Gees

Moontanman; We do have a communication problem, and I expect that it is because we think differently. I will answer your question this time, in the hope that you can understand how I view these things, but I do not wish to debate it as we are getting off topic. The answer to your question would be no, as I don't care if the governor stated it or a begger stated it. It is not relevant to me whether the statement is true or false, as I am not looking for belief or faith in the novel or the Bible. What I am looking for is facts. Because this is a statement out of context, we are going to have to posit, or assume, some things. First I will assume that you are still talking about the people and places being accurate, and I must assume that the twin towers are the ones that regard 911. So following is how I might consider the above assertion. The assertion is that a "current governor", so this tells me a lot. First that governors change and that this is not a king, or president, but a governor; so a review of the types of governments at the time of this event will bring me to democracy and that will give me lots of information. Next we have the governor "decided", so are we stating that this governor has the authority to decide this issue? This goes to validity of the statement, as I would have to investigate whether or not a governor would have the ability and authority to simply decide the issue. A governor is not a king and answers to other people, so there would be much to consider here. Then there is the "mile high replacement"; so in this part of the statement I would have to consider feasibility, utility, and general usefulness of a mile high replacement. Mile high elevators? There are questions regarding the technical abilities of this time, the feasibility of a building this tall, the ability to maintain a building this tall, the usefulness and marketability of this building and whether or not people could park their cars, get to and from work, there would be safety issues and even insurance issues. There would be a lot to consider to see if this is a real idea. If I decided that it is simply not feasible, then I would have to consider whether the statement is a lie, or if the governor lied, and for what reason. Are we talking about a political move to make people feel better and vote for the guy, or are we talking about a pipedream of an arrogant and phallic symbol? Is this a civilization in decline that is claiming things that are unreal, or is it a civilization that is growing and accomplishing things beyond their prior capabilities? Then there is the "twin towers", so this brings the world politics and issues to the front because it was the "world" trade center, was on US soil, and was destroyed by a faction of a small nation that is not happy with world trade. So there are a lot of world political issues here. So whether or not the statement is true, one can extrapolate a wealth of information by considering these ideas and comparing them to everything else that we know about that time. This is how I study the Bible. I pull it apart and look for facts, truth, and wisdom. I do not accept what it says at face value simply because it says so. G Tar; I will respond to your post later. I have to rest now.

iNow; My thought is that it is comprehension. I have the same problem when reading Moontanman's posts. Consider his following response to me from post # 84 above. I think that Moontanman's point is that information from the Bible is invalid, but his example shows otherwise. If I read "a novel about alien invasion set in New York City that uses the names of real people and places", I could glean reams of information from it. First there would be a description of New York City, then the people, then the places, how they relate to each other, their routines and values, that Moontanman states would be valid information. Then because I know enough about psychology to understand that entertainment is simply adult play, and that play is how we learn about things that concern us, I could extrapolate reams of information from that depending upon how popular the novel was. So I could learn all about the fears, emotions, expectations, and values based upon the characters in the novel. So it can be difficult to comprehend Moontanman's ideas if one does a lot of thinking. His point is not clear. G

Cladking; You are a philosopher. I almost fell off of my chair laughing when I read your above statement. I love it. Regarding the Egyptians, here is something that I find interesting. I read somewhere that the Egyptians thought that consciousness was something that came from the heart, not the head. This, of course, was laughed at, because we now know that consciousness comes from the brain. But the more I study this subject, the more convinced I am that conscious awareness is more related to emotion than it is to thought, as we cannot think ourselves conscious. It is something that we feel and are aware of, and when we think of feeling and emotion, we identify it with the heart. It will be damned disconcerting if we find out that Egyptians, who lived thousands of years ago, were smarter than we are. (chuckle chuckle) Before all of the silliness happened, you were discussing your views on the sub/unconscious aspect of mind, and I wrote a response to you in my computer. So please consider the following: I know that you have issues regarding the sub/unconscious mind, and many of your complaints are valid. But that does not negate the fact that the unconscious exists. I will grant that it is interpreted badly and many of the ideas are ludicrous, but there is one man that I know of, who has studied it, and I think that you would find his work interesting. If you go to Wiki and look up Ignacio Matte Blanco, who worked with Anna Freud, there is a one-page synopsis on his work. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignacio_Matte_Blanco He broke the unconscious aspect of mind into levels or layers and defined each of them, which may be interesting if you have done any research on the Eastern religions as some of them also broke the unconscious into levels. A comparison would be interesting. Another thing that he did was find a logic in the unconscious, and this is the part that I find interesting. The unconscious does not recognize time and sees past, present, and future as the same thing. Psychology recognizes this and knows that this is the reason that a trauma from childhood can seem real and imminent in the present and future. What therapy does is identify the trauma, and expose the idea to the logical thought of the rational mind, so that it can be seen as over, finished, in the past. This is the cure. The other thing that he discovered is that the unconscious expects connected things to be equal. It recognizes only the link between two thing. As an example, the unconscious would know that if Mary is Ruth's mother, then Ruth is Mary's mother--a connection, but no cause and effect. Psychology also recognizes this aspect of the unconscious. So emotion, which rules the unconscious, would imply a sameness to things, which is probably where "projecting" and bonding comes from. The unconscious would expect that if I like you, then you like me; if I hate you, then you hate me. So this creates a lot of "group think" that explains our tendency to gather together with like people, and to push people that are different away. It is an emotional reaction guided by the unconscious. Again this has to be brought to the attention of the rational mind for review. But I do not study psychology, I study consciousness, so I see these things from a different perspective. If the unconscious aspect of mind sees past, present, and future as the same thing, then it has no concept of time. If it sees connections as being equal, then it has no concept of cause and effect. That means it does not understand time and space. Why would that be? Well, the obvious answer would be that it has no experience with time and space. Again, why would that be? Because it is not within time and space? Maybe. I am sure that other people have realized this, but it is just too spooky to think about. (chuckle) This is one of the things that brought me back to the idea of the Aether as being the source. Of course, some people say that the Aether does not exist, but Einstein thought that it did, and he was a pretty bright guy. So I am going with Einstein on this one. What do you think? G

