Consciousness and the Paranormal

[Burnt State]

I am just interested in discerning fact from fiction in the matter. "God talk" is always about ultimate truths and absolutes. Truth with a capital T. However, it is my unending experience that it is anything but. Perhaps I've been to too many funerals lately, and heard too many pronouncements of eternal truth that sound like they were lifted from poorly plotted comic books. These things should be celebrations of the life lived (if at all possible in some cases) and not commercials for superstitious world-views that I know with great certainty (because I've done the research) are fictions adapted from even earlier fictions and shoe-horned into someone's artful theological fancy for what often can only be described as ulterior motives. But I rant! Forgive me. Jesus save us from the fires of [this] hell!

Can we not strip God of all those earthly trappings, the history we dress her in, the poorly plotted comic books, the ultimate absolutes and see what we have left? Let's pretend we are seeing God for the first time, before we had words and there was just, god forgive for this, but an 'energy' in a bounded form. Let's just not call her a UFO and imagine him as a prime mover, a seemingly indifferent caregiver, all ball lightening and glorious.

Somewhere, in the beginning, i think it was in The Marriage of Heaven Hell, Blake said there were the words of the poet, which were then co-opted by the priest. In the writing of the word, contrary to what poets have told me, we lost much and are now forever bounded by the Prison House of Language. So i agree quite a bit with the sentiment from TO because the priest is always, ok scratch that Steve, the priest most frequently misrepresents the God that people are trying to get close to.

Funerals: i've known my share. In the celebration of the brief life (burying the child - shudder the thought), or the life lived long (a celebration to make it so far) or the unlived life (thinking of my colleague's miscarriage at five months), or the interrupted life (still wanting more) we ultimately seek celebration. In celebrating whatever we can of the other, we join with the stranger, and there you have it, that's an acceptable and very possible God. And it's one way to escape this hell.

Talk about a romantic rant. I also hope everyone on the 'down with god' thread don't find out about this paranormal detour into the spiritual zone.

 

[trainedobserver]

Pretend we're seeing God for the first time? I see a primitive man standing in a field, a fresh kill under his feet. Food for his starving family. He raises his face to the sky as the first drops of rain fall, ending a long terrible drought. He opens his mouth and extends his tongue. He is overwhelmed by gratitude as tears cut a path down his dirty face. Life will go on.

 

[smcder]

Pretend we're seeing God for the first time? I see a primitive man standing in a field, a fresh kill under his feet. Food for his starving family. He raises his face to the sky as the first drops of rain fall, ending a long terrible drought. He opens his mouth and extends his tongue. He is overwhelmed by gratitude as tears cut a path down his dirty face. Life will go on.

I think that's a very good first impression of God!

 

[Burnt State]

That would be god as an answer to our plight and desperation. Isn't that what started the whole problem in the first place? Why'd you get the deer instead of me? Who do I have to sacrifice so god will bestow some honor on me?

 

[Burnt State]

Life will go on...that's exactly how I feel at funerals.

 

[Soupie]

I know plenty of very smart people who never tire of explaining even things that are obvious to most.

I've read that he and his wife operate a kind of uber-mensa and reading and understanding his theory is part of becoming a member. That could be the ulterior motive you sense...

And no, IQ is not the end all, be all when it comes to wisdom and knowledge.

or substituting "raw potential" for creator/"God"/god/mother-source . . .

God is a subjective concept, much like the concept "fun." It will mean different things to different people.

So, potential may mean the same thing as god for some people. But it's certainly not the same meaning of god that the believers in personal gods like Yahweh or Allah have.

Right - but the ur-question is why is there anything at all? But I'm not sure that makes "sense".

There's a couple ways to answer that:

1) Why is there anything? The ur-ur-question: why not?

2) Why is there anything? Because when you take away everything - including the constraint of nothing - then something will emerge. And for there to be something, it has to be a something that can sustain itself.

3) Why is there anything? That implies cause and effect. Free Will destroys cause and effect. The universe simply chose to create itself. There was no first cause, no "why."

And - "potential" here (again, I know it's a summary) looks an awful lot like the God of the Deists.

I don't see why that's a problem. Words are labels. Mad = Angry. Unbound potential = God of the Deists.

