tar

Gees, Often, you correlate consciousness and life. I think this central. Thus, around my thought that life grabbed organisation from a universe tending toward entropy, there is a distinction between life, and that which has not grabbed life. That life "wants" to be alive is therefore an evident fact of the case. Its mere existence proves its stubborn persistence against entropy. That there must therefore be an organising constant influencing life's emergence, is not a requirement, nor even logical or sensible. Life justifies itself, in the face of a universe that seems to be quite indifferent, if not contrary, to life. In terms of movement, this "contrary to entropy" thought is consistent, in that life is fleeting and fragile and quite temporary, given the actual influences of the rest of the universe tending in the other direction. Its not like evidence shows that the universe is in favor of life, nor that the universe is against it. The universe really has nothing to say on the matter, and everything to do with it. Consider what an electron "wants" to do, or tends to do. Loose energy. Emit a photon, attempting to relax to a lower energy level. An atom has these electrons spinning about, giving it a form and structure, electrical characteristics, valence and charge, and ascribes to the atom certain tendencies to attract and repel, stand alone or grab another. If a single atom existed, by itself, its electrons would want to emit photons, until there was no lower state they could fall to. Except there is, in reality, a universe full of atoms, ALL trying to accomplish the same feat, and come to rest, but none can do it, because of all the photons it RECIEVES from the rest of the universe. A bit outnumbered a single atom is. Every time it emits a photon, to satisfy its "wants", in a small moment, some other photon, emitted by a neighbor, bumps an electron back up to a higher energy state, and the atom has to release a photon AGAIN to try and get back to a desireable state. So, water is just a intermediary consideration in this dance. it is not a cause of it, but an effect of it. Life and consciouness is not a cause either. But an effect. An emergence. A result of the complex interplay of enities that make up entities and are made up of entities. And each lifeform has its own unique pattern, its own form and structure, its own DNA, that it holds on to, and copies and "gives" to its children. You asked before, if life could emerge elsewhere in the universe. Maybe it is not liquid water required, but just the dance, the electron, trying to lose its energy, and perhaps "life" could emerge in other ways than it did here. And there are other planets that may have liquid water, even if that condition is required. So I would say, "probably so". Anywhere where there is a dance, there is likely to be a dancer. Regards, TAR2

Gees, I am in the same boat, sort of, but for completely different reasons. And I was never so smart that people thought it a handicap. Well maybe, in some ways at some times, but I was always aware that there were people more intelligent, more capable and more accomplished and knowledgable than I was. This has never stopped me from discovering things on my own, having my own insights, finding explanations for things that seem to not be fully understood yet in the literature, and generally, being rather comfortable, and "enjoying" my own mind, and its abilities. I think that intelligence allows one to discern the difference between crap and fact. And in this sense one can be their own editor, and not rely on the findings of others, which may or may not be based on the same insights. But there is a certain deference one must make to others. Sometimes reasonably and correctly made, and sometimes misplaced trust, if the other has alterior motives, or is themselves stuck in a mindset that is incompatible with your own thinking. Such is my thinking, when talking to people smarter than me. I honor their abilities, a look for the sense in what they say, I weave the good stuff into my own thinking, and I remain open to, by distrustful of the parts of what they say that make no sense to me, and cannot be woven into the cloth I am fabricating. But also have come to the conclusion that my cloth is only as good as it would give another warm and would be recognized as their fabric as well. Hence science is the best way we have come up with, to check our thoughts against reality, and to discard the imaginations that do no fit the case, and to use in our weavings, the threads which hold up to inspection, and will be there, anytime we reach for them. Supernatural help appears to be available only to the person who thinks it is. It carries no wheight on its own. Every catholic school kid knows the situation, the first time they sin, and are not struck by lightning. At least that is what I have been told. Our consciouness, and our conscience are internal things. Made of the external, and belonging to each of us, and with some very good reasons and connections to the rest of the world, but made of our obligations to, and responsibilities to other entities. I do not think, as I have stated before, that consciousness floats around and settles in things. You need the thing being conscious and the thing that the consciousness is conscious of. You can raise your own consciousness, and be more aware, but the transaction is not the result of more consciousness being poured into your vessel from the outside. It is you, yourself, becoming more aware of what already is the case, and realizing your connections to, responsibilities toward, and your belonging to, what is. I have not read much Hegel nor do I remember overtly much that I did read, but I have an Aunt, very smart, no doubt in your 3% who I lived with for a while, and learned some stuff from. Talked with her at the family reunion. She would tell you something about an acending spiral, and no doubt suggest that its all about raising your own consciousness. If you need a mind to converse with on the subject, equal to your own, I would therefore suggest Hegel. Regards, TAR2

