tar

John Cuthber, Well, I should have tried to reconstruct my post. Not fair of me to expect you to read my mind. Part of the lead up to the question was an establishment of the fact that the God of the bible did not exist, and hence the respin of the Koran was also base on crap. But that there were universal ideas of love (protection of the weak) and equality (all equal in the eyes of god), peace (make no mischief) that could be held without belief in a particular non-existing god, but that could not be held without belief in a common idea. Then, to tie in with the delusion definition, ideas that are not commonly held in a culture, are considered delusional...but whole cultures can hold different ideals, and hence be at odds. Wars between Al Queda and the Zionists...Conserative and Liberal, Communist and Capitalist or whatever are based on universal ideas, that the antagonists believe in. And no god is required to have these differences. Only a lack of common ideals is the blame for the conflict. In this sense, the insights of Mohammed were not unlike the insights of a current day humanist. And Mohammed DID unify the Arab world, under one idea, and serves as a model of "how a person should be" to a third of the population of the Earth. And his last sermon spoke of reconcilliation and peace, of Muslem and non-Muslem being equal in the eyes of Allah, and for all to hear his message, and spread it, and that he hoped the people that would hear his message later, would understand it, even better than those that heard his words that day. These ideals, are the ones to which I refer. Is belief in these ideals, something like, belief in God? If you lead a good life, by the Christian or the Jewish, or the Moslem, or Hindu, or Humanist ideals, and there is a "common thread" to be found between the ideals, is there really a difference in believing in the ideal, or believing in a God that cares about your adherence to the ideal? That was my question. Regards, TAR2

Mike, I used the fold idea in a thread mostly inhabited by Gees and Moontanman and me, in reference to abiogenisis. (Belief in the Supernatural and Superstition, in the Philosophy section.) Bubble works well too, in that a single cell is like a bubble, a concentrated, or defined and separate area of space that can contain something different than is "outside" it. Also referenced the spiral folds of DNA. Took in essence the reflection of the world on the surface of a still lake (plate) and folded it up in the folds of a human brain. Doesn't fit well with tubes of opportunity exactly, but its something like it, in reverse. Not that tubes exist and we must find the openings, but that there is opportunity for concentration created when surfaces fold together or meet. Related in a way to the idea of "focus" and important I think, in terms of "the lingual theory of everything", in that its through our eyes that an image of the world "gets inside", And the universal grammar that we all use, subject and object and predicate, may be based exactly on the fact that we all "internalize" the world through similar senses (sight, sound, smell and heat and pressure sensors in our skin) and build an analog model on the inside of our skin (in our brains), of that which is outside. Regards, TAR2

John Cuthber and doG, Just lost the rewrite of a post that I lost. Two good posts, I can't reclaim, because I think I have already brought the arguments and examples and am currently at a different place than the contents of the thread would show. I will have to just pose the question I came up with and you can fill in the blanks, or take it from there, as is appropriate. Is there a significant difference in the belief in a universal idea, and the belief in God? Regards, TAR2 and if there is not, are people that believe in universal ideas, broken?

Gees, Well, I think it has to do with folds. The folds in our brains. The spiral wrap of a string of DNA, and the subsequent "focus"...here is the thought. Consider the surface of a still lake, with the mountains behind and the sky and clouds above, reflected in it. Consider a broken holographic plate, with a complete image held by each of the shards. Now, pick a point, a single point in the world and consider the fact that all of the other points have a direct line to that point. You can make a pin whole in a black piece of construction paper, put the paper between the sun and a flat smooth surface, and a full image of the Sun, upside down and backward will appear on the flat surface. An image of the entire Sun, fit through that pin hole. Such is a human eye, as the first images a child sees of the world, are upside down and backward and doubled, but the complete image is projected on the back of the eyes, and unified and corrected and "trued" by the projection of the image unto the "flat smooth" surface of the brain. Of course the brain is not flat and smooth, its folded up quite a bit, it can retain a lattent image and compare it to the current image, and thereby "remember" and notice change and movement. An organism "survives" better, when it is aware of its surroundings, and can identify and move toward food and water and energy sources, and away from preditors and dangers. So, the "will" to survive does not come from the outside, but from the maitanence of the "working" internal patterns, the strategies that have evolved to "fit" with the world, But what "spark" is required to turn a growing crystal, or a snowflake, or a bubble, or a molecule of water, and a molecule of carbon, into a living thing, that defends its pattern, and reproduces it? Perhaps nothing much more than folding up a bunch of points, each with access to the photons coming in from every corner of the universe, into a complex, focused, fitting thing, that evolves into a single celled organism. The rest of evolution is understandable, from there. And the "hard problem" of consciousness is somewhat simpler to untangle if you grant every indivual point initial and complete access to every other point that sends it a photon. Regards, TAR2

