The Watchmaker Revisited

[godnotgod]

Really?

Now I think you are making some apologetic excuses.

My understanding is that in some of the Hindu epics, like the Ramayana and Mahabharata, that heroes and demons can possessed mystical weapons of the gods, like from Brahma, Shiva and Vishnu, and some of these weapons can be directed by their wills or consciousness, alone, and even less believable, that the weapons themselves might have their own mind and consciousness.

Granted, they are just stories to me, just like the Iliad and Odyssey, or the bible, but to actually believe them to be true, actually is a leap of faith.

What I don’t understand is how you can dismiss the SZ’s video as woo, but your own belief on mystical consciousness are unquestionable, hence not woo.

I dismiss it not because I think it to not be woo, but because it is irrelevant to the point I am making, which is that the hara is a center of consciousness, and in the East, it is THE center of consciousness, and not the brain, as it is in the West.

A conscious and intelligent power in my hara is NOT an 'apologetic excuse'. It is not woo. It is not thinking. It is not demonic. There are no demons. What is unquestionable is it's presence. At some point in the meditative process, when the breath is no longer shallow and erratic, but regular, rhythmic and calm, it no longer feels like I am doing the breathing, but that Something is breathing me.

I do not place any credence in anthropomorphic imagery, like Brahma, Shiva and Vishnu.

 

[godnotgod]

You are doing it again.

Can you not use strawman?

If you want some examples from me, then I will provide you some examples, instead of you attacking my position with your pathetic examples that I have no part in them?

I don’t mind if you disagree with me if I presented you my view, but do not profess that you know me, by putting words in my mouth.

Look, you already know that a person have several levels of consciousness. But whatever the levels, it is all part of processes of sensory perceptions that the brain processed whatever one see, feel, hear, touch or smell.

The problem is you thinking that consciousness is some mystical forces or energy. The problem is that you allow the eastern mysticism to cloud your judgement.

You really don't know what you're saying here.

No, the mystical experience is not 'all part of processes of sensory perceptions that the brain processed whatever one see, feel, hear, touch or smell.'

It is transcendent of all perception. You and darkstorn can't get a handle on this because you are indoctrinated by your science which tells you that everything originates in the brain. It is like a bird raised in captivity; it does not know the freedom of flight, and no amount of logic, reason, or analysis can demonstrate such freedom to a captive bird.

Can you provide a short definition of 'mysticism', or 'mystical'?

 

[godnotgod]

"Mystical" is usually a catchall term for the unknown. It is not of any real value in a discussion. Worse yet instead of admitting that they do not know people often act as if it were a real thing. I have had a "mystical" experience when sparring once. I was sparring with a better student and felt he could not score on me. And he could not. .

No that is not a mystical experience. Mystical is simply the realization that you are one with the Universe. It involves a radical transformation of consciousness in which what one thinks is the case via the ordinary mind, is not actually the case.

 

[Subduction Zone]

No that is not a mystical experience. Mystical is simply the realization that you are one with the Universe. It involves a radical transformation of consciousness in which what one thinks is the case via the ordinary mind, is not actually the case.

What makes you think that was not such an instance? By your standards probably no one has had a mystical experience.

 

[Truly Enlightened]

I understand 'particles' to be 'bundles of energy' in the Quantum field, rather than solid particles of 'matter'. The macro world is composed of these ''bundles of energy'. So what we perceive as a 'material world' is not material at all. It is an illusion of materiality. That is my understanding.

My suspicions are confirmed. The point particles disturbances are not simple IN the quantum field, they ARE the Quantum field, because of their dual nature. The composition of the fields is not that important. What is important, is how these quantum fields interact with each other to become the building blocks of matter. You simply ignored the force particles(gluons) that hold matter together. You also seem to ignore all the force and matter particles that give all matter its material properties.