So, if supernatural is that above and beyond this reality, and superstition is that above and beyond our logic and reason, are they both pretty much out of bounds, when attempting to determine that which is the case? If there are "connections" between us and "others", which there obviously are, does this not demand an acceptance of the metaphysical studies and determinations of Kant, who attempted to stay within the bounds of nature and reason in studying the judgements that human beings can and do make, and categorized the "types" of understandings that we can have, in terms of what we can say, in general, about a phenomena? It is important to me, in these discussions, that the goofy be separated from the actual. I believe there is a way, a path of understanding, that one can follow, that would describe the acent of man from hydrogen to heavier elements, to organized planets, and complex molecules, and crystals, to cells and membranes, and mitochondria, and genes, and the single celled plants and animals, through the various mammal forms to the human species, and reasonably dipict the development of language and art and technology, fantasy and religion...without ever requiring an outside magic, or a gap of logic. If my belief is true, that such a logical, real path has been taken, and can be reconstructed and understood, then it is also true that we never were and never will be "other than" reality. Our connections to it are real and logical. We cannot be other than what is not only possible, but manifest as well. Thus any study of consciousness is incomplete, or misdirected, if the possibility of it existing, and the natural and connected to reality nature of it, are not assumed, from the get go. Gees, seems to think that understanding emotion and hormones will lead us to a determination, that I believe we have to assume in the first place, since there is no other possibility, but that we are of and in the thing that we are attempting to understand. Regards, TAR2 Gees, We cross posted again...almost as if we have a connection, and post while the other is posting... Anyway, sorry to disappoint, I have to admit I don't measure up to the 3% requirement, but I would challenge your ability to hold and study an abstract thought is something that I am not capable of. Futhermore I will challenge your notion that thinking you are in possesion of an "objective" view, makes it so. I am rather sure, from a succession of insights and muses and logical takes on the matter, that although you could have thoughts and ideas and make descriptions of reality that are more complex and far reaching than I may be capable of, you are not capable of stepping outside yourself to have the thought. If you have a thought, then the thought can be had by an intelligent human, but that does not make you any smarter then the thing which you are having the thought about, and it does not put you in position where you can trump its size, and complexity, longlived nature, and power. In other words, you can be smarter than me, but that does not excuse you from reality, and it does not put you in control of it. You in actuality are looking at the world, and sensing the world, and feeling the world, and understanding the world from a human vantage point, and you cannot, under any circumstances, look at it from a different point of view, because this one, is the only one in your possesion. You cannot pretend otherwise, without a false claim of supernatural power. Regards, TAR2 Which brings up another thought I have had, considering thoughts and determinations had in the threads I have participated in, which ties in with this thread and your recent disapointment at not finding an intellectual equal. If the majority of highly intelligent, capable people at the higher end of the intelligence scale, do not believe in God, and they are the same ones in control of the artistic, political, business, educational, entertainment, military, medical, industrial, and scientific estabishments that we have, does this not mean there must be a certain assumption of superiorty, or control of the situation, similar to your false claims, undertaken by this intelligencia? That is, does being smarter than the next, give one the right to feel they are "correct" about the world, and their model of reality is superior in some way, to reality itself? That things would be "better" if only people understood what they understood? You yourself talked of respecting the other. I allign myself with this notion and consider my dependence on, and recognition of the value and power of another's "human judgement" a realistic conclusion to draw about the world, and a realistic sounding board to use to base oneself correctly. This makes me neither social, nor a believer in god. Just a believer in the reality of the situation, that we are all in this together, and none of us, can trump it, and none of us can deny it. Regards, TAR2 Gees, Besides, in searching for someone smart enough to benefit from your contributions, you reveal a fault in your own determinations. If they were to be true and actual and existant in an objective way, you would have no difficulty pointing them out to even the dullards, like myself. The fact that you are running into difficulty means you have not yet honed the thoughts into complete agreement with objective reality. They fit your thinking exactly, but the goal is not to bring everybody else to your way of thinking, but to come to determinations that nobody would have any reason to deny. For me, this is more readily achieved by assuming a preexisting objective reality that I am witnessing from the particular vantage point, the particular place and time, the here and now of TAR at this moment, which is one of a succession of moments that TAR has witnessed since his birth, and will continue to witness til his death. That there are "others" partaking in this same reality is evident. That my take is the only take, is therefore nonsense. That it will stop when I die, is nonsense. That it has any reason to cease, or start or change its nature based on a mere "thought" or feeling of mine, is not likely, past my influence on my family and friends and company and state, and any continuation of a notion that might proceed from my mention of such, to somebody listening. I am insulated quite well, from the beginning and end of the universe, by time, and am insulated quite well from the happenings at an atomic level, on a planet in a distant galaxy. These things I can imagine, but I cannot witness nor control. Neither can you witness or control things that you are so thouroughly insulated from, by time and space. No matter how smart you are. Regards, TAR2

Moontanman, Which brings up an interesting point. Or question. What is it, chemical wise, or comfort-wise, or evolutionarily wise, that causes the chill, or the hair standing up on our neck, when we experience something "weird"? I am thinking that this reaction we have to weird things, things we do not know the cause of, may well be a driving force, or create the desire within us, to find the cause. We do feel so much "better" when we see it was only the cat. Relieved, perhaps laugh at ourselves a bit, for being so frightened over something so understandable, and wonder why we let our imaginations run so far afield, when the "answer" was so mundane. Not that we "want" the answer to be fantastic, but that we entertain the fantastic, when the mundane causes are not apparent. And maybe it feels a little good to have the adreniline, and then find you are safe, after all. Personally I do not enjoy theme park rides, that cause adreniline to pump. My feeling is that adreniline is for running away from bears or for screaming and waving your hands so angrily that the bear runs away. Not appropriate use of the stuff, to have "fun". Some people like to have the stuff pumping around their bodies. It makes them feel "alive". But for me, you are either putting yourself in real danger, which is stupid and dangerous, or you are putting yourself in fake danger, which is foolish and false. When I find myself sitting on a chair on the end of a wire, swinging rapidly in a circle, high above the ground, I do not wish to be having the fears I am having. I sit rather still, not to upset any equilibriums or put any strains or imbalances into an already tenuous situation. Frozen in fear, if you will. I do not go on such rides, very often, I already know I will not enjoy them, and just partake to show myself that one can go on such a ride, and not die. But do you think some people "like" to be scared, when it comes to the supernatural? Sort of a game a person or group of people might come up with, to feel more alive? Just a thought. Regards, TAR2 As a young child, I remember seriously wondering what could be in my closet, that would come out and get me. I did not know for sure, and could not convince myself that there was nothing there of the sort. Only way to know, was to go look, but that would involve putting my foot on the floor, which would leave me open to anything under the bed that would want to reach out and grab my ankle. It took some courage, and several successful sorties, out of the bed, and into the closet, to calm such fears. As a further "aside", I, later in life once had an incident where I thought I heard someone go into my dad's study upstairs, when I thought my Dad was in his bedroom. Going up stairs, and knocking on the bedroom door, and getting a response from my dad, gave me a chill. I called him out, we opened the study door and peeked in, and the closet door behind the entry door, was ajar and its always closed. Further "chill". I reached around and touched the knob as to gently swing it closed, and their was resistence. Heavy chill. "Somebody is in there" was whispered and my dad and I burst in and put our full weight against the door. There WAS somebody in the closet.

