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Mike Smith Cosmos, Well before I check out your new thread. Let me say this about the current 3 rules under consideration. The second rule is a restatement of the first, but adds the requirement of "some sort of initiative". In this, for the second rule to have import, you speculate on the existence of a prime mover. Some sort of "reason" for things to "get started" in the first place...so what if this prime mover is not the case? Do the rules come crashing down? And all the rules, talk about possibilities, which require a pair of dice, or a deck of cards, or some sort of already set up stage, with rules, characters, and a schema already in place, upon or in which to then figure the odds...again presupposing a director to set the stage, cast the characters, and hold to the script. My personal determination is that the universe does not know what it is doing, and its writing the script as it occurs. Ad lib universe, so to speak. But we are 100% of the universe, and can thusly claim rights as producer, director, screen writer, stage hand, lead character, supporting cast, audience, or critic, in that we can take these various perspectives, and find on some level that our role is true. Concurrent with each role though, are some limitations, and areas where in truth, one must acknowledge that there is stuff going on outside the theatre...so to speak. So my conclusion is that the universe does not know what its doing, and is doing everything its doing, for the first time, currently, as that this particular arrangement of materials and energies, this "pattern", has not occurred before, and can only have a "next" pattern, based upon the previous one. Something already manifest which evolves and becomes the next manifestation. This eliminates the prime mover, as your friend would agree, because the mover would be static, if it itself was not doing the next appropriate or possible thing given its circumstances. It perhaps requires an infinite cosmos, or at least a one universe at a time theory that can "come from" a past universe, and set the stage for "the next" universe, but it is not a consideration any more of a stretch than to consider an infinite God. Bottom line, it appears to me that we, as universe material, are able to "do it by ourselves", and act and react, form enities made up of smaller entities, and constitute larger entities, without any outside help. Regards, TAR2

Mike Smith Cosmos, The inbetween stuff. That is evidently where we are. Well distanced from the tinest and most numerous. Little current access do we have to a quark in an atom in a sun in a galaxy 100,000,000lys from Earth. And distanced as well in scale, from the quark within an atom of carbon in our own pinky finger. Its interesting to me, that we each try to contain it all. Find that "principle" that explains the all of time, the all of space. I am thinking its rather too big, in at least size and number and duration, to fall into just one pattern, or be contained in a simple thought. And its only "from here" that we can make any assessment, anyway. Kant might say, that it is rather undoable to know the thing as it is. It is more likely that we can only know a thing, by how we judge it, and what we can say about it, or think about it. Your theory is fine, except it does us no good. Whatever the universe is, however it came about, it is not now, and never will be, under our complete control, and while it is locally affectable by our manipulations, and globally understandable, by our ability to shift grain size and thusly contain huge and tiny things in our concepts...a monk on a hilltop, reaching nirvana, does not cause the universe to instantly merge to a singularity. We are quite insulated from that. It took too long for the universe to get this big, and this complex, and this detailed. It cannot undo itself in an instant. It perhaps does not have the ability to undo itself, now that it is manifest. In anycase, three rules, are not going to cover it. They simply can't. You cannot describe a peanut butter cup with only three rules. Regards, TAR2

