What is energy?

[shawn001]

Also Gambit, I have asked you numerous times here to show anything that is conscious without a nervous system and brain. You haven't provided anything yet, so still waiting.

 

[shawn001]

For sure....the original Greek meaning of the word science is knowledge...and was not confined to just the physical. As science proceeds to find out about dark matter and energy, knowledge about the nature of the non-physical will arise...and its causal relationship with physical matter..

Since we know of nothing non physical, I have no idea what your talking about. Even dark matter which we don't understand yet, acts physically on the universe.

"knowledge about the nature of the non-physical will arise"

So there is still hope for pink unicorns?

 

[gnostic]

Energy is never 'non-existent'. It is simply transformed.

Energy exists with no apparent effect?......sure does!.....

Science has decided 'dark' energy DOES exist..................just can't prove it yet!!!!!!!

And where do you think the will power and mental energy go? What do either transform into?

Can you answer that, without making things up some sort of BS?

 

[Ben Dhyan]

Good luck dreaming or meditating if someone were to stop all the electrical and chemical activity of your brain, would you still be conscious?

Shawn....I know that the term meditation in popular understanding covers brain consciousness....but there is more to it in than that. In the pure religious practice of meditation, the goal is to transcend brain/physical body consciousness, a state of meditation where there are minimal neuron firings in the brain, which correlates with the state of dreamless sleep.

The purpose of this still mind meditation is to practice a form of psychological death state, as no sense of 'I' arises if there are no thoughts arising, and that eventually results in the translation of brain derived self awareness onto the cosmic omnipresent background commonly called aether or spirit, and so at the real physical death, evolution to a higher state of being than mortal mankind occurs. There is no dogma associated with this understanding, it's all about sacrifice (not one's real being though, only the I associated with brain consciousness)...everyone is free to not do it....

Now I am not interested in debating issues such as scientific proof. as you already know that science does not do supernatural/spiritual....so what I'm talking about will only be understood by those of faith, and only realized by those who are prepared to give their life to the practice...

 

[Ben Dhyan]

Since we know of nothing non physical, I have no idea what your talking about. Even dark matter which we don't understand yet, acts physically on the universe.

"knowledge about the nature of the non-physical will arise"

So there is still hope for pink unicorns?

Shawn...I am surprised at many of your posts here at RF....when I looked at the EIS website and saw your position, I naturally thought you were well educated...but you really come across as a lacking even quite basic English language comprehension. Do you understand the meaning of the word 'causal' in the context I used it? If so....why do you have no idea what I'm talking about and then say....."Even dark matter which we don't understand yet, acts physically on the universe."?

 

[Thief]

Good luck dreaming or meditating if someone were to stop all the electrical and chemical activity of your brain, would you still be conscious?

Isn't that condition called....coma?

There is someone in there.
People have been known to awaken after lengthy durations.
Hard to say what relation the had with their bodies.
Don't think know either.

 

[Gambit]

Meditation is a state you can put your brain in..

Your response above reveals a not-so-tacit dualism. That is, you're presupposing the mind is something separate from the brain. For if you were not making such a presupposition, then why would you suppose it is possible for "you" to put your brain in a state of meditation?

 

[Gambit]

Also Gambit, I have asked you numerous times here to show anything that is conscious without a nervous system and brain. You haven't provided anything yet, so still waiting.

A bacterium doesn't have any nervous system, yet there is evidence that bacteria exhibit decision-making abilities. Also, NDEs (near-death experiences) provide evidence that a functioning brain (or nervous system) is not required to have conscious experiences.

 

[Rick O'Shez]

Your response above reveals a not-so-tacit dualism. That is, you're presupposing the mind is something separate from the brain.

Dualism refers to the way subject ( consciousness ) interacts with object ( what consciousness is aware of ).

 

[Gambit]

Dualism refers to the way subject ( consciousness ) interacts with object ( what consciousness is aware of ).

Dualism (in this context) refers to the duality between mind and brain (between mental subject and physical object).

