These are just a simple thoughts and explained very roughly. Either should not be taken too seriously because of course listening too much other people than yourself has high percent to mislead you because the one you listened to might have been wrong so take this lightly. I also know many people disagrees with one or two things and then judges all the ideas in this post totally bovine excrement, so please don't do that. Yeah and sorry for bad writing, definitely not writer. Ill actually add a quicker and shorter version to the end :D
Evolution is here because somehow it just seems to fit everywhere and i kinda believe in the big bang and evolution or something like that. NOT gods creation, though i believe there is a god or many gods and i have no idea how to definite god but i definitely don't believe in Christianity god. I "believe" in chakras, energy body etc, could say that i know :)
OK so here we go.
My or yours spirit might be like a newborn child who cannot do anything, young child cannot decide whats good or bad for him and doesn't really have consciousness or a 10 years old child which knows something but still cannot decide for himself very well. You could think this as civilization like ours but as in higher beings(I'm not trying to make a new "world" about this spirit thing, just a not so serious thought which might be true).
Consciousness needs energy which you get from food, but food=matter matter=energy and energy=matter so food is just a physical way for organic beings to get energy, whitout it you simply die(thought some yoga gurus and people like that have claim to live without food or water for uncanny times). Reincarnation could be a way for consciousness and spirit to evolve&learn safely and stable to use energy without physical form. This would lead to end of reincarnation cycle cause there is no need for it anymore. I think reincarnation is pretty perfect way leading evolution to spiritual beings. We could add karma here too because to end reincarnation you might need to be "good" spirit because this evolving and learning would mean that you can do pretty much anything with the energy and just not keep your consciousness going. Whole universe is energy so there is no limited source of energy and also of course there might be infinite number of universes etc but lets not write about that.
So conclusion. Reincarnation might be only because of evolution. Is it evolution or not i still think it is a way for spirit to safely developer.
Ah and not forgetting that if a human would live 200-300 years suddenly more people would mentally flip out before their physical body dies. Also long lifetime would be bad when a person gets totally misled.
SHORT VERSION.
Consciousness needs energy which you get from food. Reincarnation could be a way for consciousness to learn to use energy without physical matter and then leave the cycle of reincarnation. This might be because of evolution or it might not.
I like this theory. But it would mean my body is trying to die, or my soul escape...or else every disease I've come down with (while untreated) wouldn't have caused me to starve...
With both conditions the outcome of the damage would have been starving to death. And the cause of that damage is my own immune system attacking my own cells...I think I have thought of a similar theory before. That must be why I like it. :-)
I think sometimes my body can't handle the energy of my soul. I know it's old...but sometimes I wonder if many of us are just spiritual giants crammed into vessels too small. It would explain why some of the greatest people came apart at the seams. I hope I'm not near that great.
That's absurd.
Consciousness is in your brain, it can not be if there wasn't a body.
Consciousness is made FOR evolution not the other way around.
It's just another simple tool for us to survive, nothing special.
I like to entertain the idea that the body is the launchpad of the soul. So when it is not developed enough, or fuelled enough with conscious energy, it falls back down to earth in a new bod. Not in a literal sense, this is a model. So that when an individual reaches enlightenment, which seems to me to be our ultimate birthright, the soul can depart. It understands enough about the next world to enter into it. The logos.
If I could apply this theory on a collective scale, I'd say this is where the 2012 prophercies come in. Perhaps consciousness evolves to a level high enough in the species for us to collectively try and launch into the next dimension. Which in one way is a process of dying, end of the world and in another, a process of birth into the new world.
-AM
I think consciousness is still unconsciousness. This is somewhere between complete consciousness and complete unconsciousness. Or else nothing of it would be fun.
Quote from: Awakened_Mind on September 26, 2007, 19:48:48
I like to entertain the idea that the body is the launchpad of the soul. So when it is not developed enough, or fuelled enough with conscious energy, it falls back down to earth in a new bod. Not in a literal sense, this is a model. So that when an individual reaches enlightenment, which seems to me to be our ultimate birthright, the soul can depart. It understands enough about the next world to enter into it. The logos.