On a much larger scale, we only see the end results of all of these properties. At this level of reality, properties at the Quantum scale are irrelevant. To conclude that the material world is not material, is being intellectually dishonest. We don't say that water is a gas, because it is made from two gases. We do say that we don't fall through the earth, because of the strong nuclear forces holding the nucleus together. We do say that the Earth travel around the sun, due to the Sun's gravitational attraction. We never say that the laws in nature can be violated or suspended, without some demonstration. Hence, martial artists can't use fictitious "chi" to move people around without touching them, no matter how much they believe they can. Does "chi" exist outside of the brain? Is it composed of matter? does it occupy space?

What we perceive about our material(physical) world is our brain's best-guess representation of that world. Lose any of your senses, and that interpretation will be drastically altered. Our senses are hardwired to our central nervous system due to evolution. This was the best way to insure our survival, and improve our ability to learn new skills and adapt to a changing environment. Have you ever wondered why we are not the same as our earliest cousins(Australopithecus afarensis), 3 million years ago? By passing on new genetic information to the next generation, it seems to insure that most of the species will survive. It is by no means perfect, but it works. We are the products of those survivors.

Many people want to believe that there is something that exists outside of the natural realm. This part of the human condition is our need for answers. Many create their own terminology and language, to give their belief a latent sense of complexity. Some will purposely try to manipulate or misuse many aspects of scientific understandings, to mask and avoid presenting any objective evidence, or fallacy-free logic of their own. If you wish to believe that the mind and spirit are one, that the mind creates the brain, or that there are things and realities that exist beyond our understanding, then surely there must exist some sort of evidence. Surely, there must be one ghost, one miracle, one moving people around with the mind, one violation of natural law, or one unexplained phenomenon? Anything but one's uninformed, unsupported, illogical, and self-serving assertions, one after another.

 

[godnotgod]

What makes you think that was not such an instance? By your standards probably no one has had a mystical experience.

Maybe it was just a bit of 'woo' in your head you thought to be 'mystical'.

We are all having a mystical experience all the time, disguised as an ordinary, rationally explainable experience in which we are a separate conscious but conditioned observer of an unconscious dead universe.

 

[Subduction Zone]

K

Maybe it was just a bit of 'woo' in your head you thought to be 'mystical'.

We are all having a mystical experience all the time, disguised as an ordinary, rationally explainable experience in which we are a separate conscious but conditioned observer of an unconscious dead universe.

As I thought, by your standards no one has had a mystical experience, and you are probably right in that.

 

[godnotgod]

My suspicions are confirmed. The point particles disturbances are not simple IN the quantum field, they ARE the Quantum field, because of their dual nature. The composition of the fields is not that important. What is important, is how these quantum fields interact with each other to become the building blocks of matter. You simply ignored the force particles(gluons) that hold matter together. You also seem to ignore all the force and matter particles that give all matter its material properties.

On a much larger scale, we only see the end results of all of these properties. At this level of reality, properties at the Quantum scale are irrelevant. To conclude that the material world is not material, is being intellectually dishonest. We don't say that water is a gas, because it is made from two gases. We do say that we don't fall through the earth, because of the strong nuclear forces holding the nucleus together. We do say that the Earth travel around the sun, due to the Sun's gravitational attraction. We never say that the laws in nature can be violated or suspended, without some demonstration. Hence, martial artists can't use fictitious "chi" to move people around without touching them, no matter how much they believe they can. Does "chi" exist outside of the brain? Is it composed of matter? does it occupy space?

What we perceive about our material(physical) world is our brain's best-guess representation of that world. Lose any of your senses, and that interpretation will be drastically altered. Our senses are hardwired to our central nervous system due to evolution. This was the best way to insure our survival, and improve our ability to learn new skills and adapt to a changing environment. Have you ever wondered why we are not the same as our earliest cousins(Australopithecus afarensis), 3 million years ago? By passing on new genetic information to the next generation, it seems to insure that most of the species will survive. It is by no means perfect, but it works. We are the products of those survivors.