 

[atanu]

"There is no 'official' Copenhagen interpretation. But every version grabs the bull by the horns and asserts that an observation produces the property observed. The tricky word here is 'observation.'
Copenhagen softens this assertion by defining an observation as taking place whenever a microscopic, atomic-scale, object interacts with a macroscopic, largescale object. When a piece of photographic film is hit by a photon and records where the photon landed, the film has 'observed' the photon." (emphasis added)
Same book, same page.

I wonder if there will come a day when I have sufficiently demonstrated that I take intellectual integrity seriously, if I don't know much about a top I don't make claims, and when I make claims it is because I do know about the topic. Yes I own that book, along with too many others like it because I keep track of popular science, partly (as you can see if you look at various threads I've created recommending popular sources) with an eye out to provide good sources but mainly because it seems that too many people don't distinguish between popular science and science (despite the fact that the book you cited starts with the sentence "This is a controversial book.").

But can the difference between the two experiments: the so called observed and the so called unobserved, be related to difference of intention of the experimenter?

 

[atanu]

Concepts didn't exist before there were any conscious minds to develop them.

How do we know that?

 

[atanu]

We can also stimulate conscious experiences, sensations, etc.,by sending electrical signals directly to the brain.

Now, while this and other findings are evidence that consciousness is physical (or that it is the property/product of the brain), it is true that we have not demonstrated either that non-physical things like a soul are necessarily involved in consciousness or that consciousness can be completely reduced to processes in the brain. That's not the same as saying we have "no evidence".

It could mean that the 'experiences' are modified by or are contingent upon stimuli.

 

[atanu]

?....(your eyes perceive nothing; your brain does).

If brain was the real perceiver then it would keep on perceiving after death too.

 

[atanu]

Except that will power and mental energy are both tied to physical functions of the brain, and being physical it required brain activity, and this required the heart to function too.

Once the heart stop, and blood cease to circulate around the brain, supplying the brain with vital oxygen, then brain cells will start dying, then will power and mental energy will cease to exist.

Why should the heart stop? You say that will is tied to physical functions of brain. So the brain should will to live on and being the originar of will sould succeed. Or can we say that we do not know everything about will?

 

[outhouse]

If brain was the real perceiver then it would keep on perceiving after death too.

No it factually would not.

It is a living organism that requires fuel to function. No fuel, no function.

 

[outhouse]

Why should the heart stop?

No fuel upon death. No fuel, no function.

 

[shawn001]

Your response above reveals a not-so-tacit dualism. That is, you're presupposing the mind is something separate from the brain. For if you were not making such a presupposition, then why would you suppose it is possible for "you" to put your brain in as state of meditation?

No and no dualism.

 

[shawn001]

A bacterium doesn't have any nervous system, yet there is evidence that bacteria exhibit decision-making abilities. Also, NDEs (near-death experiences) provide evidence that a functioning brain (or nervous system) is not required to have conscious experiences.

"A bacterium doesn't have any nervous system, yet there is evidence that bacteria exhibit decision-making abilities."

Please provide a link. They have reactions to environments .

"Also, NDEs (near-death experiences) provide evidence that a functioning brain (or nervous system) is not required to have conscious experiences"

What? They didn't have a nervous system?

The Science of Near-Death Experiences

The Science of Near-Death Experiences - The Atlantic

Hypnotherapy, Out-of-Body Experiences, and Their Therapeutic Uses

Hypnotherapy, Out-of-Body Experiences, and Their Therapeutic Uses - NaturalNews.com

2004 and American Journal of Psychotherapy and hypnosis and out-of-body experiences.

http://publicationslist.org/data/joseph.meyerson/ref-2/OBE.pdf

 

[shawn001]

Shawn...I am surprised at many of your posts here at RF....when I looked at the EIS website and saw your position, I naturally thought you were well educated...but you really come across as a lacking even quite basic English language comprehension. Do you understand the meaning of the word 'causal' in the context I used it? If so....why do you have no idea what I'm talking about and then say....."Even dark matter which we don't understand yet, acts physically on the universe."?

Ben, you have "labeled" me throughout many posts, called me a Catholic who didn't know what he was talking about, then when I told you I wasn't a Catholic, you then called me an atheist and I told you I wasn't, and now the label of uneducated. "lacking even quite basic English language comprehension" I majored in English. No need to reply Ben, putting you on ignore.