Life, Death and Paperclips

[grzazek]

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[CFTraveler]

Nice analogy Grazek.

[Killa Rican]

I see it that way too. I dont believe in 'nothingness' because pre-conception and death are supposedly both the same, within an infinite series of expanding and collapsing universes and relative time. All things change. Including the non-physical. There's definitely alot more going on behind the scenes.

[Stillwater]

If we assume there is nothing before life, (simply because our brain doesn't remember anything) once the individual knows something exists, that part of the paperclip will always be bent because why would you go back to nothingness when you could exist in somethingness.

It is really hard for someone to concieve of non-existence, since from the earliest anyone can think of, they have existed; it is thusly difficult, because an intrinsic first property of our minds is that they at the very least exist. The problem comes because we try to imagine non-existence from a perspective- the perspective of what it would be "like" to not exist, for instance; but this is a contradiction- the best way to imagine non-existence would be total lack of a perspective.

And it seems difficult to imagine it... but think of yourself when you are in a deep, dreamless sleep. I am not talking about REM, or when you are in a hazy reverie, but when you have pretty much no frontal lobe activity at all, deep in delta state. In a sense, there is a time when we are asleep that we are basically dead, as dark as that seems. And then... you begin to wake again, and it is almost like you came back into existence from nothingness, like you were created anew again. If you want to imagine non-existence, imagine that.

I am not saying that is final reality, mind you, but that is how you would conceive of the concept, as it really isn't the alien thing you might think.

[NoY]

nicely put Stillwater 

:NoY:

[Taoistguy]

People try to understand such concepts with their scientific/logical brain and this is the mistake. Only by meditating upon such things can you understand them.

[Stillwater]

People try to understand such concepts with their scientific/logical brain and this is the mistake. Only by meditating upon such things can you understand them.

Hi Taoist,

Can you elaborate a bit, and explain what you intend by "such concepts", and where exactly you feel the mistake lies?

[Taoistguy]

I mean things like 'Nothingness', psychic, telekinesis, chi, acupincture, homeopathy.

These things are beyond modern Western scientific understanding becaus e they do not fit into the model that Western science constructs. The mistake is in trying to make them fit in to this hard, physical model, rather than expanding and adapting the model to fit in with them.

Taoists have no problem in understanding the concept of listening with your eyes or seeing with your ears, but science would say this is impossible.

By quieting yourself and getting i touch with the wider reality you can understand these things.

[Stillwater]

I agree that there are some concepts that can only be understood from an experential, first-person perspective, put that does not mean that all of those you have mentioned don't also have "logical" meanings or definitions. To say that something is outside of the constraints of what mainstream science currently accepts is not to say it has no scientific explanation at all.

Speaking of acupuncture, as you mentioned, if it really is the case that it is an "etheric" phenomenon, then it is possible that a newer scientific model which acknowledges an etheric spectrum of existence can describe the phenomena of how it functions. Just because the current practitioners of science are biased in some way or another, does not mean the concept cannot be understood from a rational perspective at all.

[Taoistguy]

I agree with you, partially.
I'm not saying such things are not 'scientific', everythingis in a way.
1000 years ago electric would be seen as magical; until they understood it.
What I was saying is that scientists considers these thing un scientific, not me,
Until they broaden their definition of 'science' they won't accept these things.

[Stillwater]

I guess we both agree then that those practicing science in large part suffer from a paradigm bias. This is generally referred to as "Scientism".

It seemed to me that you were making a much more radical claim then you might have meant.