Ask a Spiritual Physicist

radarmark said:
Be skeptical of it (and of everything else that says it is scientific).

Safer that way.
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I find this remark disconcerting.

It is common to say:

"There's an art to it" or "There's a science to it"

Conflating the "known" with the "un-known" is done everyday:

We use technology without knowing "How it works".

Even criminals and delinquints famously do bad things without appreciation for "How it all functions".

Truth must be scientifically sought out instead of vapidly luxuriating in a world that is run by puppeteers that do not expect the vapid(s) to enquire "How it works".

"Making Bread is a science."

There is a saying, "There is danger at every step in the material world".

Be skeptical that, 'at every step there is danger; especially the danger of death' . . . therefore, it is incumbant upon us to seek out "How it works".

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It seems to me that being "skeptical" is that very "knowledge that someone-in-the-know will likely be seeking to cheat" those who are bereft of the knowledge of, "How it works".

Be skeptical of those hawking things beyond PERSONAL scientific verifcation.
 
Afaid I miss your point.

On the scientific (left-brain side) being skeptical means "be careful of scientific claims unless there is a good basis to believe". Like cold-fusion say, be careful of hard scientific claims that are made outside of peer-reviewed jounals.

On the spirit-consciousness (right-brain) side "be careful of metaphysical claims unless you can experientially see them yourself." Like the hard religious right claims that the KJB is the literal written word of G!d, ask yourself if it makes sense from your experience (can the sun stop or is Pi equal to 3).

See "how it works" in either case is the key. How can HAARP's EM field cause tectonic plate shifts. How can "hard" Dicine predesination happen unless G!d is petty and unloving enough to trick us into experiencing free will?

Does this make more sense? Radarmark
 
I am enjoying listening in to your thread, Radarmark, and thank you for the initial response to my inquiry regarding Oppenheimer. The subject (of Oppenheimer channeling Shiva) always gives me the profoundest of creeps and thus I might wait until closer to Halloween –when I can stand a good scare- to continue with what can only loosely be called my train of thought on the subject. By the way, welcome home (to the Quakers), brother!
 
unless you can experientially see them yourself
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a] There is danger at every step in the material world. [the danger is "sudden death"]. The insurance is experiencing non-material self-possession. This is done via "renunciation". In installments, over a given time, one accrues more and more "renunciation".

b] We see everything for ourselves all the time. Many of the worlds Vistas are seen only by critters (indigenous animals. BTW, Lat. 'anima' means, 'soul').
It is like saying, "Though they have eyes and ears; still they don't see nor hear".

Mantra meditation will bring to the fore, "that which is conscious" ---yet, "after enlightenment", we must return to daily chores 'conscientiously' ---others who appreciate "consumption" as the all-in-all of life, without appreciation, nay, cognition of the "workings" that they are enmeshed in.

IE: Enter University, then, exit University ---indebt ---into an exponentially worse economy than past successive legions of graduates were made to endure.

Junk food is cheaper than fruits and veggy ---diebetes is shows a triving carbohydrate based economy.

Medical doctors earn most of their revenues from the rat race life style.

"Art reflects Life" is for stand up comedians.
"Life reflects Art" for melodramtic & sensational Headlines.

The stratum of "Consciousness" a person possessess is what those persons see and appreciate as the all-in-all. Until renunciation is taken up.

Many are drones, without question of "How for this be" but just satiated with the pulp fiction of their stratum of life.

Man is prone to luxuriate in the transcient mundane . . . repeatedly without escape . . . since time immemorial.

A Kurt Vannagut sort of sadarnic comment:

"Make Love, forget about real life, while you can."
 
More recently the phrase is being applied as a social change field and movement in which developing inner awareness and nurturing one's inner life, i.e., personal development, is seen as essential in effective social justice work. This is taken to mean from an aligned, sustainable, and nonviolent place. It seeks to operationalize, in practical terms, the ideal of embodiment of the future desired state, in other words, to actualize Gandhi's exhortation to "be the change."
 
some kind of bot ennit?! wouldn't click on their" homepage
 
res1122 said:
More recently the phrase is being applied as a social change field and movement in which developing inner awareness and nurturing one's inner life, i.e., personal development, is seen as essential in effective social justice work. This is taken to mean from an aligned, sustainable, and nonviolent place. It seeks to operationalize, in practical terms, the ideal of embodiment of the future desired state, in other words, to actualize Gandhi's exhortation to "be the change."
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I agree but sometimes human error tends to try to place others in places they do not belong. Like some should be in a position of being a scientist but the greed of someone else has pushed them out of that position so you get the wrong answers or slower progression. Sometimes someone can appear to be smarter or a better person than someone they are trying to take the place of but they really arent. The current desired state is for everyone to take the good aspects of themselves and apply it. The problems always stem from people following the wrong one because of greed or a need for the WRONG kind of power. Gandhi had the right idea and fortunately no one did that to him.
 