Gees, "How can something be "supernatural" in "nature"?" Well, this is the point I have been trying to make. Supernatural is an impossible realm to consider along with the natural realm. It is a realm above and beyond the natural. If we are considering science and philosophy we should be considering that which is real and natural, logical and true. If magic or impossible things are required to explain a thing, than the thing is not real. And if such thoughts are entertained, they are probably thoughts of the supernatural or superstitious kind. Yet we have these thoughts. This does not make the object of the thought real or possible, but the thought itself, being had by a real existent being, is a real thought, that can be considered and understood for what it is, and is therefore a real thing, a natual thing, in and of itself. I do not say that Dr. Stevenson has not cataloged thousands of cases of live people that have physical characteristics that are reminiscent of the injuries that caused the death of someone else. But he reports that the young child remembers being this dead person, and this doesn't make any sense, beyond the imagination of a child, brought up in a society that believes in reincarnation. I remember discussing a supposed case of reincarnation where a young child in America remembered the name of a real character in a European town, and described the town and countryside, in some impressively matching detail to the real place. I did not read the book, that described this case, but was talking to someone who had, looking for a "natural" explaination. One of the facts in the book was that this child had a great aunt from the area in Europe, who had on occasion baby sat for the young child. You might look for evidence against there being a natural explanation that would instead fit your impossible, unnatural theory of reincarnation, but I speculate that the great aunt told the young child bed time stories, and she used the names and images of a real place in her memory to tell the tales. This would clinch it for me. Possible and true and would explain the imagination and memories of the child. That would be the end of it. No further speculation would be required. No magic would be needed. No couchroach souls floating around looking for future robber barons and mass murderers to inhabit. No impossible or unatural connections required, when natural and possible ones are already the only ones that can be the case. If and when Dr. Stevenson does unearth a contradiction or a natural explanation for a claim, he dismisses it as a weak case, or a debunked case of reincarnation. Thus every claim of reincarnation is not an actual case of reincarnation. There are some which even Dr. Stevenson would discount. There is no good reason for him not to find a natural explanation for each and every one, should he doggedly search for such, rather than suggesting there doesn't seem to be any natural explanation other than reincarnation (reincarnation actually not being a natural explanation at all). AND if he were to find the Aunt that told the story to the child in private, the case would be solved. Naturally. Or the newspaper or book or scroll that the child came upon and looked at and thought about, when no one else was around. Consider the situation now, with the internet, where any 3 year old can see images from all over the world, of all sorts of people, events, places, patterns and whatever. Things that nobody else or even they themselves would remember consciously witnessing. If two years later, they would remember being in India and seeing a thin cow in the street, would you suppose they could astral project? Or would this prove to you that they once were alive in India? Besides, if Dr. Stevenson or you would find the actual reasons and way that a consciousness "gets" from one body to another, then it wouldn't be supernatural anymore, it would be the natural way. Regards, TAR2 P.S. I take a little offense at you discounting my human judgement as insufficient for the investigation, as if you could possibly ascend to a state in which you yourself were no longer using insufficent human judgement, but superior judgement of some other kind.

Gees, The situation, in total, today, the one that I am conscious of now, is not the same situation that existed 30 years ago. The Galaxy has experienced some super novas and maybe some stars have died and some are being formed, and all the stars are 30 years older than they were 30 years ago. The planets are alligned differently, comets are in different positions on their way toward or away from the Sun. The Sun has advanced in its circuit around the center of the Milky Way. Here on Earth, babies of thirty years ago, are playing professional football, running companies, writing books, and having children of their own. People who contacted childhood friends by letter 30 years ago, might text them now, or Skipe. The situation is different now. What one CAN be conscious of now, did not exist to be conscious of 30 years ago. Bin Laden had not had two planes full of humans flown into the twin towers. They stood on lower Manhattan. There was a TAR 30 years ago, this SAME bucket of memories and consciousness that is typing this now, but there is a consistent history that can be traced between the world in general and this particular consciousness, TAR. I never left the world in the last 30 years, I evolved, and grew in insight and capability right along with it. And it never left me, it kept right on moving and growing, giving birth and dying, in all the cycles and patterns that we are conscious of. I am no longer where I was, how I was, and am no longer in the place in the "patterns" that I occupied, and was conscious of, 30 years ago. While I can trace and recall and prove my existence and continutiy and consciousness and position and age and condition of growth and decline, association and knowledge, awareness and insight, memory and experience, that would REALLY be the case that connects the consciousness of TAR 30 years ago, with the consciousness of TAR today. and binds me to reality, the Earth, my friends, family and the human race in total, you and Dr. Stevenson can find no such trail, no mechanisms, no consistently real vehicals, to connect the consciousness of a dead 40 year old woman, to the consciousness of Sweet What's Her Name. We can imagine connections occuring quite outside of reality, but then they would be connections occuring quite outside of reality, now wouldn't they be? Regards, TAR2 They would be connections "Supernatural" in nature. Made up, unreal, speculations, that bear no resemblance to reality and do not fit the case. We are all already bound securly to the cycles and patterns of the Earth and the Galaxy. We already know this when we look into the eyes of a child, or into the night sky, or smell a flower, or feel the consciousness of a departed life in what remains around us. Its already true, already apparent that we are each connected to the rest, in all the real ways that we are. What is the point of looking for an "unreal" connection?

