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During inner monologues, I'm always impressed by how wise and articulate my thoughts are. It's my voice, but it is being guided; like a hand that is being guided to draw, write, or feel by another hand.

I can second that as I have similar experience. Sometimes during inner dialogues I would stop thinking along the habitual lines and something out of the box pops out. It often sounds like a wise quote from a great man, but totally new to me. Then I wonder how could I make such a statement, it feels like a 'foreign thought'.

I don't know if there's any psychology going on here or it is a real communication from someone who's 'listening' to me.

redcatherine,
Was that a poem?  
I think you misunderstood the problem that I'm addressing. I did not deny the possibility of spirit communication. The warnings, prediction of accidents, inspirations and art/romance etc are good enough signs of spirit communication.
We also have very direct communications which prove their existence.

Its also true that its very hard to communicate with higher beings, given our limitations and their limitations. But whenever such communications are realized, we get no new knowledge out of them which humanity can use for its evolution.

The unscientific and 'just for my own problems' approach is so unfortunate.

[Telos:]

Telos: That might be true for many of them. But we cant generalize. In many of the communications they try to pose as very wise and all knowing but fail to convey any smart and practical things.

wisp: Whats this time factor? I couldn't get you.

Chaoslogic: That's a good post. I see that you focus only on guides, whose intention is obviously not to cater to your curiosities. They only warn or direct or advice in personal matter. I think there is no way to know whether any intuitions that we get come from guides or not.
The imagination method works for many. I read Robert Peterson's account. Here I have a doubt that you are talking to your subconscious, not to external entities. A quick check is to ask something that you yourself don't know(even remotely) and can be verified quickly and unambiguously. It should be a easy to answer question not about yourself or about 'big' philosophical things or related to future.

Nostic: You have some good points. Its hard for me to believe that all the useful things that a spirit or a guide would tell us will be an obstacle to our growth.

I may go blind if I read those red texts on black.
But I tried reading the section on meditations and its some eastern occult stuff in a language of video game story.

Even if you exclude the made up fake communications, the amount of useful knowledge that any spirit has ever communicated is almost nil.
I can expect that the info coming from so called 'lower beings' and ordinary spirits would be useless or nothing new, but even the so called 'higher beings' just go round and round in circles with meaningless gibberish.
So far I never came across any kind of 'intelligent communication'. So I may be wrong here. By such communication I mean any information which helped in some kind of achievements or reveling any truths.
Moreover they never try to disclose the mechanisms by which they communicate and sound very vague when asked.

The whole situation puts spirit communications in the category of pseudosciences such as astrology, where there is a lot of heat but no light.

I can only guess the reasons for it -
1. Its all fake, no one can communicate with spirits really.
2. Spirits don't want to interfere with normal workings of the world, so don't pass any higher knowledge down.
3. They want us to learn in a hard way, using our own intelligence.
4. They do say things in thought forms which are useful, but our physically rooted minds distort it and filter it out during communications.
5. They think that we have enough knowledge about the physical and non-physical to carry on, and there is no need to over burden us with things which we wont use and understand anyway.
6. They are only as intelligent as we are, so don't posses any more knowledge then we do.
7. They are not interested in physical at all.
8. They have got rid of all things related to physical and cant seem to relate to them anymore. So our questions about physics are Chinese to them.
9. They are afraid that we would misuse the knowledge.
10. They prefer to communicate useful things via dreams, inspirations, insights, gut feelings, intuitions and such.
11. They are already in full communication with our 'higher selves', so there is no need to repeat the things here on earth.

And I can think of more....but that's all for now.
I'd like to have your opinions on the matter.

This should go in Communications forum, where you can get some answers.
He may be your guide.
Next time clear your mind and ask about him. You may get an answer.

Or, to be extreme, by every other quantity in the universe.

Now that you've said it, let me second it.
Everything in universe is affected by every other thing, including the non-physical and past/present/future events.

"Correlation does not imply causation."