Well I didn't. I was in my early 20s and shocked that I could be so blinded by assumption and belief. It was an important lesson for me. This is probably why I remember the riddle so well, as I use it to remind myself to question my assumptions. This is also the point of being here, for others to question my assumptions as long as they do not assume my assumptions. You mistake me. One does not need to have an emotional grasp of reality in order to understand that emotion is a fact of reality. And yes, I have learned to expect trouble, as my initial innocence is gone, and it no doubt shows. While I agree with your point, there is a difference. Homosexuality is viewed as an act. I don't know that this assumption is true, but that is how it is viewed, so there is an argument that supports defining it as a moral or immoral act. I do not agree with this argument, and find it to be idiotic and invalid, but the argument does exist. There is no way that being born male or female can be viewed as an act, so there can be no question as to the morality of this issue. But it is questioned from the initial story of Eve all the way through the Bible. Being female and being immoral are often synonymous in that text. There are quite a few people who have studied this and see it as a "battle of the sexes" that originated with women being the religious leaders initially and men becoming the religious leaders later. The story of Eve is sometimes equated with the story of Lilith. This was touched on in the book/movie The Divinci Code, it's predecessor, Holy Blood Holy Grail, and I believe that Dr. Brown wrote a book entitled, Lilith, but I have not yet read it, so I don't know which way it slants. Well, I agree with you again, but this is not how I discovered that God, as described, could not exist. The problem is perspectives. Every person that exists has a personal relationship with God, but they also have disputes with each other, so how can one God be on everyone's side? It is not possible. When we thought that there were multiple gods, this could work, but since we have evolved to believe there is only one God, this turns into a paradox. Many people have realized this, and I believe that it accounts for at least some of the Athiest considerations, but we still all believe that we have a personal relationship with God, hence God can not be a being. Well, there is a great deal more on this subject that you do not seem to know about, but I can not comment on it. Before walking back into that swamp, I would need a map of the quicksand, as I still have no idea of how I stepped in it in the first place. So we will not share. I do not agree. The first thing that must be understood when trying to find truth is that there is no THE truth--it does not exist. There are truths, but not a singular truth. Anyone who says differently is trying to sell something. I am looking for small simple truths that can be used to build an understanding, and maybe one day a theory. Like looking for facts. When dealing with emotional issues, and religion is all about emotion, one must be able to first sort the emotions out logically. I thought that it was very insightful of EdEarl, when he explained in another thread that his issues with parents were entwined with his issues with his religion. This is generally true and psychology has noted it. So to study religion, one must be able to sort out God, religion, the Bible, and parental issues. Long ago I decided that the concept of God exists, but not in the way described in religion. Religion is a necessary social requirement for spiritual understanding. The Bible is simply a history book, and I forgave my parents for their little idiosyncrasys. There is no reason to disregard a history book when studying history. There is also no reason to take it as absolute fact. Agreed. Everything is natural or man-made. I am not sure what you are arguing about. Emotions are very real, and I can't imagine how you got the idea that "'feeling' at one with the world" was relevant to anything. What? Are you talking about connections? Agreed. But consider that just over 50 years ago, we knew that there was some connection that all species had, but we did not understand it. So although we understood, that an oak tree that was infested with pests, would notify the neighboring oak trees to produce a chemical that would discourage the pests, we thought this communication was through the root system. We did not yet understand pheromones. Think about the words "extrasensory perception". What do they mean? They mean that we have another, extra, sense that we perceive things through. That sense is emotion. Emotion is not thought, it is experience. Just like our other senses, we experience emotion, we experience sight, we experience taste, smells, tactile sensations, and sounds. This is the reason that emotion will not store properly in memory, because it is an experience. Most people do not realize this, so if you have questions or knowledge regarding this, please say so. I have been looking for experts to help me understand this aspect of emotion. Feeling is more closely related to awareness, as we become aware of something that we feel. Feeling is also a less potent emotion, as the stronger the feeling, the more likely we are to call it emotion. Awareness and emotion are different experiences that we sense. I think that they are the same thing in different strengths. When you are willing to state things like, "the right magical wavelengths" in a serious discussion, how can you accuse me of coming here with a chip on my shoulder? It has a lot more to do with hormones than women, and I think that I have already stated this a number of times. I did not "divide 'emotion' into a special secret category". Religion did that when it divide the within, souls, and the without, God. Philosophy did when it decided to ignore emotion because that leads to religion. If you go to the SEP and type in the word emotion for a search, unless things have changed drastically in the last year, you will get Stoicism, some eastern religions, or anything else to do with controlling emotion--and a few articles on feminism. If you look to science, you will note that the disciplines that deal with emotion are "soft" sciences, like psychology and animal behaviorism. Recently, neurology joined forces with endocrinology, because it had no choice--so emotion is finally being studied there. I am just exposing this information. Don't shoot the messenger. Do you mean like the imaginary pheromones that oak trees produce? Your conversation is interesting and intelligent. I await your response. G

Hi Cladking; You are correct, the title is a large part of the problem, but this was intentional. When I first started to study at forums, I chose a philosophy forum and subsequently studied the SEP. At that time, I learned that my understanding of consciousness was completely at odds with all accepted philosophy. So I studied more to find out where someone was wrong, me or them. What I discovered is that science is much more compatible with my understanding. The more I looked, the more I found. This surprised me as I had thought that science would prove my understanding wrong, but what I found was that science seemed to support my ideas. So why doesn't anyone else see it? What I finally realized was that it was not science that disclaimed the ideas, it was scientists--people. I'll give you an example. There was a riddle that was very popular in the 70's that goes like this. A man was on his way to work. He had his son in the car, as he was going to drop the boy off at school on the way to work. There was a terrible accident and the man was killed. The boy was seriously injured and flown to the closest hospital for emergency surgery. The surgeon walked into the operating room, took one look at the boy and stated, "I can't operate on him. That's my son." So who is the surgeon? I must have asked 50 people to answer this riddle and no one got it right. People guessed, the step-father, the adoptive father, the natural father, the grandfather, one person even theorized that it was a priest (father). How could so many people be blind to such a simple and obvious answer? If the father was dead, then the surgeon was the mother. Even a ten year old could answer this. The problem was that the idea of a surgeon was so enmeshed with the idea of a male, that people simply could not see what was in front of their faces. A simple truth. People have divided consciousness into two areas; what is within us is consciousness; what is outside of us is God or the supernatural. This division is based on historical belief and no fact. It is a false dichotomy. Sometimes I feel like the explorer, who went into the jungle with his camera. As the natives carry him to the pot of boiling oil, he is screaming, "It is just a camera. It can't steal your souls." But belief is a very powerful thing. So after posting two threads in the psychology and neurology forums with no results, and reviewing the biology forum, I realized that I was not going to get any answers at this site. I know a Physics Professor at a University that can answer my one question that regards physics, so I was already looking into other sites. Before leaving, I decided to test the waters to find out how deep the superstions were, hence the title. Guess I found out. (chuckle chuckle) G

Moontanman; As long as this thread is going to hell in a handbasket, there is no reason for me to not tell the truth. So consider the following paragraph that started this whole mess. If you review the first sentence of this paragraph, you will note the assertion. I assert that an invisible god seems to be very concerned with physical things. This is rather odd, because one would expect a spiritual god to be concerned with spiritual things, and a physical god to be concerned with physical things. That was the point. Then I demonstrated that point by noting different physical things that this god was concerned with. Did you challenge my assertion? No. Did you challence that he was a god of war? No. Did you challenge that he was concerned with government? No. Did you challenge that he was concerned with laws? No. Did you challenge that he was concerned with hygiene? No. Did you challenge that he was concerned with food supplies? No. What you challenged was "germs" because this is one thing that you know about and dislike--your personal pet peeve. I am a philosopher, which means that I study truth and think a lot. When considering something, it is important to note what is selected, but it is just as important to note what is not selected, so I knew at the time, that your selection of the "germs" part of the paragraph was personal and nothing to do with my assertion. I also new that it was off point and ancillary to the subject. You were BSing me, and claimed no knowledge of this information, as follows: Of course, that was a lie as is demonstrated by your subsequent statements: The thing that I find interesting here is your use of the word "passages", plurel. Clearly you knew that I would have to search out both Books of Law to find the different passages that are distributed throughout them in order to prove something that you already knew, intended to deny, and I did not even care about as it was not my point. What amazed me the most was that you were so willing to work me for no reason, except maybe to make yourself feel important. I find this disgusting as I am half blind. No, I do not underestimate you, but will admit that I could not see why you were so stubbornly insistent until I read your above paragraph. This is all about strategy. You attempted to manipulate me into a position where everything that I have stated is in doubt. You intended to malign my character, shred my credibility, and show me as a person with no integrity. Your behavior is underhanded, dishonest, and highly manipulative. This is how one promotes ignorance. It is not philosophy. G

. So Moontanman could feel perfectly justified in debating religion in the middle of a discussion about consciousness, but the results would be counterproductive to all concerned. Well, I certainly can not argue with the first statement as I have already noted, I am entirely too passionate and forthright in my opinions. And, of course, I did start this thread comparing the nay sayers to screaming virgins, but I thought that was kind of funny, and I was looking for a way to get past the people who deny before they think. I spend a lot of time apologizing. As for introducing sources, let us be honest here. Consciousness is relevant to everything--to every discipline in science, every philosophy, every religion, every life form, every culture and society, even the universe. So if I can not control the subject matter, then this discussion is a waste of time and should be relegated to the 1,000 years of discussion and debate that preceded it. This statement, I actually resent. Either you have not read this thread and do not know that religion and the supernatural are simply by-products of consciousness, or you have read this thread and I have not yet made it clear. The only other possibility that I can see would be if my initial interpretation of the Rules is correct. In the Rules for this forum, it is pretty clear that both, Philosophy and Religion, are regarded as beliefs. Philosophy is no more a belief than science is, so other people are not the only ones being insulted here. G For your review: Socratic Dialogue not Debate Dialogue: Is collaborative: multiple sides work toward shared understanding. One listens to understand, to make meaning, to find common ground. Enlarges and possibly changes a participant’s point of view. Creates an open-minded attitude: an openness to being wrong and an openness to change. In dialogue, one submits one’s best thinking, expecting that other people’s reflections will help improve it rather than threaten it. Calls for temporarily suspending one’s beliefs. One searches for strength in all positions. Respects all the other participants and seeks not to alienate or offend. Assumes that many people have pieces of answers and that cooperation can lead to greater understanding. Remains open-ended Debate: Is oppositional: two opposing sides try to prove each other wrong. One listens to find flaws, spot differences, and counter arguments. Defends assumptions as truth. Creates a close-minded attitude: a determination to be right. In debate, one submits one’s best thinking and defends it against challenge to show that it is right. Calls for investing wholeheartedly in one’s beliefs. One searches for weaknesses in the other position. Rebuts contrary positions and may belittle or depreciate other participants. Assumes a single right answer that somebody already has. Demands a conclusion