Gees, I am aware that the ghost story has been convoluted in my memory, and no doubt reenforced in incorrect manners by the retelling of it. For instance I personally did not remember the rag doll, because it was to difficult to make sense of, and I had rejected it, from my memory. It was years later, when recalling the event with others that had been there, that I was assured by the others that the rag doll was a fact of the case. So I put it back in for the telling. (my sister later married one of the 18 year olds, who is now my current brother in law). And over the years, we have recalled the event and the events and stories around it, to attempt to determine what of it was explainable, and what of it remains a mystery. For instance, my brother in law does not remember a man at the end of the driveway, although he remembers the rag doll and the distributor cap, and the rest of the story. So I do not know, "when" I put the man in the story, or if he actually stood at the corner that day, and whose memory has been adjusted by each of our own adjustments, and each of the adjustments we have made based on our trust of the other people's memory of the event, Mass hysteria theory works to explain it, only to a certain extent. There were too many reasonable people, looking for good explanations involved, for it to be a "prank" orchestrated by any subgroup of the mix. The saying "the truth will out" comes to mind. Someone involved would have unearthed the prank or confessed their complex orchestration of the events of that summer, by now, if it was a prank. So I think it was not. Something unexplanable by the application of normal sense and logic and accepted knowledge of how the world works, was afoot that summer. If we "fed" off each other, then it is an excellent example of how the "supernatural" comes into our awareness. We trust other people's take, as if it is our own. Thereby "sensing" something, we have never actually personally sensed. Pertinent to this discussions might be the idea of a collective consciousness. One example would be "the scientific community". A person can utter the phase "well, we know that such and such is true" without ever actually taking the measurement or witnessing the phenomena. There is a collective awareness, a "thing" we refer to, that does not actually exist, that we hold as a thing that actually exists. And upon inspection, the thing actually does exist in the collective personages of all the scientists that have witnessed and published and shared their findings over the years, and stored their validated notions in libraries, universities and the memories of others. I associate with my family and friends. I am going to an annual family reunion later today in PA, where, if I brought it up, there are others that have heard the ghost story, and my Aunt, female cousin, brother-in-law, and I, who were at the farm that summer, who actually witnessed first hand, the events and follow-up investigations, could rehash and reaffirm and correct any false impressions or faulty memories. We have attempted before to "explain" the thing. I associate also with "the scientific community" and would like to see a newspaper article about someone hanging themselves at that address, and see pictures of how that person dressed, and see the records of his ownership of house C, and the farmhouse with the piano...but if I had those things...it still would not explain the events. It would not make it less weird, it would make it more weird. If I actually saw such records, it would give me a chill. At least now, with no such records infront of me, I can discount the event as mass hysteria, and faulty memory, and embellished or made up facts, that only were true because they fit the story. But back to your concern that it makes no sense to be conscious without a purpose or a reason. It has come to my attention, that things will be, for me, after I die, much as they were, for me, before I was born. Now, as I consider it rather inappropriate to die, since life is all that I have in the first place, I look for a consideration that will associate me with not only that which is the case currently, outside my awareness, but with that which was the case before I was born, and with that which will be the case after I die. For this, I look at other people, because it is with them that I can converse. Other people are a verification of existence outside of ones own consciousness. Because they can and do talk back, and can cooberate this "witnessing" thing we individually do. In this way, a "collective" consciousness is apparently real and existent. Awareness, not limited to ones own. I can not "know" what it is you are focusing on, what your history of experience and thought and emotion has been, or what memories you hold, but I can make a pretty good guess, based on the similarly constructed body/brain/heart group that you and I both have, that outside of the differences that female construction and hormornes and male construction and hormones might cause, there is a great deal of things we are aware of, that we have in common. These common things I can and do, with confidence, suggest are the reality that we share. A reality that is bigger and longer lived, than either one of us, but a reality that we each are completely constructed by and of, and which we each can reasonably consider "ours". I can die, and "it" will not end. So there is life after death and we each are still obligated to it, and can feel responsible for it, and a part of it. It is in this sense that one is aware of the all. As to your consideration that there are two divisions, thought and emotion, I am thinking that they are not separate things in themselves, but differents aspects of being human, based around a kind of timing of memories, and senses, and contingent upon the symbols we use to recall the state we are in at any moment. Language is important to thought, the meaning behind language exists regardless of the symbols used to describe it. So, I would propose that the supernatural is just a word we use to placehold for all that which we know has to be going on, that we also can not get our minds around, or put another way, that we cannot fit into our individual model housed in a rather tiny by comparison, brain. That we know therefore that the rest of the world is more aware, and smarter and more capable, more longlived and so much larger than we individually are, it is no wonder that their is some confusion and discussion about the nature of god and reality. You can't get close to understanding it, more clearly than it already understands itself. Here is where I would challenge your thought that dreams are as fitting as reality. Thoughts do not have to follow all the rules, and fit as snuggly to every consideration, as reality itself does. Regards, TAR2