Popcorn Sutton, Am currently watching a show on Jackie Robertson. Most people, white people, at the time enforced segregation in our society. Blacks sat at the back of the bus, served in the war in segregated units, and lived primarily as second class citizens. Many minds were changed, slowly but consistenly, the reality was noticed, that as oppression ended, talent and character and strength and beauty were recognized. Whites realized that blacks could be heroes, even better heroes than the bigoted whites that they played with...and white people became a little less bigoted, as things unfolded, and the civil rights struggle came forefront in the American consciousness. Doesn't make me black to give a black man the respect he/she deserves. Similarly, it doesn't make me a Theist to give a Theist the benefit of the doubt, or make me a scientist when I associate with the advancements in knowledge arrived at by the application of the scientific method. There is a solid truth that you utter, when you state that " this thing is the reason that I am alive and even able to contemplate these matters." iNow is insistent that belief in God is not rational. I am in mostly agreement with him, when claims are made, about God that are not rational, are inconsistent with other facts about reality, and when they are basically based on unsubtantialted, wishthinking. However, there is this other side of the coin, which is obvious and plain to you and me, and probably obvious to the religious majority of the world, and maybe should be obvious to iNow, that it would be quite irrational to look up into the night sky, or into the microscope, contemplate the wonder and immensity, complexity and beauty of it all, and conclude that you had nothing to do with it, or it, with you. Certain aspects of "God" are evidently true and consistently true, across the board. Certain aspects of "God" are only true to the imaginator of the aspect. And sometimes the figurative and the literal are conflated and interchanged and misappropriated when discussed between one mind and another, but belief in God is not broken, is very rational, and is very evidence based, if such belief is referring to that about the universe that is consistently true, across the board. Regards, TAR

Iggy, You sort of tried using one of the general points I consistently try to make, against me, when you accused me of thinking that I had a better objective view than I could have. That I CAN'T have a special, TAR only, grasp of things, is exactly the truth I use to "conflate" the delusions of a Theist, with the delusions of a scientist. Its exactly the truth I use to ground myself with the human judgement of "others". Its exactly the truth I use to claim that Jesus is not the special key to heaven, and that "chosen people" and "the secret of the Vedas", do not "wash" in this reality, this reality that is evident to all. It is the truth, that we are all in this together, and that none of us can either escape it or master it. None of us. But this "condition" exists, and the great majority of us know that we are subject to reality, and cannot outlast it, outthink it, or outdo it. It is exactly in this light that I defend religious people, and defend myself, as a conscious being who MUST be both in and of the thing. It is not possible to actually get "outside" the thing. Not for an idiot or a genius. Not for the "feeler" or the "thinker" or the "doer". This causes me to make some implications and draw some conclusions about the nature of the thing, where I can actually make a solid human judgement, based on the "here and now" that I am so human biasly aware of, and have so much solid evidence that "other" humans also are aware of...to feel and know that I am NOT deluding myself, when I love the thing, or feel its love. Regards, TAR2

