Natural Justice: Does it exist?

[Blue]

www.drmunchie.com

I think, SacredStar, you should not take the lady too seriously.

Just review her references in the article.

It is strange that the 'unknown' and the 'mysteries' are always labelled as 'mystic'.

There is no mystic aspect of physics, quantum or otherwise; there is simply that which is unknown or not understood.

As soon as you step into the METAphysical aspects you depart from the simple and obvious statement that 'x' is an unknown. Being an unknown, empirical investigations are the only approach following the hypothesis, objectively conducted into the 'mystery' and its objective context and relevance. (This is the same thing as Professor Flew, who now determines that 'complexity' itself is indicative of a mystery and that mystery is an entity of intelligence.)

These people, like Munchie are, I am afraid, all the same; making the ages old mistakes, in thinking there is (like Jung -touch(?) those elements of experience that are timeless(?), unaffected by personalitic factors,(cannot be proven) and thus in a certain sense truly objective(a matter either is objective or it isn't..no such thing as 'truly').") an inner reality as objective as the domain beyond self.
(The red highlights are mine)
To declare such metaphysical concepts (or the mysticism) some kind of reality does not make it so beyond the affective nature and nurture of the individual.

I could say both Angels and Santa are 'real', because I conceive of them as so. THAT does not make it so. They can only be considered 'real' within your own conceptions and that does not signify as objective reality. It remains only an unlikely subjectively conceived possibility.

Perhaps you should write to Munchie and ask about the mystical vibrational universe, etc., and ask her for repeatable empirical evidential material?

If she produces evidence of the effects of vibrations induced in material concerns without causes that can be properly investigated, ask her how this shows anything mystical beyond her own concepts, or is even possible?

As usual, I am sad to say it is symptomatic of the irrational as compared with the reasoned and rational approach.
(Remember I do not doubt the authenticity of the individual's affective experiences! If they say they see or speak with Angels, they do, as far as they are concerned.)

Bless you, for vigorously keeping up this debate, SacredStar!

 

[lunamoth]

These people, like Munchie are, I am afraid, all the same; making the ages old mistakes, in thinking there is (like Jung -touch(?) those elements of experience that are timeless(?), unaffected by personalitic factors,(cannot be proven) and thus in a certain sense truly objective(a matter either is objective or it isn't..no such thing as 'truly').") an inner reality as objective as the domain beyond self.
(The red highlights are mine)
To declare such metaphysical concepts (or the mysticism) some kind of reality does not make it so beyond the affective nature and nurture of the individual.

I'm out of my league here (never on the dabate team, never took philosophy), but wouldn't you say, Blue, that by your stringent criteria you'd be hard put to know for certain whether anything you experience, including input from the five senses and any interpersonal relationships, exists outside your own mind? Is even your body real?

 

[Blue]

Hi peaceful, Lunamoth!

You say:Is even your body real?

If it isn't, then please explain how an independent significant other like a Hospital Consultant could diagnose this body of mine without any input from myself. He concluded I was diabetic.

What you hypothesise is fanciful, if I may say so politely.

It is something that crops up on these forums again and again.
I am afraid to say there are many instances that can be demonstrated to show I have no input to the determination of what is perceived in many cases.
I perceive the waning moon from my position on this planet's surface and have no control whatsoever over that perception. Indeed I can use astronomical measures and ask another researcher to do the same independently... we will arrive at the same conclusion whatever our affective natures and nurtures might wish to say to us otherwise of the objective facts.
A bullet in my heart is likely to cause my death. There is nothing I could do about it. If my body is not 'real', why should that be?

Have you been watching the Matrix? lol

 

[Sacredstar]

Dear Lunamoth

Good point!

Dear Blue

This is quote that someone else put up on another forum!

"It has been a delight to see the scientists, those very people who cast the most scorn on metaphysical reality be the ones to prove it exists ! A fantastic irony !" Ru

There is plenty of research on the internet if you are seriously interested in it. But I will leave you to seek it for yourself for I have no desire to prove my reality.