Gees, Well, lets break this into two considerations. One, where your (or my) consciousness came from, and two, where consciousness in general came from. From a personal point of view, I have no memory of being anything in particular before my birth. And have a lot of evidence that suggests things will be much as they were, for me, after my death, as they were before my birth. That is, I will have no memory of TAR, 'cause the body/brain/heart group that was alive as TAR will cease to function. While this seems rather inappropriate, to be alive and conscious, and then neither alive or conscious, and its rather an unfathomable for a living, conscious being to accept, but we have all experienced this thing called death...whether it was Mom or a stranger, or a goldfish or a dog, or simply the dying of a plant at the end of its season. But I didn't pop into existence without people being the case, before me. My parents, my grandparents, the Chinese, the family that lived downstairs, the parents of the kids I went to school with, the people that wrote the literature I read, the people that built the resevoirs and airports, the scientists that discovered the processes and materials and technology that protect me from hunger and disease and the elements and wild animals. And not only did people before me, prepare and structure the buildings and equipment around me, but established and maintained a cultural and legal and moral and philosopical and spiritual environment, condusive to protecting and maintaining human life AGAINST the entropy and disorganization that the universe seems to tend toward. So, there is also something larger and more long lived than an indivual human, to consider, when considering consiousness. 130 years ago, there were houses and families, old and young, science and technology, art and religion, countries and churches and universities...and not a single human, alive then, is alive now. In 150 years we will most probably have a completely new batch of humans running the place. Thirty year olds born 120 years from now, 60 year olds born 90 years from now, 90 year olds born 60 years from now, 120 year olds born 30 years from now. Perhaps the 120 year olds will be the children of my children's children. Barring expensive and amazing technological advancement, there will not be anybody around in 150 years, that is alive today. And any 150 year olds around, that are babies now, will be most probably quite reliant on the younger generations, to keep their containers pumping. But the point, is that there was life and consciousness before any individual life and consciousness, and there will be life and consciousness after an individual life and consciousness, but there would not be ANY life and consciousness, without there being individual lifes and individual consciousness, that are born, grow, live and learn, and die. There is still no need for magic. No need to have a life, in total, recycled. The situation is already evident, that it works in quite the way that it obviously works. The way everybody has been doing it, since the first pack, the first herd, the first troop, the first tribe. Regards, TAR2

Swansont, Glad as well that you are safe and not immediately affected. Was wondering though, as is the rest of the country, why the man did what he did. Do you have any "inside" dope? Not hard facts of course, but peices of information you might be privy to, through IT connections, that would help the rest of us guide our speculations away from unlikely things and towards more actually possible motives and mind set? Regards, TAR2 Something you might have heard at the gym?

Sounds good to me.

Gees, No magical connections. Just unconsidered ones, or improperly assigned ones. Since we have the ability to assign mind to other clumps of matter, other than ourselves, it is not only possible, but probable that we would sometimes if not often, make an incorrect assignment. This neither causes our correct assignments to be incorrect, or our incorrect assignments to be correct. That is why we ask each other to clarify our assignments and see if we are in agreement or not. If I assign mind to my alarm clock, on the basis of its ability to know exactly when to wake me up every morning, you would remind me that it was other people, with minds that designed the thing, built the power grid to power it, and it was me that set the thing, in the first place. We "made it" have a mind, but it was our mind that was transferred to it. It is not a conscious mind, just because we see our own thoughts and desires held within it. So, for you and Dr. Stevenson, you imagine a mind in a 40 year old, with the ability to retain its memories of life, family, home and circumstances of death, in that forty year old, and then imagine that SAME individual mind, which is already described by the body and family and home and circumstances that define it, popping up as the mind of an undeveloped 2 year old, often in the same family, home, circumstances, that has birthmarks reminicent of events that caused the death of the first mind. Let me ask you this. If your great grandmother had a penchant for strawberries and died as the result of a gardening accident, and you had two children, one with freckles 2 inches from the spots where the infected gardening implement had gouged grandma, would you think it more likely that this child was grandma, than the other? What if this child liked strawberries? What if this child didn't like strawberries? What if the other child was a lot like great grandma, but had no freckles on his arm? Regards, TAR2 What if a third child, your first born, had birthmarks EXACTLY where the prongs had entered great grandmas skin, but was born a year and a half before great grandma died? Would you rule out this child being great grandma? Or would you look to modify your timing theories of soul transference? I just hit my snooze alarm. The damn clock didn't know I was already up.