Moontanman, I am suggesting that the universe was doing everything as completely and as fittingly as possible, already, without our opinion of it. The stars and Earth and Sun and Moon did not emerge as we emerged, but had already emerged and set the stage upon which we appeared. We discover stuff, and feel rather good about it, but its not like it was untrue, before we found it, its more the other way around, it was true, and then we noticed it. Saw an article title yesterday, about a "new" type of dark matter. As if it didn't exist prior our noticing it. If it is real, I would say it had to have been just as real the day before it was discovered, as the day after. "We" did not bring it about. That is, unless it is a mistake, or a miscalculation, or an erroneous answer to an otherwise unexplainable observation, in which case it might be sort of a human construction, or idea, that might flirt, in kind, with thoughts of a "supernatural" nature. Or like my dream analogy, go by "our" rules, and not by real, everything must cooexist and fit flawlessly with each other, type, "natural", rules. I have a general skepticism about dark matter, for this reason. If dark matter is permeating the universe, we should be able to find it out in the back yard, and it should have been exhibiting itself, locally, all along, and therefore, I would guess we have already noticed its local effects, and call it some other familiar thing, or that its local effects will help answer some local questions. That is, if its real it should fit the local case, as securely as it fits the distant case. It's discovery should answer more questions, than it raises. There should be more "oh that's why..." and more "oh, that explains it" than the current situation seems to be offering. Instead, the contradictions, and the "well that doesn't make sense" and the unbelieveabilty of it, just increase. In normal scientific investigations, just one contradiction serves to falsify a claim or hypothesis. How am I, as a layman, supposed to accept something that not only makes no sense to me, but makes so little sense, and does not fit into the understanding of the world that "we" have worked thousands of years to come to? Its almost as if "dark matter" could occupy the same "spot" in a scientists mind, as God occupies, in the mind of a Theist. Regards, TAR2

And just in general, when you consider who will care what the Earth, or the solar system, or the galaxy is like in 1000 or 10000 or 500 billion years, what unseen other are you putting yourselve in the shoes of? Does it have to be an actual, existing being, for you to put yourself in their shoes?

iNow, Since we both have firmly ruled out there actually being a beginning and end fellow, but have neither ruled out there being a beginning and end, I would like to ask you a philosophical question. To whom does the actual beginning and the actual end matter? If not us motals, then who? Regards, TAR2

Iggy, Sad to learn that the only thing you found odd about my post was that I actually said something relevant. Regards, TAR2

iNow, I know that now. But at the time, it was God to whom I made the promise. You know, the beginning and the end fellow. Regards, TAR2

Except for Al Queda members. Them folks are seriously broken.

Iggy, I have already admitted to such on other threads and probably this thread. I spoke to God and made him a promise when I was 13. I remember a time in my life when I actually "felt" Jesus' love in the air around me, when I was maybe 20. I saw the ghost of a man who had hung himself off the lamppost at the end of his driveway years before when I was 18. I and a group of others witnessed some "visitors", some lights, fueling up on a high tension line, for many minutes, before whizzing up and off, at unthinkable speeds, when I was 18, I had an epiphany on a mountaintop in Germany when I was in the Army in 1980 where I "understood" treeness and life on Earth, and how life had grabbed form and structure from a universe tending toward entropy, for what is but a fleeting moment in the expanse of space and time, I twice (the only two times I tried) ended long term droughts by humming an indian rain dance to the clouds while flying out of the drought stricken areas, while in my forties. So yes, I have had some hard to explain away experiences. I still try to explain them away, and understand about coincidence, and correlation not meaning causation. And I understand about biases and illusions and chemicals affecting ones perceptions and memories and such, and I am on a general quest to understand and explain everything I have witnessed to the point where there is no contradiction, and everything makes coherent, consistence sense. But I am just one guy. There are 8 billion of us experiencers currently experiencing this reality. I am willing to bet I am not the only one with a few "questions" to still answer, about how this place is strung together. And my answers may not "do it" for anybody else, much less everybody else, but under the circumstances, I think it reasonable to give everybody the benefit of the doubt. Give everybody a modicum of human judgement, and allow anybody that wants an imaginary friend to have it, without requiring my permission or facing my disapproval. In other words. I don't think people that believe in God are broken. I might think I know why they believe in God, and what they might be talking about, that I can translate into my understanding of the world, and what I know they are saying that is internally inconsistent and such, but basically, I don't think anybody, sane or crazy, knowledgeable or ignorant, selfish or generous, stupid or genius, is really all that different from me. And since I don't consider myself broken, they probably are not broken, either. Regards, TAR2