Moontanman; I apologize for taking so long to respond, but everytime that I read your above post, I become so furious that I can not think. So I decided to review this whole matter. I wrote: And you responded: Your request surprised me for a number of reasons; first, there is no assertion there. There is an offer to share an observation and a question. Second, this is not uncommon knowledge. Third, you have presented yourself as a person knowledgable about religion and the Bible, so you should know about this. So why would you request the information? In post # 53, you explained that this information is a "common assumption in religious circles". Finally in post # 60, is your admission of knowledge, as follows: Approximately one-fifth of this thread is devoted to your stubborn insistence that I provide information to you that you already have. Then you finally admit that your problem with the information is that it is "special knowledge", but I never stated anything close to that. So it was a strawman argument that you have been pursuing for half of this thread, because you want to argue about religion. Then you throw in ridiculous nonsense like, Lot's daughters DATE RAPED him. You are off topic, and considering other threads that I have read and your post count, it appears that you are well established in this manipulative behavior. Honest intent and integrity are the most vital things that must be brought to a philosophy forum. You attempted to manipulate me, you were dishonest in your concealment of knowledge, and you twisted an offer to share information into an assertion about "special knowledge". And you did all of this on the basis of your Christian Fundamentalist teachings that corrupted truth and taught you to despise religion. There is no honesty or integrity in this. If I went into a science forum and asserted that my opinion was more important than accurate measures, how long do you think I would last? In a philosophy forum, your opinions are never going to have more value than reason, logic, honest intent, and integrity. You do understand that this thread is about the supernatural and consciousness, not about Moontanman's opinions on religion--don't you? G

Moontanman; Thank you for your honest and sincere response. Please consider my thoughts in this regard, as follows; Well, I was raised in a Catholic family, but nothing was rammed down my throat. My Mother had the belief that children should be exposed to as much knowledge as possible, but should also be encouraged to think their own thoughts, accept their own beliefs, and choose their own understandings. We always went to church on Sundays when I was little, but it was a friendly place that brought me no trauma. When I was eight years old, I had the shocking experience to discover that my school teacher could be wrong. Not only could she be wrong, but when the truth was logically pointed out, she denied it, which made me think that she was somewhat stupid. This was public school and had nothing to do with religion, but it taught me that if I wanted to find truth, I was on my own. I can understand your opinions, but can't agree with them. I first decided to learn what was in the OT of the Bible at 15 years old and started to read it. Some of it was interesting, most of it boring, but early on I came across a passage that explained God's vicious nature and got angry. In this passage, God explained (I am paraphrasing here) that if we did not follow his laws, he would punish us, our children, and our children's children for, I believe it was, seven generations--and that was the punishment for people who loved God. For people who did not love God and follow his laws, the punishment went on for something like 100 generations, or some idiotic number. I was furious and knew that this book did not tell me about any God that I knew or cared about. It was about 20 years later when I reached for the Bible again, looking for understanding of consciousness. I was older, wiser, and looked at the same passage with new eyes. I had already learned that interpretation is one of the most relevant things to consider when studying consciousness because people tend to interpret things through their beliefs and their personal experiences. It had become clear that the Jews of old interpret everything in terms of good and bad and punishment for the bad, so they were a somewhat savage and backward society that was attempting to learn the rules of civilization. Much like a child sees everything as good and bad, with punishment as the difference. So when reviewing that passage, I deleted the "punishment" aspect and just looked at the facts. If I lived in that time and committed murder, what would happen? Well I would be killed, so what would happen to my family? It is likely that they would be ridiculed, ostracized, and maybe even lose their property and become beggers. How would that affect their children? Well the children of ridiculed beggers and grandchildren of a murderer would not do well in society and would carry emotional scars due to the shame. So what about their children? How many generations would pass before my crime was washed from my family? Seven? What we know about psychology today suggests that seven is a reasonable possibility--and that would be if we were trying. So what are we talking about here? Is it a vicious God? Or is it an interpretation by a savage culture of what is actually wisdom? It is wise to remember that my family will bear scars for my crimes. There is a great deal of wisdom in the Bible, but one must look past the ignorant interpretations. It is also important to note that the first six books are mostly a validation of authority and a set of rules or laws to live by. The rest of the OT is a history of the people, that is going to be from their perspective and not necessarily accurate. The NT is mostly about a philosophy until you get to the end and then it is about prophesy. It is important to keep these divisions in mind when considering the Bible. You misunderstand me. I never said that I knew that is was wrong, and I don't know that it is wrong. What I asked is if there is something that I don't already know about it. All knowledge comes from somewhere, as Cladking has noted, and I have no idea what "special knowledge" is about. If you are implying that "special knowledge" is knowledge from God, then I do not agree. The knowledge in the Bible did not come from God. Can I prove this? Logically, yes. If you go back to the Books of Law, you will find many different laws that regard a man's limits in whom, he can lay with. He can not lay with his father's wife, or his son's wife, or his wife's sister, or his brother's wife, or even his slave (unless he is willing to make reparations in the event of her pregnancy). There are lists of women that a man can not lay with, but missing from these lists is the man's daughter. Now the Law does admonish a man to not "make a whore" of his daughter, which seems to mean that he can lay with her, but not pass her around, and he must ensure that someone is willing to take her to wife when he is done with her. To me this does not appear to be an oversight that a God would make, and seems more like an oversight that a man would make. Either that, or incest is best. This belief is evident in the story of Lot. Lot is a man who leads his people into a city that is destroyed "by God". When he escapes, he has his wife and two "virginal" daughters. The wife turns into a pillar of salt, and his two "virginal" daughters get him drunk and seduce him because they love him so much that they want to carry on his line. This is the story he told. His story is obviously true as it is well known that virgins are always trying to seduce old men. This is why virgins are not allowed to work in nursing homes, because the old men would die and not be able to pay the child support. (chuckle chuckle) Here is my take on this. Lot was a leader, so he was a bit of a politician. He led his people to destruction, but escaped, so he needed a good story. So, the cities were bad, he was good, hence his escape. He did everything that he could to save the people, hence he is a good leader. His wife came out with him, hence she is also good. But she was a little naughty by looking back, so she was punished, hence no reflection on him. His daughters were virginal, hence they were good. They were also pregnant, but that was because they were devoted to him, hence they are also good. Do we have any evidence that Sodom and Gomorrah were fulll of evil people? Did his wife turn into salt, or did she dump him and stay in the city? Did he impregnate his daughters, or was it someone else? We will never know the truth of this story, but it is clear that laying with his daughters was accepted. If you consider the Laws that I talked about in the thread, "Free Thought Exchange", and the laws that were not addressed, you will note that the unaddressed issues were all women's issues. The roots of our Common (moral) Laws are in the Bible, but issues not addressed; right to die, abortion, the mentally ill, what to do with a deformed newborn, are all issues that are routinely handled by the women of the family. There is no women's wisdom in the first six Books of the Bible. It does not exist. So, either God is a god of men only, or the Bible was written by men for men. I already have the explanation; "I was raised in a Christian fundamentalist family, I can't imagine not picking up on what the bible says mainly because much of it was driven down my throat like a ram rod." So far, I view the concepts of Heaven and Hell as superstitions. I have yet to get to the bottom of those ideas. G

iNow; I can not make up my mind if you are intentionally misquoting me, or you are reading attitude into my posts where none exists, or if you simply do not understand the concept of a question. This is what happened: Moontanman stated: I know what you asserted is simply not true, I knew it the first time you asserted it, Gees responded: How did you know? I did not take you for a person who studies the Old Testament. iNow, when a person states the words, "How did you know" and puts a question mark at the end of those words, then it is a request for information. If, in fact, Moontanman knows something about this, I would like to find out what (s)he knows as I do not like being ignorant, hence the request. At no time, and in no way, does a request translate to, "doesn't mean they fail to adequately understand your position or the information underlying it." Your statement makes no sense. It appears that you are confused. Possibly your confusion comes from my doubts about Moontanman studying the Old Testament. But I came by these doubts quite honestly. In the thread, "Free Thought Exchange", which you started, some of Moontanman's statements were the reason for my doubts, as follows: By the time I quit that thread, I was shocked and wondering if Moontanman thought that the clergy were magical and could follow people beyond death, or if (s)he had some great trauma involving religion, or if (s)he was just too emotional to think clearly in this type of matter, hence my doubts. If I am wrong in my initial assessment of the hygiene issue in the OT, I would like to learn whatever information that I am missing. This is why I made the request. I can be wrong, but I can also learn. G