md65536, Took a little Wiki tour of the postulates of SR. Understand your point somewhat, but retain my skepticism. My attitude perhaps is best alluded to by a quote I ran into, in an excerpt from a letter Einstein wrote to Italian Mathematician Marcel Grossmann. "I admire the elegance of your method of computation; it must be nice to ride through these fields upon the horse of true mathematics while the like of us have to make our way laboriously on foot. —Albert Einstein, The Italian Mathematicians of Relativity[8] " Regards, TAR2 Besides, what could s squared is less than 0 possibly mean? Or setting c to 1 to make the calculations simpler? Why not just set everything to 1, and we can leave it at that? And have some pie together.

Thanks for the tips. But I have already tried and failed to grasp the "import" of time dilation. You say it is forced by the equations. That I must accept a counter intuitive thing to explain the intuitive. I would rather just wait for a better explanation.

Gees, Hum...I thought the egg attached to the wall AFTER fertilization...but biology class was a long time ago, and my brain holds information like a sieve holds water...so...anyway if consciousness is a developed thing, its probably also a developing thing, and it would be difficult to say what 100% consciousness would be. My Aunt, a very intelligent woman and a proponent of Hegel and dialectical thinking, would say that one could "raise" their consciousness. And if we look for a schema within which to place ourselves as a species, it would be difficult to say we have as a group, or as any outstanding individual reached a state of 100% consciousness. Though some monk on a hilltop might erroneously claim its been done. So picking 7 as a 100% conscious mark, is somewhat arbitrary and baseless. Let's just say that by seven we have a good start, and most of the equipment that we will have as adults, but probably have some things still to learn, and our consciousness still has quite a big world to "become" conscious of. This still leans in the direction of my take. That consciousness is a state arrived at, more than a substance aquired. And as such it need not be looked for in the bushes or in the clouds, because its an emergent quality and characteric of a human, if its human consciousness we are looking for. So it belongs to, and can be found in a human, and can not exist physically in the spaces between humans, as a substance might be able to exist. As to "want". Does a sock "want to" get dusty behind the drier>? If not, why can socks so often seem to be found fulfilling this desire? Having the ability to concieve of unseen others is part and parcel of being able to develop a theory of mind. But one should probably only assign mind to things that actually have a mind. I think "want" is something that requires knowing the difference between having and not having, and if sperm know the difference then we should feel sorry for the majority of sperm, that never get what they want. Regards, TAR2 Or hold a billion funerals for all the dead skin cells we lose. OH, the cellmanity! (As in the empassioned words of the reporter at the Hindenburg disaster)

md65536, Well thank you for being gentle. I consider myself like the other "nay" sayers. In fact I know I am like them, in the sense that I would like to think that I am figuring something out for the first time. But since we both know that this has already been thought about, by minds with a great deal more horsepower than TAR, and has already been "figured out" quite nicely, my "questioning" takes on a different mood than the fellow who "knows" he is seeing it right, and all the other investigators have gotten it wrong. So I am glad you didn't completely lump me in with that sort. I just enjoy taking it one step at a time, and doing it my way. Its important to me, that I see it. It does not really do me any good to consider that someone else already sees it. Like the child perhaps, who will not keep their hands off the stove because Mom told him it was hot, but will have no trouble keeping his hands off the stove once he is burned. I need to see it for myself. And I am holding out hope, that there is more than one way to look at dilation, that does not require someone else's way of looking at it to be wrong, for my way of looking at it to be right. My conception is that every event in the universe is occuring now, each position in the universe being the "intersection" of past events from everywhere else in the universe. An observer is like a focal point, that is a particular distance at a particular vector terminating at that point, from every other position in the universe. Thus every photon or impulse coming in to a particular point is from a past event, since each point is separated by the speed of light, from every other point. And this fits nicely with the same inertial frame concept, with no motion. Once something moves within this frame work, that focal point moves, but the incoming impulses still travel at the speed of light, and every distance between points remains the distance it takes light to travel it. The only two things moving toward an impulse would change is the frequency of that impulse, and the distance between the focal point and the source of the impulse. If the focal point starts at A and moves to B, the distance between A and B is not changed. But the distance between the focal point and A increases and the distance between the focal point and B decreases. When the focal point reaches B, B as a focal point experiencing the present, and the traveling focal point now very close in distance are sharing the present moment of the universal now, and focal point A is now the distant point. A is still sending out impulses and still receiving impulses in the same manner as when the moving focal point left it, but is now, for the moving focal point, as distant as B was, when it left A. It seems to me, that the whole concept works, once you assign currentness to every point in the universe, and concede that the rest of the universe is the speed of light away from any given focal point. Regards, TAR2

