April 12th Show

[jpw.in.wi]

May I point out the obvious? Thomas' viewpoint is that of a 13th century Christian. I'm always very suspicious when any quote starts with: "For it is clear that ..." No, it ain't clear, 'cause I don't fall for a circular argument.

And now to your cute cat story ;-) When the bio-mechanical "machine" gets damaged it stops functioning. Where is the mystery in that?

Alright, I'll just crawl back under my church pew now and leave you true thinkers all alone. What does it mean to be alive? Nobody knows ....

 

[Drew UK]

Well, it looks like my challengers have surrendered - I did invite them into a debate and try to encourage there reasoning - but as with them all, they go off on ego-centric dogma and resort to playground tendencies since they cannot be arsed to put in a bit of effort and research to counteract the points that I was trying to make.

These kind of people really piss me off - and at times a few incoherent terse remarks need to be made.

Which is dissapointing - since the case is far from closed, and to be fair - there is some justification in some of what they are trying to say - that is, they are advocating the discontinuity theory - that consciousness is created in creatures and thats it.

I am more in favour of the continuity theory - it seems more rational, that consciousness must be present at the start, from our pre-evolution building blocks i.e. all matter.

I put forward an extract of some work written by Max Velmans, University Of London.

 

[swatcher]

Alright, I'll just crawl back under my church pew now and leave you true thinkers all alone. What does it mean to be alive? Nobody knows ....

What do you mean by "alive"? Are you talking about biology or consciousness, or do you think the terms are intertwined?

 

[Drew UK]

What do you mean by "alive"? Are you talking about biology or consciousness, or do you think the terms are intertwined?

Biology is incomplete when it describes "alive" - it has not reach universal consent on the matter,

If we take the modified "sesame" street and flesh it out a bit more -

Some process of movement, of nutrification and respiration (of utilising the gibbs free energy of the surrounding matter) and excretion (of converting it into matter of lower entropy) and multiplication of hydrocarbon based entities.

Then, consider the polymerisation reaction of ethane and methane -

Initiation
CH3CH3 ---UV/Sunlight---> CH3CH2* + H* (1)
CH4 ---UV/Sunlight---> CH3* + H*

Propagation
CH3CH2* + CH3CH3 ---> CH3CH2CH2CH2* + H*

Termination
CH3CH2* + CH3CH2* ---> CH3CH2CH2CH3

Multiplication

CH3CH2CH2CH3 ------------> CH3CH2* + CH3CH2*

Then it must be considered alive, given that here is a entity that can grow, absorb energy from it surroundings or nutrifies itself with reactants, it can multiply and excrete (2H*-->H2).

Of course, there has been some advancement since then and we have other criterion to consider, homeostatis and evolution - but then it leads back to earth question - since this planet is in a constant state of homeostatis and evolution, consequently the biological fraternity decides to pick and choose whether something is alive or not, than really defining it.

So, that takes it back to the physical, philosophical/Psychical sciences to justify it - and then we enter the realm of consciousness.

The problem that I have with people who try to explain consciousness as solely an attribute of humanity -is that it leads to idealism, wherein everything is seen as existing only in the consciousness of a macroscopic organism. The problem with this is it cannot account for the body in which that consciousness is instantiated. The whole must be broken into parts to have a theory of nature at all.

I think it is clear that the only thing in internal existence, is pure absolute consciousness, aware only of itself. All of us, as individuals, are sparks of that universal consciousness, but moreover, every actual entity (rocks, matter anything!!) including infinitesimal moments of present time are sparks of that eternal verity as well. This is how you divide the eternal whole into temporal parts. The details of how you do it will be the content of the next major breakthrough in physics, dwarfing the discoveries of Heisenberg and Einstein combined.

 

[Experiencer7]

At play in the quantum field of the lord.

 

[TenaciousD]

first i thought that they were some new age hippies or something, but after David asked about their religious background they seemed like reasonable people, "IM CONFUSED"

I have been a friend of the Sherwoods for 13 yrs and I have witnessed at least two ufo sightings which Ed video taped and I photographed with a 300mm Pro lens. In 1999 I went to England with them and we all checked out about 5 or 6 CC formations that Ed felt were the real thing. He used to live in the Wiltshire area and has even seen hoaxers going into a field in the dead of night to do their art or deception. Anyhow it is hard to articulate ideas that are hard to define. I don't believe in all their thoughts, but I know there is something undefined by our science that are making crop circles. Peace, David M

 

[Gareth]

Thanks for sharing Tenacious...

You wouldnt have any comparison photos of known man made formations Vs apparent non-man made formations would you?

Id like to see something like that.

 

[TenaciousD]

You are right about the Sherwoods not hanging with other people. But I have seen him at work and witnessed two different ufo events. Please check out a great book by Patrick Harpour ' Diamonic Realities ' from 1994. He has stepped back enough to get the bigger picture. I have read over 50 books on the paranormal and this is one I highly rec.