adr431.memo

.ll 72
.fo off
.co on 
.ce ((Editor's comments in double parenthesis - Homer))
 
.ce ADR - 431
.ce
 
.ce Copyright (C) Homer Wilson Smith
.ce Redistribution rights granted for non commercial purposes
 
======================================================================== 300
Date:         Sat, 09 Sep 89 18:01:18 EDT
From:         Homer <CTM@CORNELLC>
Subject:      Re: Internet Skeptics Digest, volume 7
To:           [email protected],
              adore-l@ualtavm,
              [email protected]
In-Reply-To:  Message of Thu, 9 Mar 89 22:23:29 EST from <[email protected]>


     Please respond to ADORE-L AT UALTAVM or personally to me.  I am
not on the skeptics list.

>>      Your own statements lead to the conclusion that maybe the
>> spririt is not IN the body and so would not be perceived as leaving it.
>> Maybe the viewpoint from within the body and the feeling of control
>> we have over it is just remote viewing and telekenesis exercised
>> from where ever the spirit really is in space/time/eternity.
>
>I used "spirit" in quotes and the word "something" above to try
>to avoiding begging any questions about the existence of souls.
>I personally don't think they exist.  But the position you describe
>is certainly a coherent one.  I just don't think it's very
>plausible.

     The implausibility rests on an earlier implausibility which is
that the entire external physical universe of matter energy space and time
is just a dream, a projected hologram in our consciousness.

     If you take matter energy space and time as actual annd consciousness
as something that arose out of them, then it is very unlikely that
all these extra spiritual abilities really exist.  You are a piece of
meat after all.

     On the other hand if you take consciousness/source as actual, and
matter and energy space and time as arising out of dream projections, then
the very meathood of the apparent external universe is in itself an
extra spiritual ability and all the rest follows naturally.

>
>>      The point is, we believe we are IN a body because it LOOKS
>> to us like we are IN a body.  If we get out of our body and
>> travel to Moscow and it LOOKS like we are in Red Square, who is
>> to say this is just remote viewing?  In both cases we look like
>> we are somewehre.  Why say one is right and the other is remote
>> viewing?  Eternity knows no spatial positioning.  A spirit
>> can see from anywhere to anywhere.  He is neither in nor out of
>> a body, but choosing to view as if from a body or from Moscow.
>> It is a simpler theory.
>
>I don't think it is.  It requires postulating the existence of
>strange substances with strange powers which require justification.
>It's also not clear how to individuate spirits if they have no
>spatial position.  In short, your theory is faced with all the
>difficulties of Cartesian dualism.
>

     I submit to you that matter energy space and time are no less
strange substances than consciousness.  Either one postulated
as the fundamental reality still leaves open the amazing fact that
something exists at all and the fact of its nature what ever that
nature might be.

     The cartesian problem comes into play when one states that space
is an illusion.  Where then does one FIT the enormous underlying
mechanism that must support all these souls and their pet virtual dreams.
The answer lies is responding that actualiy does not have any spatial
dimension at all thus is not limited for want of 'room' which is a
dimensional concept.

     The whole trick of the dream rests in the apprent fact that the soul
outwardly dreams everything what inwardly he is not.  Thus space, external
CAUSE, time, solidities, dimensions, fragility are all constructs IN
the dream which the spirit has them mistakenly assigned to himself the
dreamer.

     Inwardly, and in actuality there is no space or time or external
cause and certainly no fragility or change.

      Thus the practical joke seems to consist of an eternal immortal
independant fundamental underlying reality creating for itself
a consciousness of everything that it isn't.

     That there COULD BE such a thing with such abilities is
a bit beyond our willingness, but more so is the painfullness
of the practical joke we have played on ourselves and seriousness
with which we have taken our own perceived fragility.

     Admit it, if I am right, then we have all been fools.

>>
>>     It is true that if a spirit plays the game of being one of
>> the figures in the arcade game, then if that figure gets crushed
>> and is no longer able to function, the abilities that the
>> spirit assigned to those functions will also cease to work.
>
>This view involves duplication of functions (the "assigned abilities"
>in the body and the abilities in the spirit).  A simpler
>view does not postulate such duplication.