OMG! Be the change is quite cool. Let me spin it this way...

There has always been (in West and East) a kind of war between Being and Becoming. Heraclitus versus Parmenides, Tanabe versus Ni. Is "something" more basic than "change"?

Like that classic skeptic, Hume, and unlike Kant when I look deep within myself I do not see some eternal I, but rather a collection of experiences I have experienced and collected. Like Whitehead, and unlike Popper I perceive a flow of events not some net of things linked in time.

So not only can we be the etical and social change, but the change in consciousness and the change of becoming.

Pax at amore vincunt omnia.... radarmark
 
res1122 said:
More recently the phrase is being applied as a social change field and movement in which developing inner awareness and nurturing one's inner life, i.e., personal development, is seen as essential in effective social justice work. This is taken to mean from an aligned, sustainable, and nonviolent place. It seeks to operationalize, in practical terms, the ideal of embodiment of the future desired state, in other words, to actualize Gandhi's exhortation to "be the change."
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There is stregnth in numbers one person can only inspire others but cannot do everything themselves. So there should be a change , the world is suffering from a lack of compassion but compassion can spread....help the homeless just being kind to them does a world of good.
 
Hi radarmark,
In certain quarters of Buddhism, there is talk about a basic consciousness that each and everyone has, and it is from this basic consciousness of each and everyone that mind and matter, and hence the universe arise. Any thoughts or comments in this direction?
 
Well, I can recommend all of Amit Goswami's work. He is a very good physicist who has written what I think is one of the best introductory texts on Quantum Mechanics (Bohm's ais the best).
It used to be (pre 1932's "Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics" by John von Neumann) that the physics was used as proof against consciousness and G!d. All that changed with von Neumann's solution to the "Quantum Measurement Problem" (see Measurement in Quantum Theory (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)). As Ken Wilber says in "Quantum Questions", physics now had to include the notion of consciousness and could no longer be used to disprove G!d. That is the physics side... the quantum mechanics demand that consciousness exist.

Now for the metaphysical side. If I had never heard of Alfred Whitehead, I probably would fully support Amit Goswami's stance that all matter is illusion and say the universe is simply a self-aware consciousness. But the normal, common-sense notion of there being two sorts of things res cotgitans (a thinking thing, mind and information) and res extensia (a corporeal thing, matter and energy) just does not make a lot of sense to me in terms of my experience. I do not pereive some long existing self (mental or physical). Instead I perceive a series of "sense contents" like Hume (this tanglked web of philosophy includes Liebniz and Whitehead and Deleuze).

So I believe that the universe is neither mind nor matter nor information nor energy, but a vast web of interconnected monads or occasions of experience or actual occasions. This web is consistent with my knowledge of physics (relativity and quantum, esp Bell's Theorem and Bohm's work). It is also consistent with my experience of the living Divinity which is. This leads to my assumption that the universe is not all there is, there is something beyond, call it the Kosmos (this makes me a panentheist and panexperientialist). This beyond is the beyond of Dzogchen or the Diamond Sutra (if one can throw away the notion of mind/body duality).

The problem I have always found with Western Buddhists is that they focus on the "illusion" as being matter-energy and not matter-energy-mind-information (do you see the subtile difference?). Same with most practitioners of Santana Dharma (like Goswami). If one defines the illusion as both mind and matter, I believe that my beliefs are entirely consistent with 90% or so of Zen, Tibetean, and Vedanta teachings.

BOTTOMLINE: If you can accept "Basic Consciousness" = Experience, then we are on the same page. Science, especaialy quantum mechanics can say a lot about it (see Eugene Wigner, JA Wheeler and Stapp) albeit in a round about way. A good basic explanation can is at Quantum Approaches to Consciousness (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). Just do not forget that most of what is there is metaphysics, not physics--that is it is not scientifically proven and still a "sore spot" with most Western Physicists.

Pax et amore vincunt omnia... radarmark
 
Theo? Who is Theo?

radarmark said:
quantum mechanics can say a lot about it albeit in a round about way. Just do not forget that most of what is there is metaphysics, not physics--that is it is not scientifically proven and still a "sore spot" with most Western Physicists.
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I look forward to reading Amit Goswami's book.

BTW, some food for thought talking points:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theo
Theo is a given name, deriving from the Greek word Theos which means god

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theoretical_physics
Theoretical physics is a branch of physics which employs mathematical models and abstractions of physics to rationalize, explain and predict natural phenomena. The importance of mathematics in theoretical physics is sometimes emphasized by expression "mathematical physics".