Many people want to believe that there is something that exists outside of the natural realm. This part of the human condition is our need for answers. Many create their own terminology and language, to give their belief a latent sense of complexity. Some will purposely try to manipulate or misuse many aspects of scientific understandings, to mask and avoid presenting any objective evidence, or fallacy-free logic of their own. If you wish to believe that the mind and spirit are one, that the mind creates the brain, or that there are things and realities that exist beyond our understanding, then surely there must exist some sort of evidence. Surely, there must be one ghost, one miracle, one moving people around with the mind, one violation of natural law, or one unexplained phenomenon? Anything but one's uninformed, unsupported, illogical, and self-serving assertions, one after another.

So what we call 'the material world' is really all about our perception. 'Materiality' is perceptual reality, which does not answer the question as to the true nature of Reality. That is why the mystic transcends perceptual reality in order to reach Ultimate Reality.
I am not saying that there is something outside of nature; I am not saying there is a supernatural power; I am saying that what we seek is nature itself, but by using the rational mind, we only end up in paradox, because nature is bigger than reason, as OSHO tells us. The problem is that we are nature seeking itself, but using the wrong tools. There is a saying: "That which you are seeking is causing you to seek".
The world is NOT material. We only perceive it to be so.

If the particle is the field, as you say, then the particle is, in reality, energy, since the field is an energy field, but it is the field appearing as a particle. So from the view of the macro world and that of the Quantum world, there is no such thing as 'materiality'. As David Tong states: 'there are no particles in the world', and 'the Quantum vacuum is absolutely nothing'.

This is nothing acting as something, what the Hindus call 'maya', or illusion, in the play called lila. This 'nothing' is Pure Consciousness, what the Hindus call 'Brahman' or, the ground of all Being, ie 'The Unified Field'.

That is how I see it. What I see and what science sees are one and the same Reality, from two different perspectives. There are not two realities; there is only one; not a quantum reality vs a mystical reality. The particle is none other than the field. They are one and the same reality, with the one appearing as the other.

 

[godnotgod]

K

As I thought, by your standards no one has had a mystical experience, and you are probably right in that.

As I said, we all are having a mystical experience, but most of us don't realize it. It is for this reason that the Buddhists say that Nirvana and Samara are One. We just need to awaken to that experience of Oneness. This is why I told you I don't know any more than you do. IOW, we all already have what we are looking for, but we are lost in the world of the subject/object split which says we are a separate observer of the Universe. The realization that we have always been at one with the Universe is the mystical experience of union.

 

[godnotgod]

Must watch:

 

[gnostic]

No, the mystical experience is not 'all part of processes of sensory perceptions that the brain processed whatever one see, feel, hear, touch or smell.'

I wasn’t talking about mystical experiences.

I was talking about experiences, as in everyday experiences, that consciousness is being aware of surrounding through the sensory perceptions, in which the brains processed all signals that come from what a person “see, feel, hear, touch or smell”.

 

[gnostic]

I do not place any credence in anthropomorphic imagery, like Brahma, Shiva and Vishnu.

And yet, the origin of yoga have been attributed to Shiva, a practice that most if not all sects of Hinduism, including your perverted version of Hinduism and Zen.

 

[ecco]

Hardly. You are simply taken in by woo. That can be very bad for martial artists. This poor man believed his own woo, things do not go well for him:

Oww! I got hit in the nose. Hilarious!

 

[ecco]

Are you saying that thousands of years of Eastern wisdom is ignorance?

Thousands of years of Eastern Wisdom, like thouands of years of Western Wisdom, was based in ignorance.

 

[ecco]

Brain research and consciousness

A bit of wisdom from your cut and paste link: (my emphasis)

According to Osho, if you go deep down in the physical body below the cellular level you will find a subtle, energetic body, also called the etheric body. Apparently, it is at this deep level we shall find the nadis and the chakras. I am sure that the chakras, the nadis and the subtle bodies are not immaterial. They are based on matter representing much higher frequencies than physical matter, and they are most likely located deep down in the body’s microcosmic structure.​

 

[Subduction Zone]

Oww! I got hit in the nose. Hilarious!