Gees, Well I think Rebecca gives us a real clue. An area of the brain that developes that is involved with the conception of an unseen other...allowing a person to develop a Theory of Mind...that another mind exists, outside of theirs...several years later a "rational" mind is dominant in the child. It might be an important factor in consciousness. I don't see a rational mechanism however to explain this "other mind" transferring, intact with sense memories, from a developed mind of a 40 year old, to an undeveloped mind of a 2 or 3 year old. What you are talking about, seems more to me, to be explainable by our obvious connection to the world that came before we were born. We are aware of this outside world, that evidently existed prior our "arrival" in it, as soon as we first internalize it, through our senses and into our brains, and remember the images and compare them against the next. As we build our analog "model" of the world in the synapses and connections and signals in our brains, it becomes quite inseparable from any "thoughts" we have about it. And anything we think or say about it, already is based solidly on the consistent presence of it, around us. A child does not seek "independence" as an adult might. Satisfaction of hunger and thirst and needs of his or her person, surely, but until 3 or 4 does not consider what some unseen other is thinking. Although there does seem to be evidence of "mirror" neurons that fire in one person, of any age, in "sympathy" with those firing in other. Base sense type firings, like your mouth watering, watching someone else eating something "tasty", or "flinching" when an object is flying toward someone elses face, or wincing as a needle goes into someone else flesh. Connections with the outside world are obvious and plain. We already have these facts. The genes of our parents, the countries of our forefathers, the bread on the table earned by the sweat of our parents...etc. etc. In those years between 2 and 7 we learn to "think" about it, and think in terms of what other "minds" think of it. This ability is a crucial part of consciousness. It is not, in my take, something we are "forgetting", that we knew before, but something we are learning how to do, again, like the generations before us did, but for us, its the "first" time we know these things. How many times has a woman borne a child? Billions. How many times have you? Of the billions, which births are the most important? Which births were "firsts"? That 40 year old's consciousness has no business in the mind of a child. None at all. And no way to get there, but the ways we already know about. Regards, TAR2

md65536, I am not sure what I am saying. I know the equations of relativity "work", and certainly predictions can be made and things figured based on it. But there are assumptions made, and conventions accepted that just don't make sense to me, when I try to visualize the thing. It is likely that if I "understood" what was being said, and the definitions of "proper time" and so on, I might "get" what is meant by length contraction and the like, but as it stands, it just doesn't seem to add up to me. But that is just me. I used to argue with my calculus teachers about limits and integrals and such because certain aspects of the thing just seemed to me to arrive at approximations, and not reflect reality as closely as I would have liked to see it depicted. Close enough for government work, I guess. Anyway, I just wonder if there is "another" way to look at the situation of light and time and distance that also "works", but does not require length contraction and time dilation. When I look at the recent diagrams of the two expanding circles, NOT touching each other at the moment that the standing observer and the moving observer are both at the same spot, I figure something is being depicted incorrectly. That's all. The implications of whether that means I just don't get it, or someone else just doesn't get it, or I don't know the definitions, or the definitions are incomplete, or what, is sort of my question. Often the term is used, that the speed of light is alway "measured" at C, whatever frame an observer happens to be in. A measurement, implies to me a "schema", a story, that links a series of events, as well as implies a switch between subjective "sensing" or observing, and theoretical "figuring" what the observation is telling one about objective reality. The implications of relativity require curved space, length contraction, time dilation, time moving backward, and all sorts of things that just don't seem to fit together right. It seems much more likely to me, that we see the world exactly right, and our equations fit it, than to imagine that we are seeing it all wrong, and it must fit our equations. Regards, TAR2