Its when you falsely assume that one of the two co-related quantities is a cause of the other. It may happen that both are caused by a third quantity. And I totally agree. Still it doesnt make any of the events random.
Even if you assume that global events are not causing RNG deviations, you cannot say they are random, because they are not independent. If they were independent, we'd have got insignificant correlation or a pseudo-correlation at most.

If something doesn't depend on anything that exists, it must be random.

Or that we are not aware of existence of a thing on which the so called random event depends, and must assume that its truly random.

Given that non-causality and backward causation exits, we need a better definition of randomness.

Telos,
Nothing against Mr Greene, he is a good man , but calling a result random actually means that we dont know how we got that result, not that there are no laws working behind it.

Its a separate argument altogether -  whether pure randomness exists or not. But scientists do assume randomness to make calculations simpler and even possible. For example, we usually assume that the motion of molecules in a gas inside a container is random and proceed to calculate the macro quantities. Its better to assume such than to calculate a result of 10^100 interactions and add them up

If we cannot predict it, statisticians say randomness is at work.

When the number of variables is huge, we must resort to statistics to avoid a mental breakdown.

There is an equal probability that the "spin" of a particle will be changed to clockwise or counterclockwise after a measurement.

When you talk in terms of probability you have already assumed randomness. Logic says that you cannot derive it again from the same statement.

The RNG experiments don't "prove" anything other than a correlation between global events and changes in RNGs.....<snip>...And, actually, yes - they're still random. We cannot predict what the outcomes will be without a degree of chance.

You are self contradictory here. A correlation rules out randomness necessarily.
But thats right that its premature, it can be something else. Anyway the involvement of human consciousness is proved, if not of an existence of global one.

He must have said it in public.
You know, to simplyfy things.

Btw, you must have read about the RNG experiments that prove some kind of collective consciousness. That implies that they are not random at all. Ironic.

What about the command "dont smoke weed, or go to jail" or "speed limit 10" ?

Learn to differentiate between whats good for your survival and whats not.
Then you choose it yourself and let the results speak.

Nobody says it random. At least in a good book.
They call it unpredictable.
So some things are predictable by equations some are not.

[real]

I thought I lost this thread somewhere, I was searching for it

I meant for my weird software. A soul might work with 15, but probably wouldn't need more than 100.

Your s/w will surely work here, no doubts. I think for a soul you'd need real QM fields, not the numbers encoded in x-bits. It's a different matter that you can also simulate it down to QM level, but then the computer which can do this in real time will be a quantum computer and would actually become a real brain (an electronic one). So I see a hybrid solution to this problem.

In some ways, its already been done, but its not even as complex as a virus.

I may add here that we have the tech to build a 'living thing' already. Such as a robot which can assemble copies of itself and can repair itself. We can realize such robots economically only after nanomachines start coming up. Computer simulation of a living thing is not a problem at all.
The real challenge is to build a conscious machine, and a self conscious one. We have Turing's test to ascertain if something is conscious in a 'human way'. So far nothing has passed this test.

Its not obvious to me that it has infinite possible states or is purely analog, but if its obvious, you should be able to easily explain why its obvious.

Take any physical quantity you like, say, sound, it has all possible amplitude and all possible frequencies. On your PC sound card 16 bits/sample are enough for a good approximation, but we know that this is only an approximation. This is true for any real thing that you quantize, even a soul.
Another example is the number Pi. It occurs often in nature, in equations that describe something. How many bits would it take to make a real Pi?
Same reasoning goes for e and c.

At QM levels things are discreet, i.e. some states are forbidden, but there is no limit on the value and number of states. Perhaps you are confusing discreet with digital.

Did you use your finite senses and measuring equipment to know its infinite?

We use mathematics. But I see your point.

1st question: No, scientists are not blind, just stupid because dont even try to listen to other ideas

 
I can understand the frustration. But we are what we are only because of scientists and engineers. While religions and superstitions are constantly trying to push us back to our cave-man days, its science which has made ourselves more human.
I have nothing but great respect for all the scientists, engineers and philosophers.