Having said that, I believe the god of the Deists is said to have created the universe. In Langan's model, it would be more accurate to say that God = Reality, and that it sprang from unbound potential because it could and because it was the only thing that could. At least that's my understanding.

 

[Burnt State]

They've left for the coast.

I am fairly certain that any "god concept" imagined by human beings is an untruth. The reason? These concepts are supposed to be representing the superset that human experience is only a subset of and are therefore logical impossibilities. You cannot describe the entire alphabet using only the first five letters of it for example. These metaphysical notions of divinity, gods, and absolutes (or ultimates) are similarly doomed by these very real and insurmountable resource limitations.

This post stuck in my head the following morning as I'm curious to know whether or not you feel we've increased our resources or not since those early days of feeling fulfillment, relief, or whatever else that one word substitution for God might be. Sure once we stood over our kill and felt something, and that feeling which would eventually become a story, a ritual, a set of precepts to define the almighty and our relationship to such life sustaining power, is the same feeling we have today or not?

In an age where our sensory perceptions of reality have been exponentially extended by the tools of technology, the same technology that is literally becoming a part of our bodies, have we fleshed out any more letters of the alphabet? I don't mean to drag this into quantum mysticism at all, though some physicists take it there, like T.S. Eliot or C.S. Lewis who settle in their final years on the need for a God. I mean to ask, have we made any progress at all in learning how to better describe what's going on, for the genius of our species is that we constantly work to overcome our physiological limitations and seem bent on overcoming that which was once insurmountable generation after generation?

It seems to me that we are always working to define that "unbound potential" and we scratch a litte deeper into that dark matter year over year. Will not God get ultimately known once we get past the current myths of science we are inventing and redefining? Sounds a little too much like Arthur C. Clarke perhaps.

 

[smcder]

I've read that he and his wife operate a kind of uber-mensa and reading and understanding his theory is part of becoming a member. That could be the ulterior motive you sense...

And no, IQ is not the end all, be all when it comes to wisdom and knowledge.

God is a subjective concept, much like the concept "fun." It will mean different things to different people.

So, potential may mean the same thing as god for some people. But it's certainly not the same meaning of god that the believers in personal gods like Yahweh or Allah have.

There's a couple ways to answer that:

1) Why is there anything? The ur-ur-question: why not?

2) Why is there anything? Because when you take away everything - including the constraint of nothing - then something will emerge. And for there to be something, it has to be a something that can sustain itself.

3) Why is there anything? That implies cause and effect. Free Will destroys cause and effect. The universe simply chose to create itself. There was no first cause, no "why."

I don't see why that's a problem. Words are labels. Mad = Angry. Unbound potential = God of the Deists.

Having said that, I believe the god of the Deists is said to have created the universe. In Langan's model, it would be more accurate to say that God = Reality, and that it sprang from unbound potential because it could and because it was the only thing that could. At least that's my understanding.

I've read that he and his wife operate a kind of uber-mensa and reading and understanding his theory is part of becoming a member. That could be the ulterior motive you sense...

Are you trying to become a member?

God is a subjective concept, much like the concept "fun." It will mean different things to different people.

So, you are saying . . . God is fun!? ;-)

1) Why is there anything? The ur-ur-question: why not?

It seems to be the only way to answer it.

2) Why is there anything? Because when you take away everything - including the constraint of nothing - then something will emerge. And for there to be something, it has to be a something that can sustain itself.

I like that . . . have to think about it a bit.

3) Why is there anything? That implies cause and effect. Free Will destroys cause and effect. The universe simply chose to create itself. There was no first cause, no "why.

It may be the difference in why and how. For some, how - say "the big bang" is never as satisfying as "why" as in being able to ask the universe "why did you come into being" and getting her answer "I am that I am." (to use traditional language)

Having said that, I believe the god of the Deists is said to have created the universe. In Langan's model, it would be more accurate to say that God = Reality, and that it sprang from unbound potential because it could and because it was the only thing that could. At least that's my understanding.