Gees, We, you and me, that is, I think, are in the same chapter, if not on the same page. Moontanman is also on the same chapter, but its in a different book on the subject. I think. I believe that you and I have accepted, or have come to a certain agreement or relationship with the world that we are in and of, that allows us to ask a question, or float a possible answer in a more informal, on our own authority basis. Not that we don't require evidence, or that we are not aware of the need for verification, but that we allow a little more wiggle room, in the particular book we are both reading, than is normally allowed in an official science text. For instance, between Gees and TAR I might be able to say "we" referring to all life on Earth, and expect that you understood the meaning I was trying to convey, where between Moontanman and TAR, "we" might not extend past humans with any meaning. But thats just a feeling I get. I might be wrong. But back to the topic and our different perspective on this. If consiousness is a thing, floating around, finding bodies to inhabit, it would be contrary to my take. In my take, life grabbed form and structure from a universe tending toward entropy. That means life is a victory in and of itself. We are our own reward. We have already won. Just by being. And human life and consciousness is a especially nice thing, because we have come up with language, so that we can share the experience. Now, being universe material ourselves, we can also ascribe this victory to the universe, but there is nothing supernatural required in the transaction. Anything we can do, or think or feel is obviously something that the universe can accomplish. if this were not a fact, that matter and energy can be conscious, then we couldn't possibly be conscious. Since we are, then its not only possible, but obviously a fact. That we are matches to the Earth, and its pressure and it's chemical composition, and its temperature, and its cycles, is no mystery, because its from here that we emerged. Its here that we fit, because its here that we are fitting. -------- Ghost story. I was about 18, so it was 1970 or 71. Sometime between spring and fall, because the green leaves were out. In rural PA, south of Allentown. I was living with my Aunt and Uncle and two cousins on a farm. My female cousin, slightly younger than I, was house sitting for a traveling family. Once a day she would go over to the house, a mile or two away and feed the dogs, and cats and make sure the place was intact, and the plants were watered and so on. Now, this young lady was wired a little differently than my male cousin and I were. For instance, we had this electric can opener that would regulary shock her, that neither my cousin or I could ever get to shock us, no matter how hard we tried, sticking one hand in the sink and so on. Well she came back from the house one day and told us she heard the piano playing in the other room, and nobody else was in the house. We didn't believe her. Then she came back and said the furniture by the piano was in a different orientation than how she had left it. We thought she was mistaken. Then she came home shaking, saying she was by the piano, and a man put his hand on her shoulder, and she was not going back. A group of brave, disbelieving male 18 year olds, my cousin and two or three friends and I escorted her over in our station wagon. Two went in the house with her as I and two others waited by the car, smoking cigarettes. The house group came rushing out saying "let's go". There was a definite feeling that we should go, in the air. We piled in the car, and it did not start. On the hood of the car, was a rag doll. Mind you, we were leaning against said car, and none of us had put it there, nor noticed it getting there. We opened the hood and the distributor cap was off. Not loose. Off, laid upside down, next to the distributor. We replaced it and proceeded directly down the quarter mile driveway to the road. Standing at the road, to the left of the driveway was a man dressed in southern garb, all in white, with a white southern plantation style hat. We did not know him, he was not from around there, and he looked out of place, yet we did not stop. I think I remember looking right in his eyes as we passed, and leaving remained the thing to do. We spent the next weeks trying to figure the event out, talking with neighbors and such. The house was visited and kept by my cousin, always accompanied, without further incident until the owners returned, and they too were told the story. In the telling of the story to a neighbor 3/4 of a mile in the other direction, an incident at her house was disclosed. A house guest of hers, sleeping downstairs had reported that a man, dressed all in white, with a white hat had come down the stairs in the morning, walked right passed her, through the kitchen and out the back door, across the field, toward our house. The hostess had insured the guest, that there was only one bedroom upstairs, and only her and her husband had been in it, and there was no man to have come down the stairs. Questions were asked, information was learned, and it turned out that a man, a real man used to live in farmhouse C, dress all in white, and take a path to church which passed through our farm. It also was learned that he later had owned and lived in the house where my cousin had house sat, and hung himself from the lamp post at the end of his driveway. Regards, TAR2 Gees, We cross posted. I said we might be in the same chapter, before a read your last tirade. Lighten up. You are taking yourself too seriously. We are all intelligent, civil folk around here. You need not lecture us, nor threaten. Regards, TAR2 And I don't think (or feel) anybody is quivering.

Gees, Sorry your health is failing you. But I don't find you are failing to put your ideas on the page. Not that I don't have some slight disagreement here and there, and perhaps some larger perspective differential on some points, but I think you have succeeded in putting your ideas on the page. My solution to the underlying, or deeper meaning problem, of our inability to get our minds around "all knowledge", is the same as yours, but we put it differently. You say it is emotion that is what we don't know, I rather consider that what we don't know in a conscious, put it in words way, is what we already know, because we are here, experiencing it. Its a given. In this sense, in line with the personal God you are talking about, we each already "know" this thing. Its unavoidable, its stipulated to such an extent, that the stipulation is stipulated. Nobody, can not know about it already, so there are no words that would refute it, and no words required to acknowledge it, and therefore no words that would do it any justice or do it any harm. In this light, the problem with other peoples religion, is that their words about it, are insufficient to describe that thing that you already know. Or that thing you already feel has to be the case without any argument or description required or possible. So its quite impossible for another to have a special key or understanding, to a thing already unlocked, ubiquitous, true and present. Any words about it are suspect for one reason or another. You either can't know what you are making up about it, or you are talking about something that is already assumed in the statement. In either case, none can claim special, unique association to this thing, and none can deny special, unique association to this thing. So, yes, the Koran has truth in it. But its wrong for Mohammed to usurp the power and truth of reality, and associate it with himself and those that believe in his words, and claim that therefore anyone not believing in the prophet is in error. It simply is not his power and truth to dispense. Not his exclusively. And its power and truth that obviously has already been dispensed and already is in everybody elses, and everything elses possession. The ghost story will have to come later...I have to shower for work. Regards, TAR2

Gees, I too come to this thread with a chip on my shoulder. 9/11. I read the Koran twice, after the event, once for the gist, and once for understanding. I have come to the opinion that Allah is no god of mine. There are not, in reality virgins waiting for me by a couch by which flows a river of honey (should I believe in the Prophet, and his knowledge of the will of Allah, gained through the words of the Angel Gabriel, spoken to him in private in a cave). Nor is there boiling oil waiting for me, to spend my eternal anguish in, should I not believe. The only explanation for his visions and the Koran, is Mohammed's imagination. He made it up. He thought it through, he retold the stories of the Bible, with his own twist, that discounted the idol worshippers, the interest collecting Jews and the Christians who believed that Allah would have any associates, like a son. He usurped Allah's power, and associated himself with Allah and told his believers, that if they disbelieved in Mohammed's words, Mohammed being but a simple messenger of Allah, then they would be in error, and suffer the boiling oil fate. Its made up. Its the "imagination" I am talking about, that takes human emotions, and experience, and fears and needs, and projects them onto the universe, as if the universe itself has human emotions and needs. It is the anthropomorphism we are discussing. In my take, this belief in the supernatural, is belief in the imagination and take of Mohammed. Thus and still it is true that we all believe in the universe, but we need not see it through the imagination of Mohammed. We can see it, with our own eyes, and feel it through our own emotions, and make our own models of it, using our own imaginations. And moreover, bolster our individual understandings of it, by sharing our findings with other humans, and checking our own imaginations against the imaginations of others, to determine what really is the case, and what is not really the case, and what we are going to mutually agree upon to be the case, because we wish it so, and by this consensus and mutual agreement and promise, make it so. So, what is figurative and what is literal, when you speak of supernatural. Which of it, are you ascribing to our human projections of human imagination upon the world. And which of it are you suggesting is actual, literal reality, that we have no choice but to be subject to? I for one reject the notion that I am subject to Mohammed's imaginary creator and judge. Allah does not exist in objective reality. Only in the minds of Moslems. As Jesus is in the hearts and minds of Christians, and Brahman is in the hearts and minds of the Buddists. Regards, TAR