They are busy in making nanomachines and super medicines, which one can use. They have their families to feed, so can't take up any work which doesn't pay back. It takes a lifetime of research to even make a single discovery. It often takes 50-100 years to establish a scientific theory.
As everybody knows, UFOs and tk were thoroughly studied but never yielded any useful results. The research is going on, you'll find a lot of papers on so called 'paranormal' phenomena, studied by actual scientists. I see some rays on the horizon.

Anyway, it doesn't take any degrees to start a research. The only way you can bring these things into scientific mainstream, is to start a research yourself. Don't wait for anyone to do it for you. Imagine how backward we would have been, if all people just sat there waiting for someone to make a discovery.

Ok, on the original question, you can explain it using h/w and s/w analogy. The s/w can run with any h/w, although it interacts with h/w, a change in h/w will not change the actual function of a s/w.
The thing that matters here is not the actual identity of the atoms, but the arrangement of the atoms in a body. As long as you keep the arrangement(structure) exactly same, even if you replace all the material by a new one, it will function exactly in an identical manner.
You can also replace the carbon by silicon+supporting atoms, so that Si+supporting atoms behave exactly like a carbon atom, and still be alive and kicking. Its all about information, not about the media.

I don't understand why it is a question even. All things in the world are in a state of flux, including our minds. The mind of today is different from the mind of yesterday. The illusion of continuity is supplied by memory, which also constantly changes. Keep yourself same, just switch memories with your friend, and you are your friend.

The only constant thing in this world is change

Well, thats what I mean by a resonable command, which is a command that doesn't come in your way of spiritual evolution. You generally avoid all commands btw. And dont command others also.

Those commands that divert you from evolution, you simply ignore. E.g "You shall only read ****** book and stay away from other knowledge". You know what to do with such laws

Spirituality has very much to do with our every day Lives though.

I agree. Your thinking starts reflecting in your daily lives. You start behaving differently. Then you keep a low profile, when people start noticing the 'odd' behavior of yours
I've seen that when some people find that you are 'good', they start using you. They will rob you right down to your last clothes. Perhaps that's why one must refuse or defend oneself, even if you find it non-spiritual.

What do you mean by "Wisdom"? You say they react how they wish. What do they wish?

Wisdom = The sum total or the essence of learning or knowledge one has. I didn't say react, it was 'act':D The wish can be anything, if there is any. At a stage one becomes so free that he won't need any leader to tell him what to do, no bosses, no force can bend them. In fact all the leaders and influential men turn to him for advice, if they are smart. Usually an evolved person is so humble that he wont disobey any reasonable commands, it doesn't make any difference to him at all.

[Frank]

AP and dreaming are among many of the numerous states that one finds himself into during an ASC (Altered state of consciousness). An ASC is any state other than normal waking state of day today experience. Drug induced states, music induced ones and day dreaming are also covered in this same broad category. We go through many ASCs during our 24 hour routine.

Now, these ASCs are distinguished by a 'level' of consciousness. A level of consciousness (LOC) denotes the number of brain functions active at that time, higher the level, more brain functions are active and you feel more conscious. Brain functions include - sensory, perception, cognition, reasoning, motor(Muscle control), emotions etc.

The fundamental discovery is that, that ASCs are independent of LOCs. That is any state of consciousness can have any level of consciousness. Higher the LOC, greater is the perceived reality of that ASC. For example, during a boring lecture, your sensory abilities are normal but judgment and reasoning are switched off and when the lecture is over, you remember next to nothing of it except that it took place for real. While talking on phone you may switch off the visual processing but still remain logical.

Similarly in sleep states, one can operate on various LOCs, starting from zero consciousness to the unexplained higher ones. What makes these states interesting is the fact that there are no physical stimuli being processed by the brain, which open its doors of perception into the non-physical.

Depending on the LOC one experiences various situations, dreaming denoting a lower LOC than AP, which is lower than say a Buddhic projection. One can infact experience LOCs higher than those of normal waking ones, making those ASCs more real than ordinary world.

As Frank says above, there exists unexplored ASCs which can be experienced by increasing the LOC while being in that particular ASC. You come in tune with supernatural beings whose natural LOC resides in that ASC, so called higher beings. You perceive environments that your waking ASC wont allow.