My point in saying it sounds like the God of the Deists is that it lets us compare his project with the Deists: ideas and thoughts that cluster around attempts to explain and understand (and for some, to connect to) the ultimate, the beginnings of all things, the underlying reality, the source, the mother . . . all the attempts I have seen have a similar "texture" or feel in my mind - and whatever we call these attempts - the tendency to try and attempt such explanations seems to be innate. Maybe my concern is that we be sure and ask whether what Langan is doing is on the same continuum with and driven by the same motivations as what the Deists were doing? With what was historically a quest for God or the Tao or a Zen state of perfection? With what the mystic tries to do in the realm of the personal/relational? To do this, we have to at least reference the language that was used along the way.

 

[smcder]

This post stuck in my head the following morning as I'm curious to know whether or not you feel we've increased our resources or not since those early days of feeling fulfillment, relief, or whatever else that one word substitution for God might be. Sure once we stood over our kill and felt something, and that feeling which would eventually become a story, a ritual, a set of precepts to define the almighty and our relationship to such life sustaining power, is the same feeling we have today or not?

In an age where our sensory perceptions of reality have been exponentially extended by the tools of technology, the same technology that is literally becoming a part of our bodies, have we fleshed out any more letters of the alphabet? I don't mean to drag this into quantum mysticism at all, though some physicists take it there, like T.S. Eliot or C.S. Lewis who settle in their final years on the need for a God. I mean to ask, have we made any progress at all in learning how to better describe what's going on, for the genius of our species is that we constantly work to overcome our physiological limitations and seem bent on overcoming that which was once insurmountable generation after generation?

It seems to me that we are always working to define that "unbound potential" and we scratch a litte deeper into that dark matter year over year. Will not God get ultimately known once we get past the current myths of science we are inventing and redefining? Sounds a little too much like Arthur C. Clarke perhaps.

. . . , for the genius of our species is that we constantly work to overcome our physiological limitations and seem bent on overcoming that which was once insurmountable generation after generation?

I think we have to be careful . . . as this may be a relatively recent project for us as a species, it certainly sounds like the Western project since the Enlightenment.

 

[trainedobserver]

That would be god as an answer to our plight and desperation. Isn't that what started the whole problem in the first place? Why'd you get the deer instead of me? Who do I have to sacrifice so god will bestow some honor on me?

I was going for more for "Hope." God can be seen as an amalgamation of hope and desire for something more than what is as well as an object of gratitude for the good things in life. Objectifying it and bestowing human attributes and personalities to essentially an "idea" is where the horror begins.

 

[smcder]

This post stuck in my head the following morning as I'm curious to know whether or not you feel we've increased our resources or not since those early days of feeling fulfillment, relief, or whatever else that one word substitution for God might be. Sure once we stood over our kill and felt something, and that feeling which would eventually become a story, a ritual, a set of precepts to define the almighty and our relationship to such life sustaining power, is the same feeling we have today or not?

In an age where our sensory perceptions of reality have been exponentially extended by the tools of technology, the same technology that is literally becoming a part of our bodies, have we fleshed out any more letters of the alphabet? I don't mean to drag this into quantum mysticism at all, though some physicists take it there, like T.S. Eliot or C.S. Lewis who settle in their final years on the need for a God. I mean to ask, have we made any progress at all in learning how to better describe what's going on, for the genius of our species is that we constantly work to overcome our physiological limitations and seem bent on overcoming that which was once insurmountable generation after generation?

It seems to me that we are always working to define that "unbound potential" and we scratch a litte deeper into that dark matter year over year. Will not God get ultimately known once we get past the current myths of science we are inventing and redefining? Sounds a little too much like Arthur C. Clarke perhaps.

Sure once we stood over our kill and felt something, and that feeling which would eventually become a story, a ritual, a set of precepts to define the almighty and our relationship to such life sustaining power, is the same feeling we have today or not?

I think that's my question too - in the post about Langan's theory . . . he's a modern day Prometheus - (with, interestingly, a Herculean physique) and I think it surely is the same feeling - we've overlaid it with a complex story . . .

this ties in to:

. . . .the genius of our species is that we constantly work to overcome our physiological limitations and seem bent on overcoming that which was once insurmountable generation after generation?

. . . maybe we can extend the time-line by including building pyramids, turning lead into gold and seeking eternal life . . . we are up to these same occult things . . . so do we have a choice in this project or does the nature of technology choose what we do? Do we have the freedom to choose other Omega-points? That brings up an interesting question about the freedom of the collective will. Nirvana, the Kingdom of Heaven, simple contentment, loving-kindness . . . as individual pursuits, we have quite good "technologies" for this . . . but extend any of these out to groups of people and you end up with religion?