If I could apply this theory on a collective scale, I'd say this is where the 2012 prophercies come in. Perhaps consciousness evolves to a level high enough in the species for us to collectively try and launch into the next dimension. Which in one way is a process of dying, end of the world and in another, a process of birth into the new world.
-AM
What would be the purpose of this?
Not entirely sure. I don't think our purpose in the universe is clear to anyone. Some may have a strong belief, but there is certainly no consensus.
-AM
I know 1 belief that is crystal clear, and that's materialism.
If you look at the purpose of US (HUMANS) materialisticly.
The answer would be easy.
Quote from: Awakened_Mind on September 26, 2007, 19:48:48
I like to entertain the idea that the body is the launchpad of the soul. So when it is not developed enough, or fuelled enough with conscious energy, it falls back down to earth in a new bod. Not in a literal sense, this is a model. So that when an individual reaches enlightenment, which seems to me to be our ultimate birthright, the soul can depart. It understands enough about the next world to enter into it. The logos.
If I could apply this theory on a collective scale, I'd say this is where the 2012 prophercies come in. Perhaps consciousness evolves to a level high enough in the species for us to collectively try and launch into the next dimension. Which in one way is a process of dying, end of the world and in another, a process of birth into the new world.
-AM
I was recently discussing this with a friend. We thought that perhaps we are coming to a time where more and more people are consciously realizing there is a world behind this one, that the physical world isn't all there is. Using theosophical terminology, the veil between the physical world and etheric world is thinning and more people are having experiences expressing this. Maybe 2012 won't be a quick launch, but a midpoint in the experiencing of the etheric world (maybe a gradual physical/etheric overlay?) for all of humanity.
So in relation to Reincarnation, this would be a monumental time period to be born into: to get to see the rise of the etheric from the physical side.
...or nothing could happen. I don't know.
Quote from: Sharpe on September 27, 2007, 09:38:55
I know 1 belief that is crystal clear, and that's materialism.
If you look at the purpose of US (HUMANS) materialisticly.
The answer would be easy.
Well materialism is a school of thought created by humans. So the question I guess really is "What's the purpose of materialism?". Now materialism can explain a lot from after the big bang until now, it had great explanatory power. I don't see it as the ultimate truth. I've said before, the purpose of materialism is somehow operationally necessary to navigate through the lower systems of thought toward a higher truth. On a collective scale that is anyway, because practices in Buddhism, Hinduism etc seem to have found another way there by looking inward into the human world instead of outward into the physical.
Stookie, I liked you example
"Using theosophical terminology, the veil between the physical world and etheric world is thinning and more people are having experiences expressing this"I've come across this idea myself. I defined it as the mental universe or the realm of the imagination is beginning to ingress itself in the physical realm. I don't know if this is reality or not, but if it is, it's only going to start happening faster. Now I'm sure we're all familiar with the recent quantum physics, that the human mind plays an integral role in reality. This is perhaps another tool necessary to navigate our way toward our birth right, spiritual enlightenment.
-AM
Materialism is closer to the truth than anything else so it's the best model to build on.
Materialism is horibble. I agree with the stookie. To anyone whos ever experienced the joy of letting go of any emotional attachment to a physical possion/possessions they know what true happiness is.
Well I guess what's really going on here is that we are talking on different levels of description. We can not really understand the nature of the brain by viewing it in terms of it's atomic constituents. When talking about elctrostatic forces or Newtons laws perhaps then an atomic language is exactly what's necessary. It goes to show different levels of 'truth'. Atomic, physiological, psychological, social etc. These are all true and relevant at different levels of description in phenomena. I think materialism is simply that, a level of truth. Not truth itself.
-AM
Great, you stereotyped the word: materialism.
Materialism, hasn't got anything to do with emotional attachment to physical possessions.
It's believing that there are no spirits nor gods nor another world where you go to after you die.
Quote from: Sharpe on October 01, 2007, 16:12:32
Great, you stereotyped the word: materialism.
Materialism, hasn't got anything to do with emotional attachment to physical possessions.
It's believing that there are no spirits nor gods nor another world where you go to after you die.
I think you'll find that's atheism.