Janus, Yes, I am position obsessed. When the two observers are at the same point, the foward wave from the rear strike is reaching that point. Both will see the photons or wave arriving at that point similtaneously. When the forward wave of the lead strike reach that point both observers see it at exactly the same time. Your diagrams show the wave front from the front strike hitting first the moving observer, then the stationary observer, then the position of the rear strike. This is not the information given at the start. The information was that the wave fronts of two similtaneous strikes, from the vantage point of the standing observer, reach the standing observer similtaneously. The moving observer, not being blind, will experience both wavefronts arriving at that point, because, at that point, he is halfway between, exactly as the standing observer. Who does not see the strikes at the same time are the observers standing at the position of the front strike and the position of the rear strike. The fellow standing at the position of the front strike, sees his strike, and then the speed of light later, sees the rear strike. The fellow standing at the rear strike, sees his strike, and then the speed of light later, sees the front strike. The similtaneousness of the strike, applies only to observers halfway between, since this is the definition of similtaneousness. You can't then expect that the fellow standing at the front strike would see the back strike at the same moment he saw the front of the train pass, and his lightnings strike. He sees the front strike, then the rear strike, then the observer pass, knowing full well that the moving observer experienced the rear strike, moments before him, and the front strike moments after. Since the order of events at the rear stationary observer was, moving observer passes, trailend of train occurs similtaneously with the rear lightning strike, then the front strike is observed, the only thing that trues up when the front observer and the real observer compare notes with the moving observer and the stationary observer, is that the forward wave from the front strike reached both the standing observer, and the moving observer when the moving observer was halfway between the front strike and the rear strike. And that the forward wave from the rear strike, reached the midpoint between the strikes, likewise, when the moving observer was there. Regards, TAR2

md65536, Well I do admit I have trouble understanding the implications of length contraction and time dilation. Its important to me that the story of one observer "trues up" with the story of another observer, and the two can be taken together to understand the script of the greater story, that the combination of the two would tell. Certainly the propagation delay of light is extremely important, or everything would be happening at the same time, at the same place. This "distance" is crucial to maintain in my understanding. The equations of relativity exchange time and distance for each other, and this may be true and doable in some regards, but make no sense to do in other regards. If things are to be understood, or "put in place" in ones mind, the implications to the one frame of reference of the events observed in the other frame of reference need to be able to be understood, in an attempt to reach an "objective" sense of it. What continually complicates my personal understanding goes back to my first readings of Einstein's lightning strike and train. What makes the lightning strike a single event that happens several places at once? Any small area of the flash, is happening at a particular place, at a particular time. The entire lightning stike is thus a series of particular events and the first event in the chain of events that make a lightning strike, happens before the next event, in a different location than the next. The lightning strike itself does not provide a small enough duration or happen in a confined enough space, to be used as if the propagation of light should not be considered, even within the conception of the total strike. Regards, TAR2 P.S. Perhaps its inadvisable to mix psychology and philosophy with physics, but it appears to me, that we are all already bound to the same moment, that proceeds rather in lockstep to become the next moment. The Mars rover may be 14 minutes away, but there is only one instance of it currently in the solar system, in the Milky Way, and in the universe. The fact that an observer on a planet 100 light years from here will not even see the launch for quite a while, does not erase the fact that the Mars rover is operating currently on Mars. The observer on that planet will be able to mentally subtract or add the 100 years, as surely as we are able to subtract or add the 14minutes. It still is doing what its doing only one thing at a time. Then it does the next. And it never gets unattached from the rest of the universe. The universe is already bound to itself.

Janus, So anyone in the same frame, can agree, in retrospect, on the order of events, calculate everything back and agree on times and distances, once they agree on a time and place to act as a reference point. If the train were to stop at the embankment observer, then the moving observer could reference everything that recently happened to her, and everything she experienced to link up exactly with the actual order of events that have now been normalized by her arrival at the same time and place of the embankment observer. She can work backward and see what happened, and everything is back in order, once the two observers are both in the same place. Either actually or imaginarily. But while any two observers are actually separated by distance, the time it takes light to propagate between, is an actual separation, that cannot be removed from the situation by thought. So in the first diagram, my hypothetical observer, off to the right, would NOT see the clocks start similtaneously. He might be able to know that the clocks started similtaneously to an observer half way between, but he would actually see the near clock start, before the distant clock, and run forever ahead of the distant clock, until he moved to a position equidistant to the two clocks. To see the two clocks as showing the same time, he would have to reach the center point, either physically or by mentally undoing the propagation of light consideration. In reality, the observer to the right, even though he might "know" the clocks started at the same time to any observer on the plane perpendicular to the line between the clocks, also knows he sees the clocks offset in ticks by the actual distance between the clocks. Swansont, I certainly could be wrong, but I thought everybody had agreed to go by the cesium clock in Colorado. Regards, TAR2

Recapitulation.