 

[trainedobserver]

This post stuck in my head the following morning as I'm curious to know whether or not you feel we've increased our resources or not since those early days of feeling fulfillment, relief, or whatever else that one word substitution for God might be.

The gods are cosmic in scale. Jehovah, Yahweh, or whatever name you want to pin on the paradoxical three-in-one god of the Judo-Christian mythos is supposed to have created the universe and everything in it. The universe as far as we can tell, has no bounds. Here is the problem. Humanity will never occupy more than a tiny sliver of the space/time pie. Our rise and fall will be less than a single tick on the universe's life clock. Yet, we seem to think that we can plug into the infinite, commune with cosmic beings, and some even think they will become gods themselves. It's a rip cracking belly laugh!

Now, if we designed and engineered by intelligent beings like ourselves making us essentially someone's androids then yes, we might actually be able to gain some working knowledge of them. Would they be gods then or someone we want to organize against? Equal rights for the creation! What's good for the creator is good for the creation! I imagine that if this where to play out and we met our "creators" or "builders" and we asked them about "their gods" we'd get some surprising answers.

 

[Burnt State]

Definitely Arthur C. Clarke territory. I will start making my "anti-oppression creator" signs and put them in a time capsule to be opened in about a millennia or so as they won't be of any use till then. Though as you say the odds are well stacked against our species making a dint in the universe. My romanticism is held in our duality as defined by all the great poets - incredibly destructive & creative. We do seem to mirror the processes of the universe. This could be a product of excellent design or just a natural aberration of how things work.

 

[Burnt State]

. . . , for the genius of our species is that we constantly work to overcome our physiological limitations and seem bent on overcoming that which was once insurmountable generation after generation?

I think we have to be careful . . . as this may be a relatively recent project for us as a species, it certainly sounds like the Western project since the Enlightenment.

I'm just starting to read The Axemaker's Gift: A Double Edged History of Human Culture, by James Burke & Robert Ornstein. You might remember Burke from those excellent TV documentaries Connections, and The Day The Universe Changed that explored the path of human invention across time. In one of the series he opens with a cross cultural comparison of the difference between the West, always asking questions, and the East, mediating on the answers.

But when I look around the world as we know it, China has mostly stamped out the Tibetan dream, and are thoroughly engaged in the space race. The new project, where knowledge & technology are freely stolen and appropriated to propel us, seems to no longer know those old divisions of East and West. It's all about managing currency rates and information.

Some paragraphs from the closing of the Axemaker's Gift:

"The first step may be to recognize that we can use our technology as it has been used time and time again through history. We can use it to change our minds but this time for our own reasons and in our own terms and at our own pace, if we use the coming technologies for what they could be: instruments of freedom. The very interactive nature of the modern world makes it easy to block such an act and to continue with the old ways of hierarchy and division. But in any case, all that ever kept us in thrall of institutions was our ignorance of the kind of knowledge that could soon be so easily accessible and understandable that it will be a waste of time to know it. When Gutenberg printed his books, he greatly lessened the power of memory and tradition. The new technologies will lessen the power of arcane specialist knowledge. And when they do, we will all, in one sense, return to what we were before the first axe.

The culture we live in, based on the sequential influence of language on thought and operating according to the rationalist rules of Greek philosophy and reductionist practice, has wielded tremendous power. It has given us the wonders of the modern world on a plate. But it has also fostered beliefs that have tied us to centralized institutions for centuries, which we must shuck off if we are to adapt to the world we've made: that unabated extraction of planetary resources is possible, that the most valuable members of our society are specialists, that people can not survive without leaders, that the body is mechanistic and can only be healed with knives and drugs, that there is only one superior truth, that the only important human abilities lie in the sequential and analytic mode of thought, and that the mind works like an axemaker's gift."

That was written in 1995 and the only thing we've shucked since then is corn. Simultaneously, we have youth growing up in an age of magic machines where the arcane knowledge is entirely beyond them, creating new classes of people, those who program and those who are programmed. The text closes with "Hope" found in the diversity of peoples. That if we were to learn to celebrate the diversity of people and their ideas we might be able to release our potential. While I see this happening very slowly all around the world, we still are very much tied to centralization and division.