Materialism explains things through matter. Hence 'materialism'. So it does say emotional attachment to physical possessions exist, but it says they are a result of chemical reactions in the brain. Nothing more.
-AM
Atheism is pretty much close to materialism.
I just meant to say the things it DOESN'T believe.
By the way, did I hear this correctly:
So you mean idealism and dualism don't BELIEVE in emotional attachment to physical possessions?
Lol, stupid.
Well no, we are the ones that believe in emotional attachments. Dualism and idealism are just different perspectives used to explain things.
-AM
Atheism is not antitheism, a-theism simply means that based upon the current body of evidence available, the likelihood of a God existing (theism) is quite improbable. It implies nothing else about life, or death, or what happens after death. If more evidence comes to light, then a current atheist might change their stance. In fact, unless people in this thread believe in all Gods from Odin, to Thor, to Yahweh, then all are atheist (or for fence sitters agnostic) in regards to certain Gods.
Regarding materialism, unless one wishes to forsake all else but personal desire for specific beliefs regardless of contradictory evidence, we cannot make any definite claims on this area. As physical beings, we interact with a physical world, our mind is affected by physical mediums (from neurotransmitters, to hormones), regardless of our beliefs on mind, damage to the brain produces specific changes in all who experience the same damage. This implies that at the least personality, moral outlook, and even interpretation of logic and reality have a basis in the physical brain. A person who is happy, sad, in religious or spiritual rapture is feeling the effects of physical mediums on a physical brain. Does anything exist outside of material? It all depends on the definition. Energy has a material basis, and so if the spiritual realms have any true reality, they must have a mechanism of action to affect the physical (else we wouldn't be able to interact with such realms/energies with our physical bodies), this also means they have a basis in the material.
I think the crux of all this for most people is, is there any reality after brain death? This is something we can't truly answer right now (one can happily hold faith held belief but that is restrictive), but we can at least make a few predictions. Going off neurological discoveries, it seems much of what we identify as human, id, ego, personality, is linked to a meat brain, and damage to specific areas can have drastic effects on the individual involved. Literally a saint can be turned into what society would label a deviant. This has serious implications for reincarnation, karma, and various other spiritual beliefs. It also has implications on what would survive the decay of the brain, and if something did, would it actually be aware of anything, or have any form of personality? Such arguments as energy not being destroyed are pretty simplistic in regards to this area as on the quantum level energy is generated and destroyed continually, and even if we ignore this, burning a leaf and scattering it's ashes to the wind does not maintain anything of the original leaf. Likewise, a decaying brain might destroy all traces of the individual, or the electrons which hold together consciousness might simply fade away.
For one to claim absolute knowledge of this either way is closing oneself off to all possibilities (even those which do not taste too pleasant).
I think we have reached a point where trying to explain everything by physical means is simply not adequate enough. How can we explain culture and the development of different languages in organisms with the same DNA and brain structure? How do we explain Elizabeth Loftus' work on false memory implantation where nothing physical in the subject is changed? So not only physical means can effect our perception of reality but mental ones also.
Most people are dualist's nowadays. What's needed in monism and dualism is a discovery that identifies how these two worlds interact with one another. What else can ended the debate? There must be some medium. Unless of course it's all an illusion created by mind, which the transcendental solipsists would have you believe.
I suppose it comes down to hardware software debate. The soul/mind/mental universe acting as the software and the body/physical universe acting as the hardware. If the computer breaks down or dies, can the information on it be transferred or stored on the internet? Likewise when the body dies, does consciousness move into something bigger that connects us all?
We have no idea. It's more intelligent not take a side than to argue for or against either side. (This isn't directed at anyone in particular I'm just saying this as a general idea)
-AM
Quote from: Awakened_Mind on October 02, 2007, 05:57:50
How can we explain culture and the development of different languages in organisms with the same DNA and brain structure?
One way of looking at this is that the brain has a predisposition to communicative methods, the methods themselves are irrelevant, but societal and cultural conditioning would give preference to what those methods are.