You need a lot of self training to even become aware of such ASCs, not to speak of mastering them. You can easily confuse among them, as you mistook a dream for an AP or vice versa.

People who spend a lot of time in ASCs with high LOC, find the normal physical reality resembling a dream, Maya. Just as we find normal dreams a degenerated view of physical reality.

[Hopefully I didnt make it very complicated ]

I don't mean you are actually physically scared, but the power and awe of it inpires a sense of primordial spinal tap phsyco grab-you-by-the-balls feeling that you cannot mistake as being fake.

 
I dont know if I agree or disagree with the 'emotional' confirmation of astral being true, because although the emotional feeling of standing in something real, (during an AP) gives you a best possible conviction which is personal, it is not a good way to PROVE something. Afterall we all know that we humans are easily fooled by tricks that nature plays with us. Its better to double check always.
Now, there are a lot many so called proofs of astral, afterlife, transcommunications, rebirths, spirit phenomena and so on. In fact there are so many that compiling them would fill up many volumes. Even if 1% of them are legitimate, we have a scientific truth that can be established. But this is not happening....why?
I feel that most of the scientific discoveries get solidified into masses and mainstream science because of their technological spinoffs i.e. some devices are invented which are very useful based on those scientific principles. For example - thermodynamics->locomotives, electrodynamics->radio, etc. People generally take the truth of these for granted, it works, it must be true.
Unfortunately the discovery of supernatural has not provided us even with a single technological breakthrough. I have never seen a single application that was of mass use which originated out of tons of astral gibberish. This goes in favor of hard skeptics and against the firm believers.

I heard of a story that while demonstrating his phonograph in public, Edison was laughed at by a senior scientist, who left saying that he was a fraud. As we all know, now the truth of the invention needs no proof.
A major technological breakthrough explainable via astral theories would become an undeniable proof. This is the only way I see to settle this issue.

It may sound confusing to you guys, but spiritual evolution has nothing to do with other people. In fact it has no relation to being selfless, loving, compassionate towards others. Spiritual evolution is concerned with self, by the self and for the self, it is the path one must travel alone. No amount of social qualities are going to make you more spiritually evolved.
In fact others are often a hindrance to one's evolution. Not only the hateful relations but also the 'good' and loving relations come in the way of your sp. evolution. Same is true with the supernatural 'powers', they are infact a big mountain blocking your spiritual path.
Did I confuse you yet?

There is only one wish a spiritual person has, more and more knowledge, which gives him more and more freedom. Gradually the knowledge frees him from ignorance, from genetic programs, from crowd behavior and most importantly from the vicious cycle of suffering and joy.
As one grows spiritually, he realizes the true nature of human relations, they are just another form of Maya veiling his eyes. The reason such people become humble, selfless and compassionate is not because these qualities are a hallmark of an evolved person, but they see no point in keeping any relation to anyone, and act such for purely practical reasons.

They possess so much wisdom that issues such as material wealth, political powers, good and bad (ethics) etc become of minor importance, almost a joke. They are so free that nothing is good or nothing is bad for them, so they act as they wish. The act of forgiveness is nothing but a higher kind of indifference to them. Once you are out of material issues, it doesn't really matter who did what and for what. Only oneself is important.

Now, there are various levels of development, from initiate to masters...a gray band, and its not possible to categorize all of them under one term - spiritually evolved. So, don't waste your time comparing their qualities, try to become one instead. If you are interested I'll post the various levels and my own interpretations of them based on my own experience.

No I didn't feel any strain, I'm now used to darkness outside the body, I just feel that I'm losing precious time, when I try to make sense of where I'm in the room.

The laughing part is so true. Actually the balance of mind during obe is so delicate that any kind of over-activity brings you back into the body.
But its so much fun, you can't resist it.

Also do you think that a soul can just perish upon death of the physical body? Can a soul be destroyed?