 

[smcder]

I'm just starting to read The Axemaker's Gift: A Double Edged History of Human Culture, by James Burke & Robert Ornstein. You might remember Burke from those excellent TV documentaries Connections, and The Day The Universe Changed that explored the path of human invention across time. In one of the series he opens with a cross cultural comparison of the difference between the West, always asking questions, and the East, mediating on the answers.

But when I look around the world as we know it, China has mostly stamped out the Tibetan dream, and are thoroughly engaged in the space race. The new project, where knowledge & technology are freely stolen and appropriated to propel us, seems to no longer know those old divisions of East and West. It's all about managing currency rates and information.

Some paragraphs from the closing of the Axemaker's Gift:

"The first step may be to recognize that we can use our technology as it has been used time and time again through history. We can use it to change our minds but this time for our own reasons and in our own terms and at our own pace, if we use the coming technologies for what they could be: instruments of freedom. The very interactive nature of the modern world makes it easy to block such an act and to continue with the old ways of hierarchy and division. But in any case, all that ever kept us in thrall of institutions was our ignorance of the kind of knowledge that could soon be so easily accessible and understandable that it will be a waste of time to know it. When Gutenberg printed his books, he greatly lessened the power of memory and tradition. The new technologies will lessen the power of arcane specialist knowledge. And when they do, we will all, in one sense, return to what we were before the first axe.

The culture we live in, based on the sequential influence of language on thought and operating according to the rationalist rules of Greek philosophy and reductionist practice, has wielded tremendous power. It has given us the wonders of the modern world on a plate. But it has also fostered beliefs that have tied us to centralized institutions for centuries, which we must shuck off if we are to adapt to the world we've made: that unabated extraction of planetary resources is possible, that the most valuable members of our society are specialists, that people can not survive without leaders, that the body is mechanistic and can only be healed with knives and drugs, that there is only one superior truth, that the only important human abilities lie in the sequential and analytic mode of thought, and that the mind works like an axemaker's gift."

That was written in 1995 and the only thing we've shucked since then is corn. Simultaneously, we have youth growing up in an age of magic machines where the arcane knowledge is entirely beyond them, creating new classes of people, those who program and those who are programmed. The text closes with "Hope" found in the diversity of peoples. That if we were to learn to celebrate the diversity of people and their ideas we might be able to release our potential. While I see this happening very slowly all around the world, we still are very much tied to centralization and division.

I follow John Michael Greer's peak-oil blog: The Archdruid Report

The Archdruid Report

His argument is that our world was built on oil and that oil peaked a few years ago - from here on out it's going to cost us more and more to get less and less - hydraulic fracturing and other technologies, he argues, are insufficient and no other form of energy offers the return of oil, but we'll need to use alternatives for our "eco-technic" future.

He says our secular religion is unlimited progress and we envision a future that is either Star Trek or Armagedon. Instead, he says what will happen is a long, slow decline of a few hundred years back into a relatively low-tech traditional agrarian lifestyle - because there simply isn't enough oil. For him, this isn't necessarily an entirely bad thing.

The point here is that the last little bit of history is owed almost entirely to oil and once that plays out - we'll go back. Burning through a rich energy source like oil has given rise to all of the technological exotica we see - and people are confusing technology for energy. The whole she-bang is still based on oil and not only for energy, most of the infrastructure is oil dependent too in the forms of materials and their manufacture. It makes you think.

If you read his blog - read the comments, he is very smart and doesn't suffer fools gladly.

And yes, he really is a Druid, and has some interesting things to say about religion.

 

[Burnt State]

He says our secular religion is unlimited progress and we envision a future that is either Star Trek or Armagedon. Instead, he says what will happen is a long, slow decline of a few hundred years back into a relatively low-tech traditional agrarian lifestyle - because there simply isn't enough oil. For him, this isn't necessarily an entirely bad thing.

The point here is that the last little bit of history is owed almost entirely to oil and once that plays out - we'll go back. Burning through a rich energy source like oil has given rise to all of the technological exotica we see - and people are confusing technology for energy. The whole she-bang is still based on oil and not only for energy, most of the infrastructure is oil dependent too in the forms of materials and their manufacture. It makes you think.