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_physics
Mathematical physics refers to development of mathematical methods for application to problems in physics. The Journal of Mathematical Physics defines this area as: "the application of mathematics to problems in physics and the development of mathematical methods suitable for such applications and for the formulation of physical theories."[

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_theory
A scientific theory comprises a collection of concepts, including abstractions of observable phenomena expressed as quantifiable properties, together with rules (called scientific laws) that express relationships between observations of such concepts. A scientific theory is constructed to conform to available empirical data about such observations, and is put forth as a principle or body of principles for explaining a class of phenomena.
A scientific theory is a type of inductive theory, in that its content (i.e. empirical data) could be expressed within some formal system of logic whose elementary rules (i.e. scientific laws) are taken as axioms. In a deductive theory, any sentence which is a logical consequence of one or more of the axioms is also a sentence of that theory.
In the humanities, one finds theories whose subject matter does not (only) concern empirical data, but rather ideas. Such theories are in the realm of philosophical theories as contrasted with scientific theories. A philosophical theory is not necessarily scientifically testable through experiment.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory
Originally the word theory as it is used in English is a technical term from Ancient Greek philosophy. It is derived from theoria, θεωρία, meaning "a looking at, viewing, beholding", and refers to contemplation or speculation, as opposed to action.

 
Add five more related terms: 1) techne ("craft" or "art"), 2) epistashai ("knowing how to"), 3) episteme ("to know", esp to "theoretically know") 4) eurekios ("heuristic" or "discover", esp through experience) and 5) phronesis ("practical wisdom"). They are also from the Greek. As I understand it, techne was the knowledge of doing, like a blacksmith making swords. Epistashi is the knowledge of repetitious tasking, like pounding on iron to make swords. Episteme is the theoretical knowledge, like how much coke to add to iron to forge steel. The heuristic is the discovery of that first batch of steel. Finally, phronesis is the practical wisdom as to use or not use the steel sword.

In Plato the former two types of knowledge are clearly considered inferior (though they are treated equally in some of the Dialogues). The latter two (episteme and phronesis) are more or less the realms of science and ethics (in that order).

Of these only episteme and eurekios are really applicable to scientific theory or the scientific method. And only induction or abduction (a longer, better based induction re-discovered by CS Pierce in the early 20th century but know to the Indian for a couple of millenia) applies (deduction deals with tautalogies, which can be used within the scientific method, but is of no use to the development thereof).

Mix it all up and we shall see what we get.

Radarmark
 
Hi radarmark,

Amit Goswami espoused a form of monism, but Buddhism does not.

As to what constitutes illusions, one segment of Buddhism will say that all are illusory in the sense that reality is but a vast web of interdependence with subjects and objects merely labels placed on groupings of relations. Others will say that the mind is real and the rest are illusions. Another group says that all phenomena (mind, matter, etc) are illusions including the web of interdependence.

It is the last group that interests me because it means that whatever that gives rise to all phenomena is not a phenomenon itself but it not apart from it. Here, it is very tempting to hold that the whatever is something monistic. But Buddhism assiduously avoids this. Would like to hear your comments on this.
 
I believe that those who say the mind is real and the reat illusion are monists (idealist monists) much as is Goswami. I will look up the School, but I believe that is pretty much a Yogacaric approach. The key here is that mind or consciousness is all there is, that makes it "monistic idealism" which is defin ately Goswami's speal.

My key difference from both Western and Eastern Philosophy is that I do not accept the mind/body or consciousness/matter or information/energy dualities. When I slip into silence (my Quaker metaphor for meditate) I do not percieve a duality. Well, let me restate that, once I get over the I/thou duality of my experience and that which is (which I call the Light, the Divine, or the Christ Within), there is only isness... no mind versus body. Let us go back to what I said before, when I look at my "self" all I "see" is an interconnected "bundle of sense-contents" (this includes thought as a sense). It is this a well-documented but not widely known undercurrent in Western Philosophy from Heraclitus to Whitehead and Eastern thought from Mahavir to Ham Seok-heon.

So like you, I think the third group holding all is illusion may be the closest, but as of now I am clearly in the Dzogchen-Tao-Chan border of Buddhist thought. Giving up that final interconnectedness or interdependence is really, really hard.

Dig?

Your friend in the search, Mark
 
radarmark said:
So like you, I think the third group holding all is illusion may be the closest, but as of now I am clearly in the Dzogchen-Tao-Chan border of Buddhist thought. Giving up that final interconnectedness or interdependence is really, really hard.

Dig?

Your friend in the search, Mark
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Yes I dig.

I don't think there is a need to give up that final interconnectedness or interdependence... not in Buddhism, especially Dzogchen.

As I understand it, it comes with the package in the sense that the interdependence is a display of the nature of reality.

What is to be avoided is the grasping of dualities like existence and non-existence, subject and object, mind and matter, good and evil, etc.
 
I must agree with your reading. It's like all that there is is this web. Reality is the web or veil. Unreality is the image we project onto the web or veil.
 
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