Gees, Well anyway, I'm glad you watched it. The "facts" that she discovered are helpful to her understanding of conscousness, your undersanding of consciousness, and my understanding of consciousness. We each now have to "explain" consciousness, based on, or at least consistent with these facts. So, now that you have a little idea, that I have had to fold these facts into my understanding, muses and opinions, you at least now have to do the same. My contention is, that this ability, to put yourself in the shoes of another, an unseen other, is something that developed between the birth of a person and their adulthood. It is therefore not a requirement that consciousness is floating around, looking for bodies to settle in, but instead a thing that developes in an individual. It has also been noticed, (and there is a word for it, that escapes me at the moment) that the developement of a fetus from a single cell to a newborn babe, and then the growth and development of a newborn babe into a conscious adult, has its analogies and stages reminicent of the development of our species. This allows one to hold the belief that consciousness developed right along with the species, not only from an individual example, but from the example of humans in general. Thusly, the knowledge that there are abilities that emerge as a child developes points to the strong possibily that the same was required as our species did. I have to go to work. I think you can take the thought from here. Regards, TAR2

Gees. http://video.mit.edu/watch/rebecca-saxe-24942/ Rebecca Saxe is also studying consciousness. She is at MIT. If you have 23 minutes, I think you will find this talk interesting and pertinent to this thread. I predict you will not have the same feeling about people learning to lie at age seven. Rather than attempting to argue you over to "my way" of thinking, I think it better to ask you to watch this talk. It was presented to me and others, years ago on this board by iNow, who had a very nice thread going, entitled "Religion Hijacks the neurocortical mechanisms of the brain". The talk, and other studies of Rebecca Saxe, and the existence of an area of the brain that developes in us in that 4 to 5 year old range, that allows us to put ourselves in someone elses shoes, is crucial and central to many if not most of the thoughts I have had in the interim on religion, consciousness, and in general, about the "meaning" behind language and 100 other things that "base" my worldview and understanding of myself and others. Let me know what YOU think about Rebecca's talk. Regards, TAR2

Janus, But why is light propagation delay not important? Its the propagation of light that "defines" everything else. C is always central to equations. Setting it to 1 and factoring it out and such, seems to me to be quite missing the point. Take the clock in Colorado, that we are all going by. Are we adding, subtracting, or factoring out the propagation delay of the signal to our position on the Earth...when we talk of similtaneity. I am always confused on this point. How can you take a realistic view of a situation where two observers are separated by distance, as if you have a vehical of observation that is instantaneous in nature, when nothing in fact, other than thought, is faster than the speed of light? Regards. TAR2

Gees, Was just reading the Omni interview of Dr. Stevenson. One exchange. Omni: In your new book you speak reprovingly of people easily persuaded by your evidence. Is your position that reincarnation can never really be demonstrated? Stevenson: I don't think I rebuke anybody for being convinced by the evidence. All I say is that maybe they shouldn't believe on the basis of what's in that particular book, because the detailed case reports are in my other books. Essentially I say that the idea of reincarnation permits but doesn't compel belief. All the cases I've investigated so far have shortcomings. Even taken together, they do not offer anything like proof. But as the body of evidence accumulates, it's more likely that more and more people will see its relevance. That is the way I see it too. The evidence permits belief, but does not compel it. In the whole world and 40 years of financially backed investigations, with 8 billion lives to choose from, we have what? 3000 cases, mostly in areas of the world where reincarnation is a "belief", where some shreds of evidence and stories can possibly be cobbled together enough to create a little possibility that something un normal might be involved. Allowing belief, but not compelling belief, in a completely ambiguous and undetermined transference of the experiences and memories of one person, into another. Also read a quote about Dr. Stevenson where someone said that either Dr. Stevenson was making a collosal mistake, or he would turn out to be the Galileo of the 20th century. I'll go with the former. Regards, TAR2 And a little note on the "Sweet what's her name" story about the 10 year old who remembers her whole family and house from a former life. At the beginning of the story, she is traveling with her father 100 miles from home and asks the driver to turn into "her" driveway, because they could get a better cup of tea there, than on the road. The story never specifies whether or not they DID turn into the driveway, or if the house and the family was in view. I am reminded of something my Dad (also a Freudian Psychologist) told me. Young children (in that kindergarten, first grade area) are VERY observant. He says you can take a class of such young people on a walk around the block, and question them upon completion about what they remember of the trip, and be rewarded with amazingly accurate and detailed accounts of EVERYTHING. The colors and shapes of shutters and shingles, the markings on a cat, the particular smells coming from particular houses...etc. Things the adults didn't even notice, much less remember. Sweet what's her name, actually SAW the place she "remembers" from a former life. Also I was taken aback upon learning that Dr. Stevenson required a translator while doing his investigations and interviews in India. That sort of adds another "shading" to his understandings of the memories of the 5 year olds in question. Nuance is lost.