Moontanman; I am curious. How did you know? I did not take you for a person who studies the Old Testament. G

Moontanman; Well, I am not sure what to tell you. I will admit that I have not given your request much attention, but that is mostly because I do not believe you are interested in learning about this. I am all about learning. The idea that good hygiene is a part of the Laws in the OT is not new, as a lot of people have realized that some specific laws seem to support a protection against germs. It was clear to me when I read it, but I have since learned that it is clear to a lot of people. If you really have such an aversion to studying the Books of Law, you could use Wiki and look up "clean and unclean", the Jewish religion, the Torah, ritual cleansing, or maybe even find an introduction to the book, "Gifts of the Jews", or maybe it is, "Gifts from the Jews". This is a fairly common idea. But I suspect that this is not what you want to know. Since there is no place in the OT that mentions germs, specifically, I suspect that you would like me to spend hours looking up each and every indication of this idea, each and every law, then share this information with you so that you can challenge me. Since my assertion was in fact ancillary to the point of that paragraph, which was about a spiritual God concerned with physical things; and since my eyes are not very good, I do not feel the need to work hard to give you amunition to shoot at me. So I'll tell you what. I made the whole thing up. It is all nonsense, and anyone who states otherwise is wrong. I take it back. Happy now? G

Tar; Two things in separate containers can not magically connect. This is reality. But one of the few "connections" that science, psychology, has studied and accepts is bonds between people. Bonds are a mental and/or emotional connection between people's minds. So if the "connections" are subjective, that would mean that the subjective extends beyond the body. If this is so, then the solipsists and/or Plato's dream reality may be correct. I don't accept that the subjective is hidden within the body and is unknowable, nor do I accept the dream reality, as I suspect that there is a middle ground. The subjective is anchored to the body, but can extend beyond the body. This is the only thing that makes any sense at all. Every person that I have talked to, who denies the paranormal, makes this same argument. You all state that you imagine that I imagine something and don't understand that it is my imagination. I have never had a real problem determining the difference between what I imagine, what I think, what I believe, and what I feel. If there is a problem with imagination, I suspect that it belongs to the people who imagine that they know what other people imagine. Most of what I imagine is not true, because I imagined it, but most of what I think and feel is true. I can give you a good example of a mistake regarding the paranormal. About 14 years ago, I was convinced that I had cancer. I could almost see this mass that was in my belly. It was just below my stomach and at the back by my spine, and the idea nagged at me for about two years. I found myself pushing my belly out because I did not want this thing to touch any of my other organs, and would often find myself mentally coating it with a substance that looked like thin Elmer's glue, but was slimy instead of sticky. All through my days and even when waking from sleep, I would find myself coating this thing, over and over, trying to prevent it from touching any part of my insides. Sometimes it would seem like a strand would escape this thing and it would seek out my organs, so I would get this slimy stuff and cudgel it back into the mass. I know that this does not make sense, but it was something that I felt and could not stop feeling. I discussed it with my Mother, who is a Registered Nurse, and she did not believe me, but advised me to seek out a doctor. We both knew my health was bad, but did not know why. I went from doctor to doctor with no results. Then I forgot about it. Two years after I had forgotten it, I was sitting in a small office with my Mother and a surgeon. This surgeon was explaining why he could not take out all of the massive tumor, as it was entangled in the small intestines and actually grew out of the artery that was just inside the spine. Although it was a slow growing cancer, the tumor was massive, the size of a grapefruit, and could not be treated with any hope for a cure. As we listened to him, my Mother and I both realized that he was describing the tumor that I had been so concerned about, but it was not in me, it was in my husband. Six months later I lost my husband. Six months after that I was finally diagnosed with MS (Multiple Sclerosis). Looking back, it is easy to see that the pain, that he thought was from a bad back, was actually due to the cancer, but none of the doctors found it in time. I had not yet really studied ESP in a logical way or used any methodology. If I had, I may have been able to see that it was within him, not me, because the paranormal does not work internally. But I did not know that. The paranormal is an external communication. It has limits. It has boundaries. It is real. This, I suspect, is the biggest problem--people think that I am talking about a power. I am not. I know that religions mystify and glorify the paranormal, but it is not a power. It is simply an awareness that most people have and some people have to a greater or lesser degree just like every other human attribute. Some people have very good hunches, others do not; some people have good instincts, or intuition, others do not; some people should follow their gut feelings, others should ignore them. Often we will find that we should accept these feelings in relation to a specific person or a type of event. When this happens, we are beginning to know ourselves and can use the information gained and learn to exercise this awareness. When studies try to test ESP, they are forever trying to prove that thought, or ideas, move from one mind to another, but this is foolish. Thought is internal; it is private and does not transfer well, if at all. After listening to all of the complaints here, apparently I have a fair ability with regard to ESP, but I do not get thoughts. Never. What I get are feelings that nag at me, and sometimes I get pictures, which feel like a memory, but there can be no memory of that event. As with my step-mother, I would sometimes find that she floated through my mind five or six times in one day, so I would wait for 11:00 p.m. to call her when the rates went down. It would be 8:00 p.m. her time, and she would be waiting for my call. The last time, as I reached for the phone at 11:00, I got an image in my mind of her on the floor, and I knew that she could not reach the phone. I did not know where on the floor she was, but assumed that she was at home and alone. I have never seen my step-mother laying on the floor. I agree that this is probably the correct explanation for this event. Well, I'm glad you have some bones to pick with me. I was beginning to think that everyone agreed with me. (chuckle) How long ago was the Psychology class? Things have changed. About two years ago, I started a thread in another science forum and worked with an Animal Behaviorist, a Neurologist, and some other intelligent scientists. I wanted to work out this little problem of instincts. What a joke! What I learned is that instincts are not understood and the whole idea of instincts needs to be revamped by an "Einstein" type of mind that has studied Biology, Psychology, and Animal Behavior. I did learn a great deal, but pinned down little information. First I learned that instincts are a "behavior". Then I learned that, according to the Animal Behaviorist, there is a "frightful" number of instincts in species, so it can not be tracked. According to the Neurologist there is something called "learned intincts". According to Wiki someone mapped out 4,000 instincts in humans. My thoughts on this is that there are a "frightful" number of stars, but we try to map them; the term "learned instincts" is an oxymoron as the term "instincts" means innate; and I doubt that humans have that many instincts. What I think is that this problem originated with religion. Humans, made in God's image, had souls, minds, and thoughts. Lower animals did not, so they had behaviors called instincts. Simple. After reviewing animal behaviors, someone noted that humans have similar behaviors and started to count them, hence the large number of instinctive behavior in humans. Science started to really study animal behavior, document all of these "instincts" then learned through MRI and other technology that some animals actually have thoughts. But no one to date, that I know of, has been able to clearly define what behavior is caused by thought and what behavior is instinctive in all species. I found the Mirror Test interesting. If anyone is not aware of this test, what scientists do is put a splotch of color on the animal, then show the animal a mirror. If the animal tries to remove the splotch from him/her self, rather than removing it from the mirror, the animal passes the test. A lot of species have been able to pass this test. My thought on this is that in order for the animal to pass, it must be able to hold an image of itself in it's mind, and compare that image to the one in the mirror, and this image is from a third-person perspective. This is abstract thought. Interesting. So, until someone brilliant tackles this mess, I will regard instincts as whatever can be connected to hormones or pheromones or basic life. Instincts may be a behavior, but they are motivated by knowledge and feeling or emotion, so instincts are part of consciousness. Every species has instincts, if only the instinct to survive. This looks right to me, but if you go below the surface, there is more. One of the problems that Freud had when he first proposed his ideas was that they did not transfer well to other cultures. These were things that specifically related to sexual functions and societal morals. The SuperEgo became more refined to correct this problem and to include different morals of different societies in it's parameters and understanding. Morals are a product of emotion, religions are a product of emotion, family ties are a product of emotion, and societies are an emotional "connection". So when you track things to the source, the SuperEgo is ruled by emotion. I don't believe that anyone doubts that the Id is about instincts and hormones--drives. The Ego is the arbiture, and it is the rational mind. The rational mind does not only deal with the other parts of mind, it also deals with the input from our five senses, and deals well with the physical real world. I heard about this show, but don't plan to watch it. I am not surprised that your wife and daughter enjoy it, as women seem to be more accepting of and drawn to the paranormal, and I think this is for two reasons. First, women generally have an internal perspective, men divide up the world into parcels and women examine the parcels. A woman's perspective is internal or introspective. The second reason is that women go through such fluxuations of hormones, and I am pretty sure that consciousness outside of the body is linked to chemicals and specifically to hormones. This is why through history, most of the seers, psychics, and witches seem to be women. And there is no basis in science, yet. Nice assertion. Can you prove it? G