Unlike our woo smitten friend I have had many years of martial arts training. As a result I can understand that "chi", or "ki" in Japanese, is merely the result of correct posture and correct application of force. I can line up someone's blocking arm so it is at least twice as strong if they are untrained merely by placing it in an optimal position. In the same way when the magic bracelets were all the rage I could see some of the tricks used to fool people. Ki is more of a learning tool than an actual thing. It allows one to analyze how forces should be applied.

I also had a bit of pressure point training. Very useful when a person is passively resisting. Almost useless in an actual fight. The training I had on that can by the way of George Dillman, before he drank his own Kool-Aid. Quite often these masters of woo have some abilityand have trained their students to react. If they don't react properly actual force is applied. As a result you will see students playing along without even realizing it, as you see here:

But when exposed to a skeptic it does not work quite so well:

 

[godnotgod]

I wasn’t talking about mystical experiences.

I was talking about experiences, as in everyday experiences, that consciousness is being aware of surrounding through the sensory perceptions, in which the brains processed all signals that come from what a person “see, feel, hear, touch or smell”.

But you said:

"...a person have several levels of consciousness. But whatever the levels, it is all part of processes of sensory perceptions that the brain processed whatever one see, feel, hear, touch or smell."

...which would include the levels of transcendence of perception as well as those of perception.

 

[godnotgod]

And yet, the origin of yoga have been attributed to Shiva, a practice that most if not all sects of Hinduism, including your perverted version of Hinduism and Zen.

So what? That is just yogic lore. The real practice of yoga is:

"The word ‘Yoga’ is derived from the Sanskrit root ‘Yuj’, meaning ‘to join’ or ‘to yoke’ or ‘to unite’. As per Yogic scriptures the practice of Yoga leads to the union of individual consciousness with that of the Universal Consciousness, indicating a perfect harmony between the mind and body..."

Yoga: Its Origin, History and Development

 

[godnotgod]

Unlike our woo smitten friend I have had many years of martial arts training. As a result I can understand that "chi", or "ki" in Japanese, is merely the result of correct posture and correct application of force.

ha ha ha...you 'understand' nothing!

No one else in the Eastern arts seems to think of chi that way. Yours is a sterile, mechanistic reductionist's view of chi or qi, the life force. You want to eviscerate it of its true meaning, and define it only in terms of a particular application:

"The existence of electromagnetic fields around every object in the world - known as an Aura - is a scientifically proven fact. The Chinese refer to this energy as 'Chi' (pronounced Chee), the vital life force energy of the Universe, present within every living thing. "

Chi, Universal Life Force Energy, Aura, Chakras, Meridians.

Don't get me wrong. I am not saying that your use of force is incorrect. And the master may have an incorrect understanding of chi as you do. But Chi is not just the 'correct application of force'. It is a conscious force.

It is obvious that you have seized the opportunity here to publicize your 'expertise' in the martial arts for egotistic gratification, something a real martial artist would never ever do. The original point of the discussion was only about the hara being a center of consciousness. You have taken that and run with it to suit your own agenda, which is 'look how great a martial artist I am'. Keep entertaining that myth and someday the unexpected attack from your opponent may be a devastating one, as your attention will have been misplaced in that one critical moment. The ego is an obstacle every martial artist must overcome if he is to make real progress.

Story:

A young archer in a village contest kept hitting the bullseye one after another. Afterward, an elderly archer asked if he would accompany him to a spot within a nearby forest. Reaching an area where a log traversed a very steep ravine with rapids below, the elderly man walked onto the log over the center of the ravine, and took a shot at a specified target on the other side, hitting it squarely. Returning to shore, he told the young man, 'Now you try it", at which the young archer began to step onto the log, but soon began to tremble in fear. He could not steady himself enough to get off a shot, and returned to the shore. The old man then said: "The problem with you is that you have one eye on the path and one eye on the goal, instead of both eyes on the path"

 

[ecco]

Unlike our woo smitten friend I have had many years of martial arts training.
...
As a result you will see students playing along without even realizing it, as you see here:

But when exposed to a skeptic it does not work quite so well:

Wow, it didn't work because the Skeptic knew it wouldn't work. Not much of a weapon. Actually, not much of anything.

Moral of the story. Woo don't work.