Gees, We all have emotion. Its not something you own. You are not the first to wonder how it is so. My arguments are simple. We cannot be "other than" our emotions. We rather quite belong to the world, and the world to us. We all have human bias, all us humans that is. We all know what it feels like to be a human, and it is from that vantage point that we experience, learn about and make effort to survive in the world. We can and do project our subjective take upon the world. We associate ourselves with it. And many parts and peices of it, and many other people return the favor. We follow the laws of nature, and we follow the laws of man (other subjective takes that we agree with). I do not consider my opinions on the matter either nonsense nor hysterics. I try to make statements that are consistent with what I know and do not know, coupled with a guess or two about what it is that you do or do not know, and on what basis you would or would not know it. I have experienced "a ghost" and am still working out which parts of the experience were "explainable" by objective facts that others could notice, and which were "manufactured" by my emotions and imagination, and rearranged memories, and group "hysterics". I have had an "epiphany" on a mountain top in Germany, where I "understood" treeness, and with it, the fact that life grabbed form and structure and organisation from a universe tending toward entropy, and held on to it, and passed it on for what is just a fleeting moment in the expanse of space and time...but that does not keep me from considering what it is that I am going to have for dinner. And who I might have that dinner with. And how my society and nature assisted me in bringing that food to the table. And what endeavors I should take to ensure I have a house and a family and a table with food upon it, tomorrow night. Regards, TAR2

Gees, I used to have a cat that liked to "play". I would have my hand under the comforter on the bed and make little scratchy noises and he would pounce and try to catch and bite the "critter". He knew when I was finished with the game and just wanted to pet him through the comforter. He did not try and bite or claw the critter, when it became my hand. I play with my dog when I come home, she jumps up on the bed, knowing that a game is afoot. I try to flip her to her side, or cover her with the blanket or a shirt, or hit one of her feet, and she trys to stay upright, avoid her feet being grabbed, and gets out from under anything I try to cover her with. Puppies and dogs play fight. Professional sports are play fights. Mammals seem to know the difference between a game, or practice, and a real fight to the death. This thread is about superstition and the supernatural. Both are downgraded in the literature, to pretend things. Things we imagine, that are not actually real. Thor is not really striking his hammer about, when we hear thunder. We made him up. He is pretend. However thunder really does occur. Flowers "know" how to bloom. People "know" how to metabolize. Mitochondria "know" how to replicate. Even the stupidest among us can make a child, given a functioning human body of the opposite sex to work with. It is unlikey that mice control the universe, or that humans do. It appears that the universe is rather in charge of itself. That hormones are part of the complex, that makes us tick is evident. That there is "mystery" involved it how exactly a growing brain cell "knows" what connections to make to be a part of the human brain, is evident. But as complex and mysterious as it might be, we still are aware of it, exist because of it, and can not "think" or "feel", without the real, complex organism that we are, and without the emergent history that made it so, and without the surrounding environment and conditions in which we fit. I do not believe in the soul as being some supernatural "ghost" in a natural "machine". I think the human spirit is an actual reality and that we have evolved and learned and shared to get to this point. And that reality is wonderful enough to investigate and explore, and experience, without having to make anything up about it. "Supernatural" suggest a vantage point, that makes what is real, an illusion, a figment of the imagination of God. I tend to think that it is rather the other way around. Reality is quite real and sufficient and evident, and imaginary explanations based on projecting ones own human motivations and capabilities unto the greater reality, are dreams that do not actually fit the case. Regards, TAR2

Gees, Years ago, I read a short article on the similarity between the chemicals released in the brain when a gambler "wins" and certain chemicals taken by drug addicts. It started a "line of thought" that I have been carrying around since, where I have determined that "winning" at anything will release the same chemical "rewards" as "winning" at anything else. These brain chemicals are probably hormones by definition and chemical composition and are therefore pertinent to this discussion. The feelings we have of well being, of being on top of the world, of feeling "good" and "right", no doubt are related to what neurotransmitters are retarding or facilitating various synaptic activities. Hormones, if you will. Also pertinent to your recent acknowedgement that certain religious or spiritual experiences seem to be associated with sleep deprivation, being in caves, eating mushrooms, or otherwise adjusting your hormone levels, is the fact that an addict, high on his drug of choice will feel that he/she is winning, and ontop of the world, regardless of the fact that he/she is laying in the gutter, filthy and penniless, and probably closer to death, then to conscious awareness of a beneficial nature. Consider the addiction to gambling or video games, where no one but the player, sees the value, and gets the reward. It is in this light that I consider an "imaginary" win, different than an actual one. And in this light that I look at a cat attacking the thick portions of the air. The important thing for the cat was that it was a successful attack, and she/he won that round. Regards, TAR2 Also, in this light, a sage reaching nirvana on a mountaintop, actually does nothing to effect the price of beans. Sorry, but a old ryhme came to mind. Beans, beans are good for your heart, the more you eat them, the more you fart, the more you fart the better you feel, so eat your beans at every meal.

Gees, Anthropomorphism, from my old dictionary. The attribution of human motivation, characteristics, or behaviour to inanimate objects, animals, or natural phenomena. My suggestion, that "putting yourself in the shoes of an unseen other" is the basis of anthropomorphism, is quite on topic, and does fit the definition. How does a bacterium feel? What would it be like to be an electron or a photon? We can only imagine these things by putting ourselves in the others shoes. Though the capability to do this, probably developed so that we would empathize with others in our pack, and understand their motivations, and next move, so we could act in concert, it is also useful in preparing against an enemy, and therefore those two uses are both survival tools, and therefore explainable by evolution and the survival of the fittest. That we use this "capability" to imagine humans in the trees and the clouds, is not so clear cut a survival attribute. How much "human" consciousness do you attribute to the clouds? Are the clouds motivated by the same emotions and needs and drives as a human is? I doubt it. They don't have any hormones at all, much less human ones. We may be distant cousins to the trees and the bacterium, and share some chemical schemes, so perhaps we can put ourselves in their shoes, with at least a little shared "feeling". We do like the smell of flowers, after all, and it is a scientific fact that the many carbon based lifeforms before us, have conditioned the Earth, with complex protein molecules, that support the cycle of life on this planet. So we can "feel" a family tie to anything alive on this planet, with no need for any magic. But there is no evidence that human consciousness comes from "outside" the Earth and flits about looking for places to land, and looking for chemical combinations to "reside" in. I am thinking that anthropomorphism is a projection of ourselves upon the world, and therefore imaginary in nature. I do not think it makes any sense that the universe would have any need for human hormones, or any way to have human hormones, without first developing an Earth, and then life on it, and then animals with hormones. You seem to be suggesting that anthropomorphism is the result of an already human consciousness permeating the universe, that we just fail to recognize. I do not think this make any sense at all. My thinking puts first things first, and things that develop or emerge from the first things, as second and third things, which are new to the universe, with respect to the first things. And I do not think the universe has yet done, what it is going to do next. Hormones may well be important emotional considerations. Pheremones may be important commication vehicals. But it is us, that are having them. They are not supernatural in nature. They belong to us, and our condition. Regards, TAR2 Gees, No apology to me is required for posting under the influence of codine. My thoughts are regularly "out of the box", and I unfortuneately have no excuse at all, being completely sober as I always am. Regards, TAR2