Cladking; I think you are laughing at me, but I am serious. When I first started to study this subject, 40 some years ago, I was looking for the connection between people. There were a lot of ideas about this connection, electromagnetic fields, psychic energy, a network of minds, but nothing that I could understand, and I am a visual learner, so I needed something that I could visualize because the subject matter is abstract. I had already learned that emotion was the mechanism for the transfer of information, whether we are talking ESP, or chemistry between people, or religion, or bonding--each of these connections is relative to emotion. Then I read an article about water that noted that although water feels wet, H2O is not wet. And I considered . . . the connection between people and/or Gods, angels, and demons feels like emotion, but does that mean that consciousness (God), in itself, is emotional? It is my opinion that the emotion that we feel is because of the movement or activity of consciousness, but it does not necessarily follow that consciousness, itself, is actually emotional. That would be an assumption. We assume that there is a God that loves us because people, who experience anthropomorphism, feel strong emotion--love. I will grant that the strong emotion comes with the "visions" of gods, but would argue that the emotion may well be part of the communication, not necessarily a personal feeling that a god bestows upon us. People are always asking, "If God is love, why do bad things happen?" Why indeed? A better question might be, "Why is life designed for bad things to happen?" It is, you know. Life consumes life; it is designed that way. We can not live without consuming other life, whether it is plant or animal, we must consume life or die. Of course, we are at the top of the heap, so we are designed in "God's image", which means that we are the consumers rather than the consumed. Religion states that we are designed to be and stay at the top of the heap, but I wonder if T-Rex thought that at some point in history. (chuckle) So I think that the emotion that we feel is a by product of the transfer of information. It is an activity that life can feel. Awareness, feeling (moods), and emotion are all experiences, and I think that what we are experiencing is the activity of consciousness, or the movement of knowledge would be another way to put it. Consider that if you put your hand in water that is the same temperature as your hand, you can barely feel the water. You must actually focus on it, or you don't feel it. This would be like awareness. But if the water moves, then it is easy to feel, so this would be like feelings or moods. And if the water moves rapidly it can become very powerful like emotions. So am I saying that love is not real? No. Emotions are as real as a flowing river, as a raging waterfall, as a soft rain--they are an indication of movement and are experienced. I expect that this is the reason that emotions store so differently in the brain, as they are more experience than thought or knowledge. Many philosophers have used water as a metaphor to help them understand life and consciousness--I am not the first. The biggest problem in understanding consciousness is people's tendency to underestimate it. They find a single truth about consciousness and build a whole theory around that truth. It would be like studying a tree and deciding that you now understand a forest. No! There is a lot more to learn. I like using water because it is neutral with regard to science and religion, and I believe that it shares properties with consciousness. Using a water metaphor has helped me to understand the difference between thought and emotion, to understand anthropomorphism, to understand that density affects consciousness, and to understand that, like water, consciousness reacts to temperature. G Tar; Thank you for the response. I will answer it later or tomorrow.

A true statement and a beginning. Moontanman has a statement in his/her signature line that warns about the illusion of knowledge, which is so very true. As long as we were content to think that consciousness was God, or produced by the brain, or it was a degree of development that we must locate or replicate, it was unknowable. But when we stop believing that, when we start looking, asking questions, and thinking, then it becomes knowable. This always makes me laugh. From the Jetson's robot maid, Rosie, through the various Twilight Zone shows, to the Matrix, there have long been examples of AI that works for us, and we are fine with this. But when the robot, AI, starts to want things for itself, then the plot thickens and the evil robots become our enemies. We have a natural understanding of the competitive nature of life, so if robots "miraculously go 'self-aware'", then they are dangerous to us. Self-aware means that they have "wants", not our wants, their wants. What fools we are. (chuckle chuckle) Well, evolution is a ground up type of theory, and Science embraces this theory, so it accepts the bottom up idea. But Religion sees God as the source, so it is a top down type of theory. I think that they are both correct. Yes, I know this doesn't make sense, but consciousness is not simple. I will try to explain how I think that consciousness starts, but it is not easy to explain so be patient with me. Luckily, EdEarl showed me a video, http://i4.ytimg.com/...k/mqdefault.jpg, that states that thought in the brain works bottom up and top down, so maybe this will seem a little bit more plausible. I mentioned before that I think the Aether is the source of consciousness, and I suspect that Religion anthropomorphizes God out of the Aether--there are reasons for this, but I won't go into them now as it will get too confusing. I see the Aether as being the potential source of all knowledge and awareness, so what we have is something that is aware of all things, in all circumstances, in all times, but knows nothing. It does not actually know any single thing. The reason that it does not know any single thing is that in order to know something, it would have to be able to focus on that something, so it would have to be able to focus from some where. But the Aether is not matter, so it does not have a "where" to focus from. It would be like jumping into a pool of water in search of a water molecule. Although surrounded by water molecules, you would not be able to find one, because you could not discern one. This is where the idea of Panpsychism comes in with it's understanding that all matter has a sort of knowledge of itself. Matter possesses identify, so when the Aether and matter combine, it gives awareness an identity and a point of focus so that knowledge can be known--we call this life. This would mean that all life has a "me" identity, and life would follow the rules of chaos and balance because it is part of the Aether. So all life would have a direct and personal relationship with the Aether (God) and all life would be capable of pulling knowledge from the Aether in a direct relationship to it's ability to want, comprehend, and absorb that knowledge. As evolution advances, more knowledge would become available as more knowledge would be wanted and absorbed. So, yes, I think it could be a top down and bottom up type of communication. This is part of what I think. (chuckle) I could be wrong, but I like it because it fits with the general idea behind every valid theory of consciousness that I have considered. Well, I can't define it either--not much of a scientist--but I do have some ideas about it. I think that the properties of consciousness are comparable to the properties of water. Water has always been considered unique, but I am no longer sure that it is. In order to show you what I mean, we will posit that you have no knowledge of water, and I am trying to describe it to you, as follows: Water can be a solid, a liquid, or a gas (steam, fog, etc.); it has a unique feeling that can be recognized; it is reflective and does not show itself when you look into it, but shows a reflection of you instead; it has the ability to divide itself into individual pieces (drops) and then disappear (evaporate) only to reform in a larger body of water. When mixed with other matter, it has an almost unlimited ability to become or create new materials. Water is powerful and can be useful as a source of energy, but it can also be destructive as in tsunamis, floods, avalanches, and ice storms. It has an almost miraculous ability to heal, cleanse, and restore life. It can help to reduce a fever and save a life, or to warm a half frozen person and restore life. If you float on it, the feeling is like heaven, but it can also suck you down and drown you. It can pelt you with ice or freeze you. It can burn you with steam. It can rage and destroy everything that you know, tsunami or flood. But we can not survive without it. If water were invisible, do you think we would call it a God? Absolutely! Consider that: Water feels wet; consciousness feels like emotion. Water is reflective; consciousness is anthropomorphized. Water forms drops; consciousness forms individual souls. Water evaporates; conscious life dies. Water reforms; consciousness reforms? Maybe. Water makes new materials; consciousness makes new life. Water can make energy; consciousness makes life which is energy. Water can destroy; conscious life is very good at destruction--war. Water can restore life; conscious life restores and maintains itself and reproduces itself. The feeling of floating on water; Monks that float in consciousness--enlightenment. Water and consciousness are both necessary to life. Water is self leveling; consciousness is self balancing. That would be ambitious. I just want people to think about it and question possibilities. Agreed. But a question that is not asked, will not be answered. I haven't found anyone who can answer my questions. I am very good at questions. But I will be satisfied if people will start to think, rather than to deny. It remains that the paranormal or supernatural is the only third-party perspective that is available to us. Do you have a better idea? G