Interestingly, research has also shown that areas of the brain used for language generation and comprehension have a very small window of development, such as children who haven't learnt to speak by a certain age will never be able to produce fluid sentences. They might be able to use words, but the ability to string them together into a narrative will forever be beyond them. Most of the research was developed from 'wild children' who had no contact with humans during their childhood.
As an aside, it's also been shown the various personality traits also require specific stimulus for the brain areas responsible for them to develop correctly. Such as the absence of one parental figure during a child's life has been shown to have effects on developing brains, and there are now increasingly evident links between certain mental illnesses and such parental absence.
Quote
How do we explain Elizabeth Loftus' work on false memory implantation where nothing physical in the subject is changed? So not only physical means can effect our perception of reality but mental ones also.
Agreed, research has shown that neuroplasticity (the ability of the brain to restructure itself) can occur from thought alone. But when we look at a thinking brain with technology such as Magnetoencephalography, we can see the initiation and cascading of thoughts throughout the entire brain. So while the metal seems separated from the physical, it's hard to actually draw a dividing line.
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I think we have reached a point where trying to explain everything by physical means is simply not adequate enough.
And this is where ambiguity sets in. By the very definition of 'physical' we cannot ever experience something 'non-physical'. Every experience, memory, emotion has it's roots in physical matter. Some might argue that such roots are products of some energetic (soul) interaction, but for such an interaction to occur, that energy/soul etc must have a way of interacting with physical matter. This renders it physical too (by definition), but as yet, simply undetected.
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Most people are dualist's nowadays. What's needed in monism and dualism is a discovery that identifies how these two worlds interact with one another. What else can ended the debate? There must be some medium.
Agree with you fully. Any spiritual experience must have means to interact with the physical for it to become known or experienced. I think there is a lot of 'fuzzy thinking' in spiritual philosophies which make finding such mediums a lot more difficult.
Quote
Unless of course it's all an illusion created by mind, which the transcendental solipsists would have you believe.
And if solipsism held any kind of truth, such discussions as these are pointless :D!
Quote
I suppose it comes down to hardware software debate. The soul/mind/mental universe acting as the software and the body/physical universe acting as the hardware. If the computer breaks down or dies, can the information on it be transferred or stored on the internet? Likewise when the body dies, does consciousness move into something bigger that connects us all?
But to be stored, there has to be a medium to store it on and a mechanism to allow such transference. And even so, we have to ask if information can be stored, what of the operating system that run it? Without such a thing, would information be anything more than mindless symbols only intelligible to a still living human mind/brain?
First of all I think that the ambiguity lies in the medium that connects the two together, not in whether either exist. We simply don't have the tools necessary to view a mental world other than subjective experience. We'll suppose there is a mental/spiritual world or we really don't leave ourselves much room for movement once the dust has settled after discussion.
There has to be some sought of mechanism even in a spiritual/mental realm. I think the idea of 'mechanism' is often restricted to a physical machine when in fact even higher dimensions must have their own mechanics.
"One way of looking at this is that the brain has a predisposition to communicative methods, the methods themselves are irrelevant, but societal and cultural conditioning would give preference to what those methods are.
Interestingly, research has also shown that areas of the brain used for language generation and comprehension have a very small window of development, such as children who haven't learnt to speak by a certain age will never be able to produce fluid sentences. They might be able to use words, but the ability to string them together into a narrative will forever be beyond them. Most of the research was developed from 'wild children' who had no contact with humans during their childhood.
As an aside, it's also been shown the various personality traits also require specific stimulus for the brain areas responsible for them to develop correctly. Such as the absence of one parental figure during a child's life has been shown to have effects on developing brains, and there are now increasingly evident links between certain mental illnesses and such parental absence."
I don't see culture as being largely physical. In David Sloan Wilson's book "Darwin's Cathedral: Evolution, Religion and the Nature of Society", he shows that society can be seen as a single organism. This is becoming more clear on a collective scale to us now. Quantum physics is insisting that somehow we are integrated in the ENTIRE physical world, not just our bodies. Culture has some grounding in the physical but it's still a holistic concept, built from many physical brains. So are social factors. Culture itself evolved into existence. Concepts of law and punishment evolved into the human psyche collectively. Concepts of ethics. We don't know how ideas evolve into existence. So the ambiguity attends all our discussions where these two dimensions interact through some higher mechanics.