Gees, Well thank you for sharing the story of the birth of your daughter, and that of your husband's growth that you felt was your own, and sorry about your foot and your pain, and whatever story is behind that. But I have an alternative explaination, consistent with a separation between what is real and what is imaginary, that does not push emotion into an imaginary category. Our own conscioussness is something we are subjectively sure of. There is no question about it. What we have some difficulty with, is knowing, but not fully grasping that there truely exists other consciousnesses and wills and buckets of thoughts and emotion, other than us. Areas of the world, so-to-speak, that we are not privey to. I think people get into trouble when they up the value of their own model of the world to a status beyond its actual importance to or application to, actual outside-oneself reality. That is, if you are not actually accounting for others to exist, in and of themselves, without your help, or insights, then you have stepped over into a basically non-functioning or supernatural area, where you consider the world is going by your rules, even though everybody else doesn't realize it. Fact is, and I am rather sure about this, other people, which there are 8 billion of, for sure, can and do have awareness of the world, without my help or knowledge, and do it, without regard for how I feel about it. That is, I might know or think I know what is going wrong in my company for instance, and what initiatives are suspect and will fail, or will be in need of serious adjustment, and will be corrected once recognized, but that does not mean that anybody has asked me for my opinion, or that I am correct, or that if what I suspected does turn out the way I thought it would, that I could consider it a premonition, that validated a "special" connection to, and special understanding of "the greater reality" that I am privey to, by virtue of emotional awareness far beyond that of mortal man. If it turned out the way I felt it would, it just means I had a good sense about it. Here my guess would be, that ESP for instance is not so much "another" "unknown" sense we might have, but merely a holistic amalgum of all the senses we have, focused on one consideration, outside our body/brain/heart group. That this combinatory awareness results in a "correct" assement is not magical, or unexplainable, or a "power" that can be said to exist only in the one body/brain/heart group that "has" the feeling. It instead is something that other body/brain/heart groups can and do do on a regular basis. This primarily because we all are put together, (all us humans) in a rather similar fashion. And we have been noticing this, and telling each other about it, for hundreds of thousands of years. To consider that as a singular "feeling" entity, you have stumbled upon a facility that no one else has noticed or experienced, is rather egotistical and deminishing of the strength and value and reality, of all that which is not of your own body/brain/heart group. And correlarily, recognizing ones "place" in the greater scheme, assures ones belonging to it, connections to it, and amost validates ones considerations of "containing" that which is outside, having knowledge of it, and "feeling" its presence and having true influence on it, and responsibility to it. Regards, TAR2

Gees, As to your list. I have a theory, that I use to separate that which is real, and that which is supernatural. If I can think it, or feel its real, but it has no effect on you or anybody else, then its supernatural. My extension of this, is that therefore the supernatural is akin to the imaginary. For a analogy, consider unrequited love. I could include someone in my feeling of self, think about them all the time, structure my life to be to their benefit, and they in return might not give me the time of day. You have studied anthropomorphism. I think it is a real thing we do when we put ourselves in the shoes of an unseen other. It gives us the ability to look at ourselves through their eyes, and thereby become conscious of ourselves objectively. But belief in the supernatural, according to my theory, would be when you consider your imagination is more correct than reality, or nature, or the objective world, that we actually share. Or in the case of most religions, when you believe you have a special connection to, or understanding, or feeling about the world, that is inaccessable to anybody that does not have the "key" you have found. What science says, is, "show me the key" "we will try it out, and see if it works." If it works, then it is natural and real and we can all use it. If it doesn't work, then consider it supernatural, if you will, but in my book, that parks the key firmly in the imaginary category. And along the lines of unrequited love, consider the fact that some believe they love all the people of the world, and they don't even know 7 or 8 billion of them. Sort of has to be supernatural in nature, to have such a feeling. That is, you can think it, you can feel its so, but if it has no effect on the rest of us, and the rest of the world, and the rest of the solar system...universe, then it has to be "supernatural" and exist primarily in ones imagination. On the other hand. In support of your consideration that chemicals can be conscious, we each have a rather convincing example. Ourselves. Regards, TAR2

Gees, I will have to agree with Moontanman. "Supernatural" already has definitions. (From my 1976 American Heritage Dictionary). 1. Of or pertaining to existence outside the natural world: especially, not attributable to natural forces. 2. Attributed to the immediate exercise of divine power: miraculous. 3. Of or pertaining to the miraculous. These definitons are contrary to the the hormones and pheremones you are describing. These definitions are contrary to your thought that God is not a supernatural reality, but that nature itself is rather godlike in its capabilities and complexities. Everything you have argued exactly says that Moontanman is right and the supernatural does not exist. You and me and Moontanman all agree that there must be a natural mechanism at work, in all things. (phenomena). There is no mention in your arguments of anything "outside" the natural world, affecting its demeanor. Just a wonderful and awsome reality that we have not yet gotten our minds completely around. That there are reasons for our emotions argue exactly against the supernatural. After all, anything that we would erroneously suspect is the work of something unnatural, unreal and impossible, would be immediately rendered "natural" as soon as the connections, reasons, and complex mechanisms were found out. The possibility of anything to be "outside" of the natural world, is not a possibility. By definition. If it is not contained in nature, there is no where else for it to be. But in our imaginations. And even our imaginations are a "natural" thing, with a physical home, and the interplay of real, natural chemicals, to explain it. Regards, TAR2