Hi iNow; Maybe I am misunderstanding your question, but I looked up metaphysics in Wiki and it looks like wisdom would be a predictable and testable example of metaphysics. Yes? No? When I was young, my Mother used to often quote an old wisdom, "The liar never believes anyone; the theif locks his door; and the murder fears for his life." She explained that the reason is that we believe that other people think like we do. I have found this to be true. I believe that Psychology calls this "Projecting", and has proven that my Mother's interpretation and the old wisdom is correct. G

I do not see "will" as being the mechanism for ghosts. My reasoning in this is that ghosts do not seem to have a will. I know that stories like "Ghost Busters" and "The Ghost Whisperer" will state otherwise, but those are stories. In actual studies of the common ghost, there is always a tragedy and history of why the ghost exists, there is a misty something that is most often not seen clearly, there is often cold, and there are sometimes noises or scents associated with the ghost. Such as, there might be a scent of smoke if the ghost died in a fire. The common ghost does not interact with people or even reality. In one case the people who lived in the house noted that the ghost seemed to float up by the ceiling, but after reviewing the old records, it was discovered that the ghost was actually floating where the old second story used to be. None of this is indicative of a "will", or awareness of reality. Of course there are also stories of angels and demons, but I think this is more relevant to anthropomorphism--my opinion. The idea of an active "ghost" would be a poltergeist, which has the ability to move objects around. But this "ghost" is often short lived, a few months, and is often associated with a live agent. That agent is a person in the household, who seems to be emotional, maybe hormonal, and usually young and female--so we may not even be talking ghost in this instance. Some studies have linked a poltergeist to psychic or kinetic energy coming from a live person. My interest lies in the perception of ghosts as that could be relative to my studies. The coldness interests me as I think that consciousness is affected by temperature--or maybe affects temperature. The similarity of rain and fog being present in most ghost sightings is also interesting as I think that consciousness is affected by water and density. I agree. This was one of the levels that I considered when I wrote the Levels of Awareness in Species. When a specie manipulates it's environment for it's own purposes, that demonstrates awareness in the self and in the environment and in the knowledge that the self is above the environment. It is also necessary to be able to compare and evaluate materials, so this is clearly indication of self-awareness and thought. Well, I agree with most of this, but other species also have language. We just don't know what they are saying. This may well be true, as long as we remember that there are many books in the Bible and they have multiple sources. Some are more valid than others. It is nice to know that there is another person who realizes that Religion is the keeper of knowledge. Although not religious, I respect Religion and understand that it has an important job to do. It holds our traditions, our wisdom, and our knowledge--it gives us continuity. I will grant that sometimes that knowledge is wrong, or maybe it is mixed up in so much dogma that it is invisible, but change must come slowly. People need something to believe in. Of course the nay sayers will argue that Religion is not necessary and point to the growing number of Atheists. That is all good and well, but what about the growing number of suicides? Or broken families? Or people on antidepressants? Or belief in the supernatural? Or superstitious beliefs? Or treating science like it is a belief? Or the Atheists, who turn to the Eastern Religions because they need something? Emotional thoughts do not accept change so easily, and Religion understands this, so Religion must move slowly even when it knows that change is necessary. Until I read this, I did not understand. But what about a "sense of direction"--you either have it, or you don't. A "sense of style"--you either have it, or you don't. I remember a comedian talking about the "sense of timing" that must be employed to do comedy. He stated a few sentences that were not remotely funny, then he stated them again putting the emphasis on different words, and it was hysterical. The audience erupted in laughter, but one would not think that a change in emphasis could be so funny. I am sure that there are many more, and think that we would describe them as instinctive knowledge, or natural skills. It is interesting to note that the Ancients apparently studied natural subjective abilities, which would help a person to know who they are and what they would be good at; while we insist that we can mold our children into whatever we think they should be without regard to their natural skills. This is just another example of a dismissal of the subjective self, and maybe an invitation to have some lost, confused, lonely people, who do not know themselves. Was it Socrates who said that the best thing that we could do would be to "know ourselves"? G

Hi Cladking; It took me a while, and I don't think that I found the same report that I first read, but following is some information regarding Plato and the divisions of mind. This is from the IEP (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy) under Freud. You can read more at: http://www.iep.utm.edu/freud/ This article did not state that Freud was a neurologist; it stated that he was a medical doctor and a physiologist, along with psychology/psychiatry. I am not sure what a physiologist is, but my information that he was a neurologist may well be wrong. I apologize for that mistake. If you want to learn more about Plato's concepts regarding the structure of mind, you would be better off looking them up yourself, because I am lousy at Google and never find what I want. But this should be enough to verify that they existed. G

BrightQuark; Thank you for your insightful response. The idea that knowledge comes from somewhere is well studied and an important part of consciousness. Plato tried to explain "forms", and religion talks of the all-knowing God. Even science seems to agree that matter has a sort of knowledge about itself, as in atoms know how to work in molecules, but I do not understand how this concept could be real. On the other hand, knowledge seems to exist, so it must be real. (chuckle) I suspect that this is where the concept of Panpsychism comes from, the idea that the Universe has an aspect of knowledge that is part of everything. But this concept blurs the definitions of what is life and what is not life, so I have problems with it. It also does not seem to account for the differences in time or change. Of course, people have gotten around that problem with the idea of multi-verses. We are to believe that there is a separate universe for each and every moment, thought, and potential future. Although this could explain the problem, it does not ring true as it is too complex, too orderly and organized, and not reflected in any other aspect of life. If one examines an ecosystem, what we find is chaos. This chaos is not orderly; it is not organized; it is in constant flux, yet it remains balanced and can endure for centuries. It will also rebuild itself if it is demolished by tsunami or volcano. Our bodies are the same way in that there are many different systems that can be very chaotic, but they are in balance providing and promoting life. The more we learn about mind, the more we see that it also is more than one part in balance. It is my opinion that if one looks closely, things will show a true reflection of what they are, so my thought is that consciousness has to be a self-balancing chaos. My studies indicate that consciousness is real, that it has properties, so if I look for the source of consciousness it can not be in matter because matter is not a self-balancing chaos. Simple deduction tells me that it has to be in the "in between", or what the Ancients called the Aether. So I think that the Aether is the source, or raw material, for consciousness, and that it has rules regarding balance, and that it is a swirling morass of knowledge of all things in all times. I don't see how anything else is possible. What do you think? G You also see the flaw in this thinking. It doesn't make sense, does it? We did not get consciousness from Aliens. (chuckle) I already stated that the information could be found in Deuteronomy and Leviticus in the Old Testaments of the Bible. I even noted that looking for the words "clean" and "unclean" would help you to find it. Bibles can be found almost anywhere, but if you do not have any available, then you can Google these books and read them on-line. I have no intention of cutting and pasting the information for your perusal. Do the work. If, after reviewing these books, you can not see where a requirement to wash hands and change clothes after dealing with things that will obviously contain germs, we can discuss it. In Philosophy it has been proven that there is no way to prove that anyone else has a mind. I can prove that I have a mind thanks to Descartes, but I can not know for sure that you have a mind. You could simply be a dream in my mind. Or maybe you are a robot or a zombie. How can I know? Where is the proof? You can say that you have a mind, but you could lie or be my delusion, so you can not prove it to me. I can not prove it to you. This is the kind of circular nonsense that came out of Philosophy pretending to be Science. Things do not exist unless proven. So how does one prove something that is known only to another subjective mind? It is not possible. This means that my experiences mean nothing and are not proof. Your experiences mean nothing and are not proof. So we end up being irrelevant and devalued. The subjective self is not proven to exist, it does not work within any understanding of science, it is supernatural. So subjective values are also supernatural, as there is no evidence of them. G