The three of you, I am not thinking that imaginary friends are as bad as you are making them out to be. Perhaps there is an understood portion of gamesmanship, or pretending, or playing, that is inherent in the partnership between a child and their imaginary friend. I one day myself in a recent year, looked up at the sky and said "funny guy, funny". Who exactly I thought I might be talking to would have had to have been somebody capable of a playing a huge, otherwise unexplainable in normal terms, joke. That I take the possibility completely seriously is not true. That I completely rule it out is also not true, evidenced by the fact that I really said the words, pretending that I was actually "in on" it's joke. I am thinking that there may be "another" possibility, other than delusional, or mistaken, or halucinating, or lying. Perhaps there are a great many things that we are "in on" with reality. Things that "we get" about reality. Enough to not be wrong, to be intimate with it. Close enough friends with reality, to allow for banter and play with it. Regards, TAR2 Is anybody that believes there is a border between Canada and the U.S. hallucinating or delusional? Where the border crosses a river or lake, or where there is no fence, there is no evidence of the thing. It's an imaginary line. It's an agreed upon idea, that somebody made up, and everybody else is honoring the agreement. It is not real to fish and birds and ants and trees and vines, and the sun and rain fall the same on either side of the line.

Moontanman, I am guided, in my use of "fit" by an insight I had a number of years ago, about dreams. My dreams of course, since they are the only ones I have direct access to, but I imagine the kind of thing a dream is, as opposed to the kind of thing the waking world is, is somewhat standard from person to person. I woke up one day with a clear insight about clouds and toasters and had solved a dilema and felt better about things. Then, as I regained the waking world, I realized that clouds indeed do not have zippers, and the rules my dream was going by did not "fit" reality. In my dreams, I could adjust the rules and give things characteristics that would make things work. I do not recall, if I ever figured out what dream language I was talking to myself in, nor what was standing for what, but it made me realize how perfectly the waking world "fit" together. No rule was ever forgotten, nor bent, every action had permanent, irrevokabe consequences. In a dream, you could pants your boss, if you wanted to, and get away with it. No permanent consequences. Not so, with reality. Every action really makes a difference. Every action, or non-action, leaves a permanent mark. The "ripples" are "remembered" by a reality with a steel trap memory. Reality fits together really really well. Fits together exactly, with never a "mistake". Never does reality "change its mind" and operate by a different set of rules. Quite unlike a human imagination, or a dream. Reality must fit together, and always "work" the same way. Imagination does not require connecting every single dot, in every single way that reality requires itself to "fit". That's the insight I base my use of the word "fit", on. Interesting to me is that this later made some sense to me in another way, when attempting to grasp the meaning of the evolutionary rule, "the survival of the fittest". It is, in this light, not too surprising that reality would favor an organism that actually fit it. Almost could not be any other way. Not almost. It could not "work" any other way. Regards, TAR2 Gives a certain basis to the term "fall from grace", as well, being that the same "imagination" that defines human consciousness in all the ways we use it and cherish it, also separate us from the "perfection" that the universe would exhibit without our foibles and constructs and dreams, and concurrent "will".

Moontanman, And I think that other things, specially other living things, are far more capable at "fitting" with reality than we normally give them credit for. Quarks and rocks and clouds also fit well with reality...but they don't deserve as much credit for accomplishing the feat, as a living thing...and they probably don't even consider anything, or assign credit, as a conscious human can and does. Regards, TAR2

Gees, We crossed posted again. That makes three times now. I will have to read your last. Regards, TAR2 And Moontanman's last as well. Triple cross. Gees, Did you ever think that maybe its not possible to take a third person position? Not actually. Unless you are the third person. Regards, TAR And if you were actually the third person, that would mean there would have to be at least two other consciousnesses, other than your own. This would argue against consciousness being a singular substance. Something else you may not have thought about. Since Moontanman sees no evidence of consciousness floating about as a singular substance, and I see no evidence of consciousness floating about as a singular substance, perhaps you are looking for something that does not exist. That you are conscious is obvious, but you already know about that. Why are you looking for it in places other than where it is already apparent? Joke: Man one walks up to man two, who is closely searching in the gutter under a street light. "What are you looking for?" "The keys to my car" "Where did you lose them?" "I dropped them near my car" (pointing to a car parked twenty yards down the street) "Well, why are you looking for them here?" "The light is better here."