Mike, I think the similarity between what is the case, and the mold you are referring to, is the fact that they both are there anyway, regardless of our designations or descriptions of it. Like Kant might say, the understanding of a thing, or what we say about a thing is not the same as the thing in itself. Problem with a theory of everything is that one cannot have an idea bigger or more real than the thing the idea is about. The reflection is never as good as the thing that is being reflected. You can't write the whole formula down, because there is not enough ink and paper, that would or could exist in a manner "outside" of that which you are describing is the case. And the formula would not, and could not "work" as the reality of what actually is the case, does. Finding "the principle" behind the thing is more a less a misnomer. Its the thing that is the case already, and you can not trump it, just by noticing it. You can discover things about reality, but its already been invented, its already manifest, it is already the case. Regards, TAR2 And I might add, it has not yet done, what it is going to do next.

Gees, Had a waking thought this morning about chemicals, pheremones and the Oak trees "telling" each other to bolster up against the pests. The hormones of a man and a woman are different. The hormones in a male, tell the male one set of things, and those in a woman tell her a different set of things. I recall, back when my wife had regular periods, that there was a time of the month where i could expect some different behavior, emotions and somewhat unpredictable thoughts from her. There is not a good way to describe this difference in the way a man feels, and a woman feels, because you have to be "having" the hormones, and "feeling" their effects to really "know" what it is like. Complicating modern life somewhat is our scientific mastery of hormones and our ability to administer them to each other artifically, such as in certain contraceptives, that "tell" a woman to "feel" more like a man would feel, which seems to confuse a woman's body into not acting like a woman in those areas that would release an egg, and prepare the uterus' walls to receive a fertilized one and get all the chemicals in order to facilitate the presence of a healty spermazoa and so on. Waking thought being, that "information" comes in at least two strengths. One strength is enough to modify ones model of the outside world that is held as memories, and the next strength is enough to significantly modify the chemical reality and the physical relationships going on in the brain/heart/body complex. In both strengths something changes the form on the inside of the brain/heart/body complex. A "thought" is rather weaker than a "feeling" in this regard. A thought can be right or wrong, workable or unworkable, here in one moment, and gone the next, whereas a "feeling" has more of a basis in the actual awareness of the current situation the brain/heart/body complex is in. When an elephant sits down on top of me, we both "know" I am being crushed, but its me that "feels" the pressure. When you speak of connections and emotions and the things one is atune to, there seems to me to be plenty of room for the chemical and physical reality of the world to "get in" to our awareness of it, to where we can "feel it", for real, whether we "know it" or not. Regards, TAR2

science4ever, I am not sure where I read it, or whether I am getting terms mixed up, but I think metaphysical and supernatural themselves got mixed up, when chapters on such where found "after" those on the physical on natural sciences. As such supernatural need not mean impossible, or magical or "other than" science, but merely those true things which we will take up after getting the physical and natural into good perspective. Gees, Kant, in his Critique of Pure Reason, made a very good, if not excellent try at looking at our understanding in a logical fashion, and structured a fine science of metaphysics. I have not read the whole thing, so I can't teach it or quote its ideas properly, but he does "start" with our a priori intuition of space and of time, as you alluded to. This, he builds logically into a table of judgements or concepts/understandings we have, and this into the Categories which cover, in general, everything and anything we can "say" about a thing, or "think" about a thing. Since the intuitions of space and time, already are "in there", I am not sure where you are conceiving this "emotion" is falling in Kant's scheme. Or if you think it is something he missed. Perhaps "the heart" IS important to the scheme, since it beats, and we "feel" the duration of its beat throughout the "space" of our bodies. Everything else, cause and effect, inherence and subsistence, reciprocity between the agent and patient, possibility-impossibility, existence, non-existence, necessity-contingence, unity, plurality,totality, reality, negation, and limitation, are concepts we have, based on judgements that we make based on analogies to what we already know...the beating of our own heart. Regards, TAR2

Moontanman, Perhaps I confused you with someone else. Or carried something you said in another context, in other threads into this one. Maybe it wasn't you at all, but some bring up the biblical prohibition of homosexuality, and the related societal oppresion of homosexuals by fundamentalists as a prime reason to "disbeleive" in any "truth" or "goodness" or value coming from the book, in the same way that many woman's rights people discount any real authority the book could have on the basis of it's sexism. That is, such pronouncements would not have, could not have, come from an objectively true creator who would not have been, and could not possibly be sexist and homophobic, at the same time as being all-loving and all-knowing. Regards, TAR2

Gees, I actually got the answer to that riddle, on my own when I first heard it, over thirty years ago. And I am a man, without the "emotional" grasp of reality you seem to think is required to witness reality properly. I sense that you come to this forum with a chip on your shoulder, as does Moontanman. You both "have a point" in that, in your case, the Bible is sexist, and in Moontanman's case the bible is homophobic, but both arguments, while true, provide good, strong arguments against the God of the bible being "a proper enough god to be real". No true god would be like that. So EVERYTHING in the bible, that is contingent upon the God, as described in the Bible, being an actual entity, that exists outside of human imagination, imposing such idiotic rewards and punishments upon the world, is completely out of the question. That the superstitions of the bible have some merit, like it turns out to be rather a healthy thing to not eat rotten meat, is no indication what so ever that we come to this knowledge only because a non-existent angel of a non-existent god told somebody with handwritting in the sky or voices in a cave. More reasonable to assume that people that ate rotten meat did not fare as well as those that cooked freshly hunted meat and cooked it before eating it, and hence the societal bands against doing the stuff that was not going to work out very well. Scientists figured out it was the germs that caused the disease, AFTER it was known that rotten meat would make you sick. Bottom line, if it is the "truth" you are after, looking for it to exist in the Bible, only for us to gleen it, I think you are mistaken. The "truth" already existed prior the Old testament and the New testament and the Koran, and the truth contained in those works, was a compilation of what was already "known" to man, codified by and for man (and maybe not woman), so the Bible itself, can more or less be disregarded. But you already know this. And are "looking" for the truth surrounding our beliefs in the supernatural, and our adherence to superstitions. My suggestion is that phenomena are real, and true and explainable and natural and studiable by science and accessable to any and all of us. Anything that is NOT accessable to science is NOT natural phenomena, and by definition, "made up", and imaginary. Which brings us to your use of the word "emotion". I would argue strongly that ones emotions are a real phenomenum, but would also argue that "feeling" at one with the world, does not make it so. It is not likely that we are to find out any "truth", that is not already true, or at least already possible to become the truth. ESP, extrasensory perception, implies that you know about something without sensing it. "Feeling" and "sensing" are closely related terms. In this discussion, I don't think you should divide "emotion" into a special secret category only available to special women with careful focus on the right magical wavelengths. It is either possible to have real "connections" with another, by virtue of sense provided information and focus, and commonly held memories and thoughts, and therefore within the bounds of scientific investigations, or it is not possible and therefore imaginary in nature. Regards, TAR2

