[MD] {MD] Intention changes physical world

[William Robinson]

Wow, Case and Ham, these are an excellant set of posts.

I can't add much more.  Only that Tibetin and Zen Buddhist's believe that
mind is the 6th sense.  The delusion or illusion of "separateness or
separation" from others is only that... a delusion. As you both know.
Meditation research is ongoing.

The book "The Universe in a Single Atom" (Dalai Lama) has been recommended
on this list, already several times. The Buddhist's have this subject
covered in spades.  If any of us could read their language, or their
Buddhist sacred cannon of thousands of volumes...we'd be much better off.

It is not news anyone that Buddhism does not posit a god.  It is an
Atheistic religion.  Some where else on this list. Someone said that
Atheists have no influence today in the world. That is flatly not true. Many
scientists today adopt a similar viewpoint.  Since they are scientists,
concerned with other pursuits... They don't waste brain cells spouting off
about the theistic-atheistic viewpoints; And the apparent paradoxical nature
of "reality". Both views are equally valid and useful to my mind.

Some people speak two or more languages,  So why not adopt both viewpoints.
Accept the paradoxical.  Maybe they are not as mutually exclusive as they
seem.

As I conclude, I might mention an interesting site: www.mindhacks.com  It is
an RSS news aggregator that continually 'discovers' new information on this
fascinating subject.

see also, http://del.icio.us/tag/atheisism
Robbie


On 1/23/07, Case <Case at ispots.com> wrote:
>
> [Ham]
> Once again, I'm in absolute agreement that Awareness does not exist in the
> absence of beingness.  It's a mutually exclusive contingency of beingness,
> just as Beingness is a mutually exclusive contingency of awareness.
> Existence = Being-Aware.  Thus, a rock is nothing if it is not made aware,
> and awareness is nothing if it has no object.  One is contingent upon the
> other.  That's the dichotomy we can't escape in finitude.
>
> [Case]
> The states of being and awareness are simply not mutually exclusive. A
> thing
> can have being and no awareness. Awareness is contingent on being. But
> being
> is not contingent on awareness.
>
> [Ham]
> Where we disagree is the proposition that awareness is a "property of
> being."  There is no property of subjectivity in a rock, a tree, or a
> biological organism.  The fact that you think with your brain and feel
> with
> your sense organs is not what makes you subjectively aware.  Doesn't the
> cerebro-nervous system continue to function whether you are conscious or
> unconscious?  Yet, you are not aware when you are anesthetized into
> unconsciousness.  Why?  Because the "objective content" of your conscious
> (subjective) awareness is removed as a result of the anesthesia.  Because,
> without an object, awareness is reduced to nothing.  Proprietary awareness
> is not a "level", "pattern", or property of beingness.   It is the
> contingency of being-aware.
>
> [Case]
> As you suggest above awareness can be "mechanically" manipulated
> chemically,
> kinetically, electrically for that matter. It is a property of certain
> states of complex being. Nothing you have said above suggests otherwise.
>
> [Ham]
> I don't know what your "particular relationship" to Quality is, but I
> don't
> see that it's distinguishable from subjective Value.  Anything subjective
> is
> relative and conditional, hence is existential rather than
> primary.  Finite
> existents like you and I can only hypothesize the primary source.
>
> [Case]
> This finite existent does not see why we need to make such a hypothesis.
> My
> subjective states arise from my particular configuration of matter and
> energy.
>
> [Ham]
> Being and awareness are the actualized contingencies of Essence which is
> neither of these.  The dichotomy arises from the negation of nothingness
> --
> the antithesis of Essence.  I won't risk giving you another headache by
> elaborating on nothingness, except to say that it is the ground of
> existential reality.  The entity (identity) that I call Essence is
> absolute
> and whole in its 'is-ness' (i.e., it is free of nothingness).
>
> [Case]
> Essence seems to be little more than idealized states of being. Essence is
> pattern recognition not a creative process.
>
> [Ham]
> Well, back off a bit more and look at it this way: It's no more "complex"
> than the intellect is capable of constructing.  All knowledge is
> subjective.
> For someone who is incapable of understanding biological processes, it's
> much simpler.
>
> [Case]
> Brains, nervous systems even phototropism require pretty complex states of
> matter.
>
> [Ham]
> Hegel and Kant weren't scientists.  Their reality paradigm was
> metaphysical.
>
> [Case]
> I suspect Kant was trying to settle arguments and accommodate philosophy
> to
> Newton. Philosophers in the 1700s had their work cut out for them. Newton
> had radically reshaped peoples understanding of the world around them.
> Philosophical systems were dropping like flies. But then Newton was, after
> all, a philosopher.
>
> [Ham]
> I know where you're coming from, Case.  I've been there myself.  In my
> first
> five decades on this planet, I successively adopted, then shed, the
> doctrines of religion, science, pantheism, mysticism, and existentialism
> as
> an answer to my quest.  It took two more decades to develop my own
> philosophy, drawing upon luminaries like Plotinus, Cusa, and Eckhart.  One
> thing I learned in the process was not to 'throw the babe out with the
> bathwater,' not to reject out of hand the "spiritual" component of
> existence
> simply because it's fashionable or sophisticated in this scientific age to
> abjure religion.
>
> An ontogony founded on Essence transcends objectivism in the
> cause-and-effect sense, as well as belief in a Supreme Being who rewards
> and
> punishes human beings for their behavior.  I can now understand beauty and
> order in the universe as evidence of the spiritual component I was looking
> for.  I can sense my connection to Essence in these values, even while
> realizing that my "individuality" as a finite creature is conditional and
> illusionary.  The Pirsigians think they've achieved higher insight by
> imagining (theorizing?) Quality as a pan-esthetic principle.  But it
> strains
> both logic and imagination to posit a heirarchical principle as the source
> of  differentiated reality.
>
> [Case]
> We all try on ideas, like thrift store clothes as we travel the path of
> life. I am glad you have found something that works for you. I do not
> begrudge that of anyone. But if one expects to show others "The Way" it
> must
> connect with ordinary experience and have relationships involved that can
> be
> "reified" (to use the word of the week). I think the essential point you
> are
> missing is that extraordinary complexity can arise from very simply
> relationships.
>
> [Ham]
> Yes, that's the problem with trying to articulate metaphyics concepts as
> if
> they were physical.  I've been making an effort to simplify my thesis, but
> it's not the whole solution.  If I'd written it as a dumbed-down essay on
> Morality or Freedom, it would have been criticized as mere platitudes or
> pablum for the masses.  However, I'm still working on it, and such
> complaints as yours help me recognize the troublesome areas.
>
> [Case]
> On the one hand I can see that a metaphysic does no have to depend on
> physics but it should at least end in physics. If it is an attempt to
> explain what can't be explained it should lead to what can.
>
>
>
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