Gees, If what Moontanman posted of Stevenson was the knowledge I missed by not clicking your link, then I can certainly wait to click your other link. It sounds to me like Stevenson is/was following a path I ruled out long ago. The soul and body are not possible, without the other. When one is born, so is the other...literally speaking. When one dies, so does the other...literally speaking. If you want to speak about metaphors and figurative things, they may be illustrative, or carry some truth in them, but the analogy is different from the thing that is being likened. You can manipulate the analogy all day, and it does not change the truth of the thing to which you are refering. This is why I've made the point about the Sage on the mountaintop reaching Nirvana. It might make a difference in his/her mind, but it doesn't do a darn thing for the rest of us, or the Earth, or the Universe. You can think a thing that doesn't actually work, or fit with reality, in practice. Coming up with a perfect understanding of things, doesn't change the things a wit. Just your awareness or your knowledge of it, which is important, but only to the person having the insight, and perhaps to the people they associate with. And it wouldn't matter if you thought you were queen of the world, unless you actually created the position and sat in the throne, and wore the crown. How many people are there that feel they should be president, or could be president, and do a better job than the actual president? They can think it, but if they really could do the job, they would have it, or be actively pursuing the spot, or at least be Governor, or Mayor, or the head of the school board. Doing the thing is a little rougher than thinking the thing. So who has a better grasp of reality, and an understanding of life and consciousness, the President, or the person who thinks they should be president? Who is a better artist, the critic, or the one that painted the picture? What's the old saying? Those that can't do, teach. Those that can't teach become (fill in the blank with the appropriate useless self important position). I am a thinker, not a doer. That is probably why we understand each other. But with all your rules, you should add one simple one, that I learned when I was 18 or so. You can think you have it figured out, and reality is composed only of you...but you are 100% wrong. There really does exist, everything else, and everybody else...and this is a good thing, because you are not alone, and never could be, no matter what you imagine is the case. Other people ground me to reality, and prove to me that my thoughts about it are sound, if they show me they agree with my understanding. But the soul separate from the body makes no sense. "We" have no indication that such a thing makes any sense. It doesn't WORK out here in the reality we share...only in ones imagination. Only figuratively does my consciousness exist prior my life, or after it. Sure my pattern is from that of Lucy, and certainly there could be great great grandchildren of mine on the Planet in 100 years, but MY will can only exist after my death if somebody takes my figurative place in some regard. Wishes for immortality abound. I have them, you have them, maybe we will leave a legacy, maybe we won't. We will certainly live in the memories of those we have touched in our lives, while they are alive, and we each will leave children, and works, and the imprint of our lives will still exist when we die. These things are real. There will be life after death. But it won't be TAR himself. Just the ghost, the thought of, the memory of, the pattern of, the imprint of. And TAR himself, will no longer be conscious. Consciousness will still be found, but it will not be me finding it. How could a human "will" exist in this reality without a human to have it? Everything about a human will is related directly to the human involved. Without the human, the will makes no sense. Oh, you are talking about the reality "after" this one? That make no sense. How could you possibly claim to understand "this" reality, when you have to summon a different one to explain it? Sounds supernatural to me. An explanation of this reality, based on an imaginary other one. Regards, TAR2