Another thing to take into account is how anything in the natural world 'knows' how or where to position itself in one place instead of another. Why do limbs on animals grow back, foetal development in human, a tree growing etc. Rupert Sheldrake, a controversial British biologist tries to explain this through a kind of 'morphic resonance'. The theory explains a 'background wave' that carries a blueprint or memory of what to do. Memories are stored all over the brain, not in one specific location. I'd like to see the idea linked with that fact in some theory. It may offer something.
There's much argument around the nature of dreams. These forums are an example. Most people are sick of being reduced to atoms and chemical reactions. Experience simply feels much richer than that. It's as if even if you can prove we are purely physical, people won't accept it.
-AM
Quote from: Awakened_Mind on October 02, 2007, 08:43:17
First of all I think that the ambiguity lies in the medium that connects the two together, not in whether either exist. We simply don't have the tools necessary to view a mental world other than subjective experience. We'll suppose there is a mental/spiritual world or we really don't leave ourselves much room for movement once the dust has settled after discussion.
There has to be some sought of mechanism even in a spiritual/mental realm. I think the idea of 'mechanism' is often restricted to a physical machine when in fact even higher dimensions must have their own mechanics.
"One way of looking at this is that the brain has a predisposition to communicative methods, the methods themselves are irrelevant, but societal and cultural conditioning would give preference to what those methods are.
Interestingly, research has also shown that areas of the brain used for language generation and comprehension have a very small window of development, such as children who haven't learnt to speak by a certain age will never be able to produce fluid sentences. They might be able to use words, but the ability to string them together into a narrative will forever be beyond them. Most of the research was developed from 'wild children' who had no contact with humans during their childhood.
As an aside, it's also been shown the various personality traits also require specific stimulus for the brain areas responsible for them to develop correctly. Such as the absence of one parental figure during a child's life has been shown to have effects on developing brains, and there are now increasingly evident links between certain mental illnesses and such parental absence."
I don't see culture as being largely physical. In David Sloan Wilson's book "Darwin's Cathedral: Evolution, Religion and the Nature of Society", he shows that society can be seen as a single organism. This is becoming more clear on a collective scale to us now. Quantum physics is insisting that somehow we are integrated in the ENTIRE physical world, not just our bodies. Culture has some grounding in the physical but it's still a holistic concept, built from many physical brains. So are social factors. Culture itself evolved into existence. Concepts of law and punishment evolved into the human psyche collectively. Concepts of ethics. We don't know how ideas evolve into existence. So the ambiguity attends all our discussions where these two dimensions interact through some higher mechanics.
Another thing to take into account is how anything in the natural world 'knows' how or where to position itself in one place instead of another. Why do limbs on animals grow back, foetal development in human, a tree growing etc. Rupert Sheldrake, a controversial British biologist tries to explain this through a kind of 'morphic resonance'. The theory explains a 'background wave' that carries a blueprint or memory of what to do. Memories are stored all over the brain, not in one specific location. I'd like to see the idea linked with that fact in some theory. It may offer something.
There's much argument around the nature of dreams. These forums are an example. Most people are sick of being reduced to atoms and chemical reactions. Experience simply feels much richer than that. It's as if even if you can prove we are purely physical, people won't accept it.
-AM
Yeah this is so true.
I'm reading this book called sperm wars, and it explains that our behaviour is so amazingly close to the behaviour of sperm/unfertilised eggs.
Society can be seen as a single organism, just like sperm can be seen as a society, but eventually the sperm has 1 purpose, to fertalise the egg.
And I think that the purpose for the larger scale is to evolve.
And maybe it even has an even larger scale for who knows what.
About materialism: I think death is just like being unconscious, but it just lasts longer.
Well we have to serve some purpose. Every living creature, plants and animals, play a role in the ecosystem. So where do we fit in? I suppose that's a question that's been asked for centuries.
We can put a lot of thought into dying, but ultimately I think that death itself is such an intellectual question mark we have to sought of side step it to keep the ball rolling.
-AM