Gees, Interesting stories, but "connections" that you talk about, are subjective things. You "imagine" a thing, it turns out to be true, and you therefore claim a connection of "supernatural" kind. You have not told us, of every other time you imagined something and it turned out not to be true. Every once in a while, my "Deer alarm" goes off, before I see a deer. Many times I have seen a deer soon after my deer alarm goes off, and since weeks or months have gone by without my deer alarm going off, and I have memory of a number of occasions where my deer alarm went off and I soon saw a deer, I still think I have a deer alarm, and should honor it, when it goes off. However, it is more a game or imaginary power, then an actual power. A couple of days ago, my deer alarm went off, and I told my wife, who was passenger in the car. No deer appeared. What would you suppose, that they were hiding in the bushes and failed to jump out? Or would you surmise that my deer alarm is something I made up, on the basis of a few "pigeon" type false rewards? I would guess the latter is more likely the case. I more often see a deer, without any prior inkling, than I see a deer with my alarm going off prior to the sighting. Any correlation between the alarm going off, and the actual sighting of a deer, probably has more to do with subconscious or unconsious clues I may have picked up, the time of day, the knowledge of the area surrounding the road, the habits of deer to be on the move around dusk, and so on. Perhaps even I smell the deer, or smell something a deer would run toward or away from. In anycase, it seems more reasonable to look for a "rational" explanation, than to imagine supernatural forces are at work. Bottom line...my deer alarm is not an indication that the supernatural is something outside my mind, waiting to be discovered, but a figment of my own imagination. And Gees, I have a few bones to pick with you. One, humans do not have instincts. We have a whole assortment of common reflexive behaviors, but no complex, species-wide behaviors that are exibited by every member of the species. At least that is what I learned in 12th grade psychology. And my "ideas" of the ID, ego and Superego of Freud go more like this...the SuperEgo is the rules you go by, primarily societally or family or socially instilled, the Id is the basic "animal" drives and needs for food and sex and pleasure and safety and such, and the Ego is the arbiture, the go between, that makes the situation work. (or at least tries). My wife and daughter were watching the "Mad Medium of Long Island" (I made up the name) last night. I have never watched the show. Already know it has to be garbage. They seem to believe it is real, as I asked my wife if she thought there was anything to it, and she suprisingly answered in the affirmative. I walked away saying "no, I meant, it doesn't have any scientific basis". Within the domain of discourse "objectively" agreed upon to be "reality", the "supernatural" is out of bounds. Its only "objective" existence is in human imagination. Regards, TAR2

There is also bad and good feelings, and Julie Andrews movies don't span the gamut of possible feelings. Panic and despair for instance are feelings a human usually would rather not be having. If one side of the brain works with the other, usually, there is probably not a "better" side, and one side helps to moderate and assist whatever is going on, in the other. In a split brain case, I would imagine that we have a connection problem of some sort, and the usual cooperation between the halves is either not present or subdued for some psychological or physiological reason. The star of "Big Bang Theory" on TV evidently has his thinking part working, but does not pick up well on social cues. Evidently, one "side" of the brain, whether fact or myth, is not enough to be fully functional. One needs the cooperation of the two, working in unison to be a "good" person. Or a "normal" person. Or at least a fully functioning person. While there is fact and fiction, true and false, there is also good and evil, and most "Christians" believe in the Devil, if they believe in God. If a brain, devoid of reason is useless, I would argue one devoid of feeling suffers from a equal malady. Regards, TAR2

Mike Smith Cosmos, Although I did not grasp the import of the paintings, your last post took the basic form of what I was about to say, which was this. Since free will is a two word concept, it more or less presupposses will, and the "question" would be the freedom or lack thereof, of it. Since will, and initiative, are closely related, I am thinking we are looking at this in a similar fashion, illustrated by the following consideration. If, at the moment, the arrangement of everything is such that it is the case, with or without any action on your part, any action on your part, will change the case. Even if, as you say, only a small change will be made. This change of what is the case is permanent and cannot be taken back, and will affect what is the case, locally, which in turn will effect whatever surrounds the "local" on the "every action has an equal and opposite reaction" principle. Thus, like a pebble thrown in the pond, or a match held to the night sky, any action changes the case. So, what is an action "on your part"? This relates to "will". Will you do it, or not. A required component here, is that, as a human, we each have a certain grasp of, or model of what is the case, coupled with muscles that we have control over. We can send a chemical pulse, or group of coordinatied pulses, or not, and perform "an action", or not. Thus we have will, the ability to know what is the case, and the ability to locally change the case, "if we will". The "initiative" resides in the choice made, to send the pulse. Which is not revokeable, once made, but is, due to our predictive motor simulator, pretestable, that is, we can practice, or imagine, or come to learn the ways an action on "our part" will change the case, without actually sending the pulses that will do it. So we each have a will. I would argue it is free as well, because we each are the one in control of, and responsible for, our own actions. Regards, TAR2

Popcorn Sutton, Whoops, I am wrong again. My saying has been falsified. Regards, TAR2

I would be willing to guess that no model can be designed, more precisely taking into account, every variable, than the real thing that the model is of. And IF the model was complete, it would no longer be a model, it would be the real thing. Popcorn Sutton, One of my favorite "original" sayings that I made up, in a discussion similar to this one, years ago, is "you can roll the dice as many times as you want, and you will never get a Queen of Hearts. For that, you need a deck of cards." Regards, TAR2