     Bodies are a dream, they are like the figures in an arcade game.
They have assigned virtual abilities given to them by the central
processor.  Just so with life.

     In my view there is one underlying stuff, consciousness/source,
in your view there are two stuffs, matter/space/energy/time and
consciousness.

     Some would claim that consciousness IS just matter and energy
in relation, but pain is not force.  Motivation although similar
to push is not identical to push.  Ball bearings only know
push, souls know pain, motivation.

     Love and shame can not of force and mass be made.

     Besides all the Occam's Razor arguements in the world
can not change the facts if they turn out to be as I claim.

     My point is that the theory that I am postulating is a mathematically
and logically derivable opposite to the theory that you are claiming.
Both can be worked out on paper before any observation is done.  Both
have consequences that can be predicted and then looked for.
Thus to dismiss one as silly yet give so much attention to the other
is to fail at your own scientific method.

     The main reason people do not like the consciousness/source
theory is because of the emotional impact of finding out
they were duped by source from day one.

     Fact is they weren't duped but chose the joke for themselves.
>
>>[...] Bodies do not have that many abilities, so people find full
>> exteriorization rather exhilarating as they expand out to their
>> natural 195 mile wide size and start spreading their wings again.
>
>I thought that spirits didn't have spatial location.  But they do
>have spatial extension?

     Spirits do not HAVE spatial location nor extension.  However
they do have the EXPERIENCE of both.  The more space a spirit can
occupy and play games in the better condition he is in.
Once you can occupy the entire space of a given playing field you can
leave the game altogether which includes leaving the space (not
necessarily to another space!).  Space is a hologram.  You plug into
source and you get your projection.  You came into the game that way
and that is they way you leave.  The way in is the way out.
>
>> >   This is just one piece of evidence against "past lives."
>>
>> >A more complete case can be found in Paul Edwards' four-part
>> >"The Case Against Reincarnation" which appeared in Free Inquiry
>> >magazine (Fall 1986, Winter 1986/87, Spring 1987, and Summer 1987
>> >issues, i.e., vol. 6 no. 4 and vol. 7 nos. 1-3).
>>
>>      References will not save you from my direct experiences.
>
>I am not doubting your experiences, but rather your interpretations
>of them.  A wide variety of effects make everyone prone to misinterpreting
>their experiences--psychological biases, physiological idiosyncrasies,
>and so forth.  Understanding one's psychology and physiology are
>essential to a full understanding of one's experiences--particularly
>unusual experiences.
>
     Your argument begs the question.  If every interpretation that
I make of a memory or experience is open to question then every conclusion
that anyone makes is suspect even yours.

     YOU judge that you are NOT immortal by the LACK of clear memories
from before your birth.  Your experience is 'no awareness of responsibility
for your presence here on Earth' and your interpretation is that it did
not happen, you didn't choose.

     Thus you are just as prone to misinterpretation as I am.  You do not
have a scientifically more favorable position.

     As I said both views get equal consideration in a mature approach,
and both views must be tested by the same scientific method, if indeed
one wishes to prove them to others.

     If I remember my past lives and can recognize my responsibility for
my existance on Earth and which parents I got, I may have no need
to prove it to others.  This in fact could be very dangerous considering
the quality of minds that reside on Earth, commonly called the DRAIN by
some.

     However if we should decide to try and prove our Immortality and
past and future lives and full self determined exteriorization I assure
you that IF IT EXISTS, IT CAN BE PROVEN.  To those who can stand the light,
and to those who can not.  But those who can not will go insane and try
to destroy you.

     Thus it behooves you as the skeptic to design criteria under which
you would admit that you were wrong and it behooves me as the Immortal
to do the same.

     I think that logic is slightly on my side here as I am not sure it is
possible to prove that you die.  But you could prove that you were
immortal or had lived before if it were true.  Of coruse it
might also be that all these things are true but for some
reason are unprovable to others until they themselves experience them
for themselves.  I don't believe this though.  Nothing like using direct
mental power to create and drop a cannon ball on a skeptics head to
change his mind.  A cannon ball EVERYONE can see and test.

