may PM me if you are so interested.

I disagree, ten oz.. This is all about consciousness. I know that consciousness is more real than a brain, for example. The mention of a metaphor was interesting. I see the brain as a metaphor for the mind. Are you saying that shouldn't be allowed here? Are you hoping I'll be banned from this thread? How can energy as I defined it be a metaphor?? if you feel low in energy after a hard day, do you just assume it's a metaphor? Do you just bounce up and carry on as if you had all the (metaphoric) energy in the world? Of course not. But I could read an article about energy and still go out for a run. I am enjoying this. To see you and others come up with such nonsensical statements is definitely energizing me. I don't mean that as a mean statement. It's just refreshing after all the aggravation I suffered on other threads, to know that many reading this thread later will as likely as not snicker when they see the paradoxes in what you and the rest of the team are saying. I have never said that there's anything wrong with science. Science is great. I like what science has achieved. But science falls flat on its face when it comes to the study of reality at its core. It's best to back off and let the rest of us deal with it. Your predilection is not geared to deal with the principles involved. Not an insult, just an observation. We all have our areas of expertise.

You were determined to say that, weren't you?

Then don't be trolled. Find a thread where you aren't so challenged. This is a thread about consciousness. You are stretching your limitations, Strange. Hard materialists like you are usually not able to see beyond your scientific beliefs. I am not so limited. I have studied consciousness for decades.

This topic is absolutely the most enjoyable I've taken part in the whole time I've been a member. I can't pull myself away. Yes, I am saying that there are two colors. I have seen this test before. I know the two squares are the same. I didn't even check. I also know that they are not the same color to the reasoning subjective mind. Just look at them! Do they look like the same color? You mistrust your own mind. Your mind is capable of reminding you that perspective and shading have meaning. If they were different colors, the picture would, like you, make no sense.

More than a test of illusions, it seems it has progressed to become a test of sanity. And it is not my sanity I am referring to. Your insistence that I accept your notion that things are not what they appear to be is silly. I am saying that it depends upon your definition of reality. You insist that reality is what it means to a machine that tests color. In deciding to paint your house, you would go outside and insist that the house was two colors. The one in the shade and the one in the sunlight. I would say, just buy one color. Trust me.

I said, it depends on your perspective. I know I said that. I'm allowing your perspective but you do not allow my perspective. Surely you read my comment? I think it is disingenuous for you to say I am delusional. An oil painting of a landscape might do the same thing but you would also use another sense within your mind to compensate for the artist's "trick". It all depends on the question. Same color in order to make sense, or same color when put under a spectrograph in a laboratory?

They are indeed different colors, even while I'm sure that side by side they are the same. So what? You would insist they are the same. but they are not to your awareness. Uou would have to provide another picture to "prove" they are the same. The correct answer is, it depends on perspective. If MEANING matters more than LATER TESTING, then they are different. If later testing is more important, then they are the same. I love reading and learning. I spend hours every day studying all kinds of subjects. I love history, Ancient civilizations, and akmost anything I can find that is interesting. It doesn't matter to me if it is fiction to me. I love it all the same. I do not criticize you or anyone for reading. I'm just saying, there's a vast difference between the consistency of written or learned information and the kind of reality you know is absolutely true. Like knowing you are sad, for example, or the feeling that you will never be as good as your father (sorry).

Strange, I am no different from anyone else in terms of (example), I read tutorials on YouTube about how to fix my car, or any number of sources that inform me of what is going on in the world. I was asked what real was to me. My own feelings are more real than my lawnmower. And I am not talking about facts and information when I talk about what is real. I am saying that my knowledge that I feel energized, for example, is more real that a belief that Gamma rays are a form of energy. In the first instance, I am actually feeling the energy. In the latter case, I must trust that Gamma rays even exist in the first place.

I gather each of you believe in free will. Read and write, Ten oz. Not right. Not just a jab. We all tell on ourselves through riddles and paradoxes. I am redefining energy. Obviously, to use standard scientific vernacular is an assumption only. I have often said, "I feel energized." Or, conversely, "I feel my energy is low today." That definition is also in the dictionary. Why the insistence that I ought to use a scientific definition? Why not a commonly understood one?

String Junky, why are you on a consciousness thread? You guys, all of you, think what you've "learned" is not falsifiable, but insist that what you experience is falsifiable. The only real energy you will ever know is the energy you feel. Know, not assume. FEEL, not read about. Are you guys just kidding me? And regarding tests you do yourself--- from the mouth of the one who insists we often experience illusions!! A bit of cognitive dissonance, say I.

Dopamine? You too have no idea how to approach this subject. What if I say that you learned about dopamine by reading about it? Yet, you know one feels energized when happy, and that is far more real than something you believe because you read it. It is a complete waste of time talking to you if you can't see that. Do you believe in free will?

Strange, enough. I get it that you can't wrap your head around this stuff. This is a thread about consciousness. Science knows nothing about the subject. I stand by with what I said. It is truer to say that energy is that which can be proven axiomatically than to say, "I read it in high school". Your first mistake is your insistence that what is taught is more real than pain or opleasure, for example. I say, you have lost the ability to discern what true reality is. If you cannot, don't bother talking about it, I can see even imagining it is beyond your abilities.

Answer: That which I experience. I think you are mistaken in your thinking. assuming things you have read are empirically true. You must therefore throw out other things that you deem empirically false. This is entirely assumption. I only know to be true those things I know to be true. For example, I know what energy is. It is that which I feel when I win the lottery. This isn't a paper definition. It is axiomatic truth. I assume that your definition is more accurate? That energy is something one could plug into a formula?

No, you got it. And reading what I wrote I would agree it was confusing. I am saying that; Awareness is nothing like any survival trait or mechanism, It is fundamentally unlike anything else. It is only the requirement of science to explain all experience as physical in nature that causes them to seek a physical source for consciousness. The fact that so many in science actually theorize or even believe that the brain creates consciousness shows how far they are from absorbing what is absolutely obvious. I forget where, some thread here, where a commenter asked the question, "Do you think consciousness is just an illusion?" Boy! That's a great question! Let me think about that!