So you don't believe we will learn to either charge incredible premiums to power up our iPads while maxing out renewables, alternative energy and building more nuclear reactors like they're Lego blocks?

Plus western nations are incredibly wasteful when it comes to energy - I would think that rising costs will forcefully retrain the mudde, middle and lowering classes.

But I always listen to Druids so I'll check that out.

 

[Soupie]

The new technologies will lessen the power of arcane specialist knowledge. And when they do, we will all, in one sense, return to what we were before the first axe. ... Simultaneously, we have youth growing up in an age of magic machines where the arcane knowledge is entirely beyond them, creating new classes of people, those who program and those who are programmed.

Hm, I get what he is saying: technology will level the playing field once again; all humans will be equals via technology; there won't be any specialists.

But you're exactly right: the reality is that there already is a techno-priesthood. It's located in Silicon Valley. It's the mechanical and computer engineers. They hold the sacred knowledge that makes the magic screens work. In all seriousness, the entire infrastructure of the West would collapse without them.

he says what will happen is a long, slow decline of a few hundred years back into a relatively low-tech traditional agrarian lifestyle - because there simply isn't enough oil.

I'm assuming he has really ruled out the possibility of using oil more efficiently and/or the possibility of alternative energies.

I'd be curious to see what Ray Kurzweil thinks of this. Technology is increasing at an exponential rate; if the energy supply is not keeping pace, I wonder what it will do to his forecasts? (The genius of Kurzweil is that he makes his predictions based on the technology of the future, not the technology of today, which everyone else does.)

 

[trainedobserver]

And yes, he really is a Druid, and has some interesting things to say about religion.

He also wrote an outstanding book about UFOs that I highly recommend to everyone, skeptic and true-believer alike.
The UFO Phenomenon: Fact, Fantasy and Disinformation

 

[Soupie]

he says what will happen is a long, slow decline of a few hundred years back into a relatively low-tech traditional agrarian lifestyle - because there simply isn't enough oil.

Here's Kurzweil's take from 2011:

One of my primary theses is that information technologies grow exponentially in capability and power and bandwidth and so on. If you buy an iPhone today, it's twice as good as two years ago for half that cost. That is happening with solar energy - it is doubling every two years. And it didn't start two years ago, it started 20 years ago. Every two years we have twice as much solar energy in the world.

Today, solar is still more expensive than fossil fuels, and in most situations it still needs subsidies or special circumstances, but the costs are coming down rapidly - we are only a few years away from parity. And then it's going to keep coming down, and people will be gravitating towards solar, even if they don't care at all about the environment, because of the economics.

So right now it's at half a percent of the world's energy. People tend to dismiss technologies when they are half a percent of the solution. But doubling every two years means it's only eight more doublings before it meets a hundred percent of the world's energy needs. So that's 16 years. We will increase our use of electricity during that period, so add another couple of doublings: In 20 years we'll be meeting all of our energy needs with solar, based on this trend which has already been under way for 20 years.

People say we're running out of energy. That's only true if we stick with these old 19th century technologies. We are awash in energy from the sunlight.

 

[smcder]

Hm, I get what he is saying: technology will level the playing field once again; all humans will be equals via technology; there won't be any specialists.

But you're exactly right: the reality is that there already is a techno-priesthood. It's located in Silicon Valley. It's the mechanical and computer engineers. They hold the sacred knowledge that makes the magic screens work. In all seriousness, the entire infrastructure of the West would collapse without them.

I'm assuming he has really ruled out the possibility of using oil more efficiently and/or the possibility of alternative energies.

I'd be curious to see what Ray Kurzweil thinks of this. Technology is increasing at an exponential rate; if the energy supply is not keeping pace, I wonder what it will do to his forecasts? (The genius of Kurzweil is that he makes his predictions based on the technology of the future, not the technology of today, which everyone else does.)

I'm assuming he has really ruled out the possibility of using oil more efficiently and/or the possibility of alternative energies.

JMG does address these issues. Kurzweil comes up in the blog as well. If you like podcasts, Greer has been on several - I also recommend C-Realm for peak oil issues (and many, many other things). KMO is a former Arkansan.