Janus, Math aside, in your first diagram with the central point eminating a signal that starts both clocks, we are viewing the situation from a point equal distant from both clocks. What if we are off to the right, where the expanding circle of the starting signal reaches us at the same moment that the right hand clock starts, but we will not see the left hand clock start for the time period that it takes light to travel the distance between the clocks. The left hand clock will forever forward, be this time period behind the right hand clock. Regards, TAR2

Villian, Who said anything about reality being independent of perception? What else would we be percieving? One of my "thoughts", one of my main thoughts is that there must be an explanation for why realists argue with idealists. That is, it must be two sides of the same coin. That both are right if you don't require that one or the other is wrong. If one starts with the logical assumption of the two basic intuitions of Kant, that of time and space...AND assume there is actually time and space to be of and in, in the first place...everything is good. You might know from many of my posts that I had a religious mother, and a scientific minded, atheistic father. A mathematician eccentric Mom and a down to Earth Freudian Psychologist PhD Dad. An Idealist and a Realist, if you will. Half of me, comes quite literally from each. And I have majored in Philosophy, graduated with a Business Degree, served in the Army, taken Science courses toward and EE degree, raised two girls with a Christian wife and worked for a Japanese Business equipment manufacturer. I have been around this place for 60 years, seen people come and go, and I am rather sure that the Earth spins on its axis, and travels around the Sun in quite a regular fashion, "independently" of my take on the situation. I am also rather sure that we as a species evolved in lockstep with other life forms on this planet, and are subject to the cycles of the Earth, in very many real ways. So I am an idealist or a realist to buy life insurance for my wife and family should I stop "percieving". Am I a realist or an idealist to feel a part of the life on this planet, from first protein til the sun dies? I do not exist independent of the universe, and it just wouldn't be the same place, without me. Am I atheist or religious, realist or idealist? I would guess both, or all four, in all the ways that make sense. Regards, TAR2

Villian, I am thinking that the Oak tree is a real thing, existent in the waking world. My memory of the Oak tree can be recalled, by my focus on it, or a chemical combination, or a possible electrical stimulus, but I doubt the particular combination of form and color, depth and relationship, that makes a "real" Oak, can be found in the word "Oak". I had a "visual migraine" one time at work. I was sitting there, looking at my computer screen, and hands, and keyboard, and I "really" saw distortions and fringes occuring "in front" of my eyes. I knew I was "seeing" things, and those distortions where not "really" happening, even though they were EXACTLY as real things appear to me. The same "mechanisms" that brought reality solidly and consistently to me, where having a "little" problem. Everything was not "right". I was still "aware" of the consistency of the things I was viewing, and counted on, and soon received, a "return" to normalcy, where everything "looked" right. Point is, that the "things" I was looking at, can be counted on to be as they are, whether I am seeing them right, or my eyes are closed, or indeed if I leave the room. The Oak tree stands, regardless of our perception of it, or memory of it, and is available to others to percieve and remember, in any fashion they chose, consistent with workings of their eyes and brain. That whatever we sense and percieve of it is enough to call it an Oak, establishes it as a referrent for us both. I doubt we could "think up" such a solid thing. Regards, TAR2