My guess is ... yes it can be destroyed, but not by death of a body.
There are few ancient texts which say that due to bad karmic record the soul can de-evolve, and if it continues in the downward direction after few hundreds of births in lower life-forms, it becomes indistinguishable from non-living things.
Assuming a soul to be some kind of organized energy, it may become disorganized, given the right conditions.

Another question I have is where do you think the energy comes from to make a human life?

That's a good but difficult question. The answer is - nobody knows the origins of it all. Only some theories are there. Check the metaphysics sites.

I have recently increased my obe attempts and after a long gap I managed one conscious obe today morning.
I went to bed around 0800 (yes!, no schedules here;)), and stacked up two pillows so that I stay in a 'non-sleep' mode. Very soon I reached the sleep border and was drifting in and out, often reminding myself for obe.
Not trying any techniques I kept myself on the border, deeply relaxed. After some half an hour or so, I drifted to sleep but got up because of the constant reminders, and decided not to try anymore... 'obe abort'. So, turned on side and tried to sleep.

The white noises started waxing and waning in my ears. It sounds just like when you move a whip in air very fast. Soon I found myself relaxing deeper and the noises became louder like an untuned FM radio station at high volume. I just kept passive watch and after a while the noise ascended higher and I smoothly lost all body sensations and it felt as if I was floating just above the bed. No vision, full consciousness.

I turned carefully to the side and out of the bed still floating. Now as I tried to see, something must have gone wrong because things became very blurry and dark, anyhow I remembered to do an experiment to type something on the PC but it was off (which I generally keep on always, but this time it was off in real too). So instead I found the fan switch and tried to turn it on. It seemed that I succeeded as I saw the fan turning, happy and reminding myself to check it after the return, I decided to go out.

As I neared window things went very bright but still hazy, but something went wrong again. The window was nothing like my real window, still I jumped off expecting to fly, but I stayed in air. So, I forced myself to fly, it worked, although I couldn't see anything, and I was almost laughing with joy. This went against me and I found myself laughing in bed, with tingles all over the body.

In few seconds I moved my toe and opened my eyes, and the first thing I saw - the fan was off, it never moved.

Gandalf,
That makes a lot of sense.
There are many theories that try to explain why it occurs at specific places. One says that we all create this world (consensus reality), to allow certain experience for ourselves or for whatever reason. Now, this world appears solid and unchangeable only because there are so many souls involved in its creation and the law of average quickly removes any minor 'imperfections' in this creation.
When a strong event occurs in this world, like you say , a murder, suicide, accident, war or an unjust capital punishment, or anything which the participating soul strongly opposes, the strong intention/will of this soul to deny such undesirable reality produces a 'spike' strong enough to create a 'fault' in the consensus reality.The will to undo the action(the event) that has just taken place, is magnified by the fact that the soul has just left the body and is no more a part of this world.
The fault is just like a fault in the grain of wood or a crystal. The physical laws divert from the norm here. The fault is highly local and stronger than a prayer or mass intention. Strange emfs, temperature changes, sounds and lights often occur. Sometimes objects disappear and reappear at other places. Things happen without the usual causes. The brain of a person dislodges from this reality and sees other planes. Spirits find that they can interfere with the world where ever a fault occurs. Slowly with time the fault heals and things become 'normal'.

if we created souls then god can take a vacation?

Are you afraid of god? just like those cave people  

Ybom,

Why are you measuring your bed other than to see a number? Is there any true purpose behind it?

Are you asking what is the purpose behind man's pursuit for truth? Are you aware that only one in a billion men ever asks for truth, rest just move on.

you miss the forest for the trees

Would you ever know what a forest is if you don't know what a tree is?
Its the analysis that leads us to synthesis, and finally to the true understanding, not the other way round.
For example, the analysis of life-forms has lead to the understanding that all are variants of a single molecule -the DNA. And the analysis of matter has shown that all substances are arrangements of same stuff - particles.

you have to see both finity and infinity together as a whole, not separately.

Its very easy to say something that doesn't make sense but sounds great.
As, I've said earlier, there is an aspect of reality that we cant grasp at this stage of evolution. When we approximate the reality, it becomes finite and useful, but when we probe deeper it becomes infinite and nonsensical.