Gees, Well us listening to the story, can fly above and see the whole elephant, and know the argument the blind men are having is rather silly under the circumstances, but the blind men, are blind, they cannot see the whole elephant with their eyes, they cannot fly above the thing, their senses are not enough, they would, or should, or could only grasp the entire elephant if they would believe each other, and put the information together in their minds eye, logically, and in this way, "see" the elephant. What MUST be the case for each of the takes to be true? Contradictions are not allowed in such an overall picture. Each story must make sense and have a reason that ties in with the others. If human psychology is required to make sense of certain inconsistencies, than that is the part of the picture, the overall, flyover picture. And then, the picture is a little more sensible, and fits together better, and is more likely to be "true". I do not think any scientist thinks the world has no life or movement in it. They know that they themselves are alive and move, and are aware of this life and movement. Its the rule that things must fit together and explain other things in not only more than one way, but in all ways, that brings a scientist ever closer to holding a model in their head, which IS like a bird's eye, god's eye, view. I do not think I limit my views to fit my theories, well maybe a little, but I think it more crucial to make sure that your theories fit the facts. All the facts. It is only in this way, that a blind man can grasp the overall picture. We can't, after all, actually fly above and view the elephant as sighted birds, we have to figure the thing out, given the fact that we are, in the story, the blind men. Regards, TAR2 Saw a video today on the internet, viewed it without sound, as that I was at work (and should have been otherwise engaged). It was entitled "tears of joy" and was of a young deaf woman who through a medical procedure of some sort, was hearing her first sounds, and the moment caught on camera. Brought tears to my eyes, and I am typing this now through blurry eyes. I didn't have to hear a thing, to know what was going on, and feel her joy.

Gees, So perhaps we have the answer to the thread. The supernatural is the Elephant. None of us can see it, and disbelieve, for good reason, anybody else that claims they CAN see it (them being blind also, we know they are lying), yet we each have a firm grasp of the tail or our hands against the side, and are each therefore rather sure the elephant is rather like a snake...or a wall. So is consciousness a substance or act? Probably so. Regards, TAR2

Gees, I have some of your rules, but have figured things a bit differently than you. "Not simple" is an understatement. I am on a few diffent tracks, and have my own Gordian knots. Here are a few of my threads. There is always somebody more capable than another somebody. There is always some people you can trust more than others. There is always somebody more intelligent than another...except for the smartest person in the world, who is probably a basket case, because they have nobody to talk to about the stuff they think about. Its easier to fool people less intelligent than you, and also more important that you don't. Trustability and capability make a leader. Leaders do not always keep the trust of their followers, and people do lie, and take advantage of people's trust, and gullibility. There is always a better singer, a more talented artist, a better project manager, a more courageous fighter, a stronger, sexier, faster, more brilliant person, than oneself. Many billions of beautiful sons and daughters have been born. Its been done before, its been done a lot, and it will be done many more times. There is no ultimate judge of things, any more in position to judge, that a single human. Human judgement is key. To trust your own, and use it to the best of your ability. And to understand that everybody else has it, and has been using it well, since the first word was spoken. All this considered, there must be a great deal of insights already had, and put into practice, that make our societies the way they are. Much to be learned and understood. Much to be protected and maintained, and much to be thankful for, that others have made effort and sacrifice to put into place. and foster. And as well, there must be some amount of elitism, special clubs and secret societies, and people in power who do not use their positions with the appropriate judgement and consideration of others, that they "should". But the knot is enormous. How does one know who to trust? How does one guage their own capability and concurrent responsibility? Personality? When is it formed? Who is overestimating themselves and who is underestimating themselves? Whom is impressing whom? Whom is hurting whom? Whom is helping whom? Whom is judging whom? When there is no ultimate judge, to settle the case? It can't be only up the individual. And there is not a final resolution to the case. It must be therefore, pretty close to how it appears. And we all already have a pretty good idea of it. Just have not been able to get everybody on the same page...for very good reasons. Regards, TAR2 My favorite story, to illustrate our plight, is "The Blind men and the Elephant" Each partly right, and sure they know what an Elephant is like. But none can see the whole Elephant. None. No one.