One last point, you mention the doctor and your body. How do you explain with your rational mind that I have been able to find the physical locality of a medical problem remotely, that doctors could not find? Never even met the person or knew anything about them.

being love

Sacredstar

PS Dr Munchie has been asked to lecture at medical schools, she also lectures at conferences, scientists, teachers and doctors attend her lectures and workshops. Check her out if she comes up your way, I think the real thing is better then the articles!

 

[lunamoth]

Have you been watching the Matrix? lol

It's one of my favorites, LOL!

I'll take on the thought experiment you propose and see if I can come up with anything worthy of posting.

 

[mirrorinthefog]

Well, then, arguably, what Sacredstar is saying is also true. If more than one person can objectively experience something strongly, then they can accept it as valid. Science, after all, is a human invention, for humans, using human resources. The material world is our invention. Our perception of the cycles of the moon are just that...And what we call science is our interpretation of what causes it to be. We have no real way of validating our existance beyond ourselves.

 

[Blue]

MITF,

I am afraid I just cannot accept this, or let it go! lol

"The material world is our invention. "

It is not.

Evidence is needed to claim it is a perceptual invention.

There is plenty of independent evidence - that is not dependent upon how I personal perceive it - for the material domain's independent existence.

It doesn't matter how I perceive Lead or Gold.... Lead and Gold have properties to be perceived independently of my perceptions, tested and repeatably verified without me being concerned. Whether you accept that evidence is entirely up to you. If you refuse to accept it, you place yourself into the realm of metaphysics, as compared with the objective sciences that grew from metaphysics. You also place yourself in the position of only accepting what you perceive affectively, without reason and rationality playing a part, or the others who pursue the investigations of the material universe.

Lead and Gold can be verified by investigation, empirically conducted, in the material domain, be it of their atomic weight or whatever, irrespective of any irrational affective perceptions of my own.

If I happen to maintain that Lead is in fact a jelly to be eaten at a children's party, or Gold is a common object to be found everywhere by everybody, in great profusion, both propositions can be shown to be false.

The same goes for your reference back to the Moon.
It isn't there in its orbit around the Earth just because I perceive it to be so. I might conceive that it doesn't really exist in its own right at all, or that ALL other perceivers are wrong to maintain that it is there and does do what it can be shown to do, and that I could travel to it and stand upon it. The fact remains I could be proved wrong, objectively, materially, empirically in accord with reason and rationality.

Taking phenomenalism to the extent that all the observed material world is dependent upon my perceptions is a nonsense. It is irrational.

Just because I might cease to exist tonight, doesn't mean YOU won't be able to perceive the Moon tomorrow. If it had actually vanished with my loss of my perception of it, you would undoubtedly know about it if you lived anywhere near a coastline... very quickly.

People just seem to confuse, poetically I suppose, mystically, what is meant by a personal perception. I CAN say the Moon no longer exists without my seeing it. I need to SEE it for it to exist - but THAT does not mean it IS so... just because I think affectively about the perception or hold the absence of my perception affectively, doesn't mean it actually is so... it could be down to my ignorance or simply being blind or a failure to allow reason and rationality to play their part. Opinions and Intuitions are not facts. If you can present some evidence... well...

Are you really going to say a bullet that enters your heart is just a figment of your personal perceptions? - That the bullet has no objective solidity outside of your own perceptions? Are you going to claim this for your companion who is shot beside you... without you knowing, until you turn in your dying pool of blood and see him bleeding too... claiming he's been hit by a bullet in the stomach?

Does TIME stop when you die? Yes...for you it has! Your burial party will know that TIME in our objective reality has stopped for you, but not for them.

Did the Earth exist before humanity came on the scene?

These are the results of saying, as you have: "The material world is our invention. "

The Laws of Physics,such as they are, where inherent in the material universe before we could appreciate them... that's how we derived them... by observing what is, and not just what we felt about it.

I advise reading Lucretius, who actually describes quite accurately, atomic theory, by simple observations of what IS in nature, long before he could validate his concepts materially as we have done. He wasn't projecting some kind of affective response, he was depending on making logical deductions from a reality observed...and so he has been proven right.