Cladking; I disagree. The problem with your assertion is that Freud did not invent the sub/unconscious, he merely defined and argued for and proved the sub/unconscious. Knowledge of the sub or unconscious mind can be traced back to the Ancients, and I believe that Plato had some very clear ideas on this concept. It is not a new idea. Most people tend to forget that Freud was a neurologist, so what he did was take the different aspects of mind, Ego, SuperEgo, and Id, and attach these concepts to different parts of the brain, thereby proving the existence of these concepts. He mixed philosophy with science to prove a philosophical concept. We must bear in mind that even though this was just a little over 100 years ago, the belief at that time made sub/unconscious thoughts superstition. The unconscious mind was somewhat supernatural, and "The devil made me do it." was believed, rather than a joke. Once the unconscious was proven, then science was dealing with knowns, so it investigated how to predict, control, manipulate, or affect mind. Science, believing that it had definable parameters and knowable outcomes, started testing and experimenting. This is where everything went a little crazy for two reasons. First, there are always problems when learning about a new concept, and second, science did not know that it did not understand more than the tip of the iceberg with regard to mind. As I keep stating, consciousness is not a pure singular thing--and it is not simple. Philosophy had already lost it's credibility at that time, so prior to the proof, the sub/unconscious mind was supernatural, unknown, even though philosophy knew of it. This seems to prove my point. My daughter is studying psychology and has informed me that Freud was doing every one of his female co-workers. I really don't care who he was doing as this is not relevant to my studies. G

If you think the information is really interesting, then send it to me in a PM. Is it possible that these "hundreds of senses" were in reality hundreds of sensations? People tend to catagorize things differently, which does not necessarily mean that the things in the catagories are different. Right now, we tend to lump a great deal under "feelings"; such as, touch sensations, moods, and even hormone driven sensations, and these do not belong together as they are quite different. I think that I should discuss this and give the people who are viewing this thread something to talk about. (chuckle) I don't know about ghosts and have never seen one, but there are stories about them in almost every, if not every, culture, so something is going on. I read in Wiki that there was a guy, don't remember the name, who thought that ghosts were a kind of stain on reality. He described it as a sort of negative like film--not the real thing--but a kind of image produced by the strong emotion. It is as good an explanation as I have seen so far. I do have some thoughts on why people would see ghosts, but don't yet understand what ghosts are. As far as UFO's are concerned, there are books everywhere about how the aliens came down to earth like gods some four thousand years ago. It is even claimed that they manipulated our DNA and gave us consciousness. I can neither confirm nor deny this, as I don't know, but my thought is; if they gave us consciousness, then they had it. So where did they get it? Other aliens? (chuckle) So this is not relevant to my studies. The Bible is relevant to my studies, and I find it interesting that the Old Testament is about an invisible god, who is very concerned with physical things. This is a god of war and government and laws; many of our current Common Laws are rooted in these laws. This god also seems overly concerned with hygiene and food supplies. If you look through Deuteronomy and Leviticus, the Books of Law, you will find a great deal that protects against germs, couched in the dogma "clean" and "unclean". But how could they have known about germs? On the other hand, the New Testament is about a physical god, Jesus, who is very concerned with spiritual things. So the whole Bible is really very interesting and food for thought. This is from your prior post, and I thought that it should be answered. Although it looks like Science is responsible for this mess, it is not. The responsibility lies with Philosophy. When Steven Hawkins stated that Philosophy is dead, he was correct. I don't know why he made that statement, as I have never read it in context, but he is a brilliant man and is essentially correct. Philosophy has destroyed itself by trying to be Science. The simple explanation is that Philosophy determines what is real, and what is not real; Science studies the known; when you mix them together, what you get is that only known things can be real. So people will seriously demand empirical and reproducable evidence to prove something that is known subjectively, while denying the reality of subjectivity. This thinking is so circular, that it boggles the mind. I suspect that this is why we have so many solipsists, because they at least know that they have a mind. Over time all of the lovely intangibles, that can not be proven to exist, start to be devalued. Things like integrity, honor, wisdom, respect, emotions, traditions, Gods, vows, the subjective self. Eventually vows, like in marriage are treated like, "as long as we want to", rather than "as long as we live", because vows don't mean anything anymore--they are just contracts. People who have faith and belief in anything are considered rather foolish. Wisdom and tradition are old fashioned ideas. Integrity, respect, and honor just means that it is easier for someone to take advantage of you. The God idea is rather silly and emotions are to be controlled or enjoyed. But religions are falling apart, people don't know what to believe in, suicide is up worldwide 60%, suicide beats homicide in the US two to one, and teens are shooting people. Families are falling apart, any man that marries is looking to get ripped off by his wife, children are developing all kinds of behavior problems, and too many people are on antidepressants. The needs and realities of the subjective self are ignored, until it is time for blame--then the cause is subjective. (It's your fault.) Do you remember when I stated that if Science became faith based it would destroy itself? Well, when Philosophy decided to limit itself to knowns, it destroyed itself. There are three truth seekers, Science, Philosophy, and Religion, and each one is unique and necessary. Philosophy has dropped the ball, and I am just trying to help pick it up. G

Cladking; An interesting post, but there is no way that I will be able to respond to all of your points. It is disheartening to learn that you can not agree with some of my statements, but I have to guess which ones; on the other hand, it is good to know that you recognize some truth in them, as philosophers like truth. What should be remembered about emotion is that there is always a source, but that source can be experiences, events, memories, thoughts, or even chemicals and hormones. It can sometimes be difficult to determine the source of the emotion. I agree with this. I think that it is important to note that "want" is the director and maybe the instigator of life, because when "want" stops, so does life. While considering the essence of consciousness, and how to describe it, I thought that it seemed to be a self-balancing chaos motivated by want. If one considers an ecosystem, it is a constant chaos of different life forms in competition, but it is also balanced. Well, I agree with this, but telling people that their "cherry picked" denials look like superstition makes them a little angry--even if it is true. Do you think that I believe the Ancients had supernatural abilities? I don't know if any of them did or didn't, but I know that they were allowed to consider the supernatural. Plato's references to the Oracle of Delphi is evidence of this. A person does not have to have paranormal abilities to study the paranormal. But when the Christian church started, they divided the paranormal into good and bad. It was either of God or of the Devil, so to consider any ungodly paranormal/supernatural ideas was like inviting yourself to Hell. Subsequently, science and philosophy disregarded the paranormal until Freud and Jung, and we learned very little about consciousness in all that time. When I first started to study ESP, what I noted was that emotion was involved, or there was a bond between two people, which is also relative to emotion. When people experience ESP, they do not get the idea that Dad is going to work, what they get is Dad is going to have an accident on the way to work, or Dad's work is going to be robbed, or Dad's workplace is blowing up. It is always relative to emotion. It became clear to me that emotion was the mechanism for the transfer of information, the stronger the emotion, the more information. So I began to question how this information moved, what it moved through, and whether emotion carried knowledge, or whether moving knowledge felt like emotion. There were a lot of questions. It was the 70's and there were all kinds of ideas about an electromagnetic field, or a network of minds. Some of these ideas were in the SEP, which is a very respected encyclopedia. Spiritualism was revived, and the idea that all life is connected became popular. Science has actually given a boost to spiritualism with it's discovery of pheromones. If you Google "plant communication" you will get a lot of information on pheromones and all kinds of plant communication. So at least this aspect of communication outside of the body has been confirmed by science. I expect there will be more in this regard as time passes. While reading a post about ghosts, I remember thinking, "Yada yada yada. Someone was betrayed, then died, and now walks the earth reliving the event over and over. It sounds like PTSD to me." Then I laughed because I was trying to psychoanalyze a ghost. Then I thought about it. Actually, it sounds just like Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. If you have never experienced this Disorder, I can tell you that your mind can be whisked away to the time and place of the trauma without your consent or knowledge, and you will hear, smell, feel, see, and know only that trauma until you have relived it, then you come back to yourself. Eventually the episodes come less often until they disappear and you have full control, but what would happen if you had died? Could you get stuck in a PTSD loop forever? Is it possible? I have no idea, but considering this led me to considering all of the other ways that emotion can affect mind. This led to my writing "Formation of Mind?" which is posted in the Psychology Forum of this site. So far, no one has disputed or confirmed my thoughts in this matter. So I think that studying the supernatural can give us insights into consciousness that we would not get using introspection. I don't agree with you here. But I am getting tired, so I will look at this tomorrow. G