Gees, I am sorry to have mixed in my bais against all the stupid links and blind alleys I have been directed too in the past on these threads, with what may have been sensible, pertinent links presented on your part. It is not laziness alone, or ignorance that prevents me from hitting links. I am willing to take the synopsis given as a stipulation, and work from there. Although this obviously leaves me with misunderstandings of what was being refered to, as I have conflated the sources, and misconnected the importance of the various thinkers to your thoughts. Wondering now, whether this type of shuffling and assumption on my part is behind some of the misappropriation of logical reasoning, suspected of others, in general. Something I do, that others do as well. Relative to the consideration of the supernatural, in that one person really doesn't know the full logic and reasoning and feelings that go into the "beliefs" that other people hold. It would not be likely that anybody could fully get anybody else "up to speed", on their own thinking and feelings, and "up to" or "down to" their level of insight and understanding. This leaves plenty of room for the "something" that is there for the both of us, to be "different", or thought to be "different" from one perspective or the other. I don't have a proper answer to this, as that neither of us is capable of actually taking a position that is not our own, to "meet up" at. And this is probably one of the realities that causes people to think that the other is being unreasonable, or is failing to see the obvious facts. Perhaps in this light one could consider the belief in the supernatural as just a continuation of the knowledge of "other minds" existing in the world. And the sometimes true and sometimes false condition that a person "knows" the other mind. Regards, TAR2

Mike, Since the tube is a folded plate, is not the "fold" more basic than the tube? And the plate more basic than the fold? Regards, TAR2

I would just wonder why the aliens would want to give such an adorable creature up.

Gees, Well I go mostly by my own opinions. They are the only ones I have a good understanding of. I am affected greatly by the opinions of others, but they have to make sense to me. If I don't see the connection, between my thoughts and feelings, and the thoughts and feelings of others, I look for the connection. When there are "gaps" or "reaches" of "faith" required to join another's thoughts and feelings to my own, I suspect imagination has something to do with the descrepency. Mine or the other's imagination is a possible culprit, I make no initial detemination on which is at fault, I am often wrong, and am proved such by the facts. But reincarnation is something already talked about by others, already considered by me, and has failed the reality check and exhibited its self as wishthinking too many times in my life and considerations, to take it seriously. I read such opinions as merely opinions, and take them figuratively. And accept that there is, at the same time, a reality that "seems" like such things "might be true", on some levels or in some ways...just not the way that is described in an unsubstantiable fashsion. For instance, I know it to be a fact that I did not exist in 1952, but my mother and father did, and I am a unique continuation of the patterns and complex lifeform that they were in 1952. Whatever consciousness they had at the time has some large part to do with the consciousness that I exhibit at the moment, in biological, mental, emotional and societal ways. I shared this world and consciousness of, with both and their relatives for my whole life. My mother has died of cancer and my father is still with us, and I am here as are my wife and two daughters, the last three being "additions" since 1953. That I am "a part of" what came before me, and what will come after me, is an obvious fact, that needs no special magic, or imaginary reasons or overarching unseen principle. Its quite solidly already understood that we all are tied to the cycles and mini cycles and maxi cycles of the planet. This is enough for me. I don't have to manufacture any secret underlying reasons. Its already the case. Reincarnation, on the other hand, seeks to establish another "thread" which has no reason to be. So why would I want to read a thought and opinion, that I already know has to be manufactured, and not based on the reality I already know to be the case? Is not what we already know, mutually to be the case, enough? Regards, TAR2 Gees, Another fact I use to "explain" any "feelings" we have of having lived before our birth, is the fact that a human female is born with a full contingent of eggs. This literally makes half the pattern that is currently me, as old as my Mom...or since she is dead, means half of my pattern has "been around" since my mother's birth, a quarter of my pattern, since the birth of my grandmother, an eighth since the birth of my greatgrandmother...and so forth, back to Lucy who carried a 1/whateverith of me. Enough there, in fact, to explain why the Jewish feel that Jewishness is carried by the female, or that everybody feels a certain connection to everybody else, or why anybody might feel that they have "lived" before their birth. But not enough there to explain why a memory of a particular complex combination of feelings and emotions, had by an individual 600 years ago, would be carried intact and uniquely and exclusively to a presently alive person. There is not a reasonable mechanism to explain such a thing, without raising 1000 more questions than are answered. Regards, TAR2