>>      You would LIKE to be able to get out of your body, no?
>
>I can't say I have an overwhelming desire to do so, but I imagine
>it would be rather exciting to do such a thing.  In my view, of course,
>such a thing would involve technology rather
>than spirituality (something like Daniel Dennett's "Where am I?"
>story).

     You are a spirit.  You can get out, it is very desirable to be
out but very hard to confront what you will find all around you.
Its like you get out of your jail cell and you wander free in the
prison where everyone else is in their jail cell.

     When you are out for good, you can not be regimented or controlled
by threats against your body of torture or incarceration because you
no longer have to feel its pain.  You would even be more willing and able
to kill it if it ever got into such a jam.

     Further once out of your body in a fully self determined way,
you would be able to see all around you and would be able to
see for great distances (perhaps too great!) and it would be
very hard for anyone to sneak up on you, or to hide from you.
If you were a soldier, you would  love this no?

     I suspect that people who do not want to be Immortal, or who
do not want to get out of their bodies, or who see no point in it
or find it undesirable have something very dark about them.
Its like someone who frowns upon others escaping from the prisoner
of war camp or who doesn't believe there is an outside, or who even
tries to STOP you from making a break for it.  You gotta wonder
whats wrong with the guy.  People who don't even dream of going
free from their jail cell are emotionally dead and running on empty.
They may DO alot, but its all assigned work from the warden.

>>      Continue to study it, but don't get too snotty about how
>> you know it all, because it is your own hope you are stomping on.
>> [...]
>
>Good advice, and advice that I'm presently following as a grad
>student in philosophy of mind/cognitive science.
>
>Jim Lippard                        [email protected]
>Dept. of Philosophy
>University of Arizona
>Tucson, AZ 85721
>
>------------------------------
I think that people
> who
>claim to have had OBE experiences have had something unusual occur, but
> something
>that is a phenomenon IN the mind - not OUT of it.

     Since immortal beings have suppressed memories going back
a few billion years to times before they ever had bodies or even
know about them, it is very often the case that a person new to the
subject of OBE's will attain a memory exteriorization.  He will be
reliving a moment from his PAST when he was out of a body, or just
got out, or one just died, or something.  He will feel like he
is out of his present body, but wont be.

     If this person is treated with respect and the pain and sorrow
is run out of the memories he has so long supressed he will come back
into better contact with his present body, and eventually attain
a stable exteriorization from his present body.  Such people hate
being asked to PROVE it becase it scares the hell out of them to let
others know they can do it, it marks you as an enemy similar to those
on the past track who hunted down and zapped spirits that could
exteriorize.  But a being who is truely out CAN prove it if he should
so choose.  What you must consider is if you are really willing to have
him prove it.  Its no small deal to YOU to find out you were oh so wrong
for lo these many years.  If the newly exteriorized beings feels that you
do not have the personal wherewithall to confront the proof of anothers
exteriorization he will fold up and snap back into his body.  And wont
be able to get out again for a while or at least not until he is in
a safe space where people wont die on him if he moves the ashtray with his
mind.

     A being who can get out of his body and command it from a distance,
can also command YOUR body from the same distance.  Think about it.
If you piss off one of these guys, they may just microwave your brain
(called zapping) and that would be the end of you.

>
>The introduction of new philosophical views tend, sometimes, to render the
>problem in a new light.  For instance, there is a very prevalent view on this
>list that there is either an external 'spirit' or that the mind is the brain.
>I reject both positions, but will leave that point for a later message.

     Good work Norman.  I wonder how you do it.  Either the spirit
is immortal or it is not. No?  Either its existance is a function of
the complexity of parts called a brain which when it is busted so goes
the spirit or it is not.  I would love to hear your third position.

     IS,  IS NOT, and...

 Homer               [email protected]   9/09/89*Internet Skeptics Digest, vol

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