Hello iNow; Well, I can see why you might think so. Neuroscience studies only a portion of what we call consciousness, but even so, it can not be called a "simpler" study. There is nothing simple about neuroscience, as it is a massive study that involves neurology, biology, psychology, endocrinology, and many more divisions of science. But it is mostly a study of animals, specifically humans. Neuroscience studies consciousness, but what they study specifically is our ability to know that we are conscious. This is what philosophy calls being aware that we are aware. Consider that leaves, bacteria, and slugs are all sentient, so they are conscious, but do you think that they know it? I seriously doubt it. I did a break-down on the levels of awareness in species and ended up with ten distinct levels of what I think that the different species might be aware of and reasons why I think so. But knowledge of our own consciousness is mostly a human trait, so it could be said that neuroscience studies the higher level of consciousness. Regarding philosophy, when I first started in the philosophy forums, I believed that I had a pretty good understanding of consciousness. But the other members were discussing aspects that I had not considered, so I went to the on-line SEP (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) and studied everything under the heading of Consciousness. They had a tremendous amount of information on the states of consciousness; such as, conscious, unconscious, subconscious, the various states of consciousness in coma, in hypnotism, in sleep, etc. They also had theories of consciousness such as solipsism and panpsychism, in it's various forms, but they had little on other species, almost nothing on emotion, and avoided anything to do with religion. So I finished my studies believing that consciousness was a much more massive study than I had realized, and that the SEP did not have a clue as to what consciousness really is. If anyone has an interest, you can Google the SEP, but it is not an easy read, and is a rather pretentious, pompous, and name dropping kind of encyclopedia. If you want understanding, I would recommend the on-line IEP (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy). G Cladking; Thank you for your response, and I am sorry that you are frustrated. What you have stated is absolutely true, we do view observations and understandings through the veil of our beliefs. If I could just get past the denials of the "science" people, then I could explain the part of my understanding that will infuriate the "religious" people. That ought to be interesting, if I ever get there. I don't think that the problem is language as much as it is the artificial divisions. If I say the word "mind" then I am talking philosophy or science, and if I say the word "soul" then I am talking religion, but they are both words that describe the intangible "self"--and everybody knows it. Instead of using words for communication, we have started to use them to fortify our beliefs and to construct artificial divisions. Because I study all of the aspects of consciousness, I understand why people will choose belief over facts. It took a while to figure this out, but the reason is in the difference between thought and emotion. As I stated before, emotion is inherently honest--it does not know how to lie. Does that mean that it is good or bad, right or wrong? No. It just means that it is true. We can not feel something other than what we feel, we can pretend, and we can deny the emotion, but it is still true. This is what psychology is based on, the knowledge that our true emotions will eventually show. Thought, on the other hand, can lie and then rationalize that lie. Like a computer, thought can spit out the most ridiculous things if the wrong data is entered. So thought may or may not be true, but if emotion is attached to that thought, then it becomes belief. That is what belief is, emotional thought. So why do we accept emotional thought over thought? Because we have an innate understanding that our emotions are true. We know that we have at least one foot in reality when we deal with our emotions, so we accept emotional thoughts to be true. But this is not always so. (chuckle) To make this concept easier to understand, consider: You are in a store shopping for sun glasses. The stack of cereal boxes next to you is knocked down, so you reflexively slip the glasses on top of your head, and go to help. You forget the sunglasses and walk out of the store. Two people see you do this. One of the people respects and admires you, and knows that the theft was an accident. One of the people envies and despises you, and knows that you are an opportunist that intentionally committed theft. Both people can produce valid arguments to support their beliefs. But what is the truth? An understanding of how belief works has helped me to be more patient with people, who do not know that they are thinking with their beliefs. Consciousness is a subject that is part of everything, so science, philosophy, and religion all have some information about it, so I don't think we need more knowledge as much as we need to compare the knowledge that we already posses in differing disciplines. G

This thread is becoming frustrating. I feel like a director auditioning actresses for the part of the virgin in a Dracula movie, and have heard enough, "No! No! No!", to last a lifetime. Except for denials, I have gotten no real information from anyone. That is not true. EdEarl did provide some information early on, but consciousness is not his subject, so although he at least tried, he does not really understand consciousness. He is more of an AI person, who studies intelligence and brains and computers. Is there anyone here who studies consciousness and knows anything at all about it? Let's start with simple basics. What is consciousness? The easiest way to describe it is that it is a communication. It is information that is communicated from one place to another, and awareness of that communication is what we call consciousness. The transmitters and receivers of that communication are called life, as life is aware of the communication, hence life is conscious. A rock is not conscious, because a rock is not aware of any communication. This is the reason that Panpsychism does not work. Although it can be argued that all matter has a sort of knowledge of itself, as in atoms seem to know how they fit into molecules, etc., the knowledge is static, it does not move, so there is no awareness, no communication, no consciousness. Like the rock, there is also information within us, but it is not static. Our cells can actually learn and remember. Our immune system can learn about one disease, remember that information, and use it to combat another disease that is similar. Our brains are a wealth of constant movement and processing of information. This is true of all life, whether it be the most simple or the most complex, it can move information and is aware of the movement of information, so it is conscious. So does this mean that moving information equates to consciousness? No. My cell phone, TV, radio, and computer all move information, but they are not conscious, because they are not aware of the movement. How do I know that they are not aware of the movement? Because they do not try to influence it. They do not try to stop it or start it or speed it up or slow it down, they are indifferent to the information. Life is not indifferent to the information and will actively pursue any course that will ensure the survival of the life form. This is consciousness. But what does this have to do with feeling and emotion? Good question. I am not sure that anybody knows. I am tired now, so review the above, that I believe conforms with mainstream philosophy and science, and post any comments or questions that you may have regarding the above. Tomorrow I will post what I think that I know about feeling and emotion. G

Moontanman; Of course I know that the number of people who believe something does not equate with truth. A lot of people used to think the world was flat. On the other hand, if six people come running down the street and say that the house at the end of the block is on fire, would you believe it if you saw no smoke? Maybe, maybe not, but would you walk into your house and assume that there was no fire? No. You would go and take a look. That is all that I am asking, for people to stop hiding in their unwarrented beliefs and take a look. You have told me that there is no proof of the supernatural, so by default, it does not exist. You are wrong. There is evidence of belief in the supernatural in every culture, every society, and every country from the beginning of recorded history and beyond. It is older than science, it is older than philosophy, and it is probably older than religion. So by default, the supernatural does exist. If you would like to prove that it does not exist, then you must explain what it is that is thought to be supernatural. Denying it proves nothing. And cherry picking the denials--consciousness is ok, mind is ok, soul is acceptable, intuition is ok, whatever is within us is ok, but things outside of us are not ok--looks like bias, because none of these things are proven. Regarding the supernatural, I see three possibilities, either it is "God", or it is magic, or it is real. I chose real. You choose denial. Can you deal with the possibility that it could be real? There is a whole page of things that I stated, so what "assertions" did you take issue with? I tried to use reason and logic to make my points and to corroborate any new ideas with other evidence. Are you talking about my personal experiences with ESP? I can retract that if you think it necessary. I hate putting my personal experiences on-line for the world to view, and only stated it because I wanted people to understand how I first learned that emotion can actually move and control knowledge and thought outside of the body. G