You might also have affective hypotheses about the world...but you must, without being irrational, make them on material grounds, even if at the time you have neither the technology or means to test and validate it. To claim matters are so, just because you perceive it to be so... with no reason, isn't good enough. It has to be related to observations others can make and can independently materially warrant.

I hope I have given you something to consider, my friend?

If my father had conceived of me only as a personal affective matter, I would not be here... it is safe to claim.

 

[mirrorinthefog]

Blue,

I understand what you're saying, and it's not that I disagree with it. I'm just playing the devil's advocate.

Sacredstar mentioned that someone who is objectively trying to reach God can also reach him, whether he/she beleives in him or not. I don't agree with that, although I respect her opinion.

No, one can't deny that the material world works a certain way regardless of what we think of it personally. When I said the material world was our invention, I think I didn't phrase what I meant to say properly. Of course the world would still exist if humanity were to disappear. One can know that despite his or her limited, individual perception of the universe.

That aside, we have no real way of knowing whether or not this is "real" in the first place. We can answer how the world around us works, we can deduce that one action will elicit a certain reaction, but we can't know whether or not the physical world around us is "real". We live in it, and others around us can agree with us that it exists because they live in it also, and because we are all the same species, we will be able to see things more or less the same way (unless you're colorblind, the sky is blue, the ocean is blue, leaves are green. It's very easy to observe that objects fall to the earth due to gravity, water vaporizes when boiled, the sun moves over the horizon at particular angles every year around the same time etc) But do we know beyond a doubt that that's what reality is? In my opinion, there's no way of knowing.

It's certainly possible that there is no other reality but the physical world, and I'm not saying one should deny scientific evidence of how our world works. If I'm shot and take a bullet through the heart, my organs will cease to function properly, and, unable to sustain me and carry out vital life functions, cause my death. You will continue to live, so my perception of whether or not you exist will no longer be relavant, but the fact that you continue to live while I don't doesn't mean that we are in fact ever in existance in the first place. Using the material world as a measure of its own existance doesn't prove anything.

That being said, I agree that faith cannot be proven using logic or science, and in the end is subjective. But then agian, science only tells us how things work...not why they work, or even if there is a reason behind it at all. It's possible that it's only able to solve half of the equation.

Meh...not only was that long it didn't make any sense.... I'm sorry...

 

[lunamoth]

MITF and Blue,

MITF has said it. I don't refute any of your points that belief in the Divine is not rational or objective. In fact, whenever someone starts to talk about scientific evidence or rational proof of God I start to get quite irritated! If there was objective evidence of God the whole shooting match would be over, IMHO. I'm not sure how life as we know it could continue to exist. I think this is where End Times prophecy stems from. Once God shows His face in a way that can't be denied, it's all over.

But now I'm the one not making sense!

 

[Sacredstar]

Sacredstar mentioned that someone who is objectively trying to reach God can also reach him, whether he/she beleives in him or not. I don't agree with that, although I respect her opinion.

This as been misunderstood, what I meant was that GOD and his/her messengers can come to a person without ANY desire or aspiration by the person themself to reach or to know GOD. In fact I have read in the past that this is how some people became born again christians. They had a mystical experience that changed their lives forevermore.

Sometimes there is little choice in the matter.....after incarnation. It is all part of the divine plan in our experience.

Love beyond measure

Sacredstar

 

[Sacredstar]

Dear Lunamoth

I think this is where End Times prophecy stems from. Once God shows His face in a way that can't be denied, it's all over.

Why do you think its all over? Why is it not a new beginning?

Love beyond measure

Sacredstar

 

[lunamoth]

Dear Lunamoth



Why do you think its all over? Why is it not a new beginning?

Love beyond measure

Sacredstar

Yes I think it will also be a beginning, but not of something we can imagine now.

 

[iBrian]

The point about "justice" being nothing more equivalent than "retribution" is definitely an interesting one to raise - but is no one going to argue for some system of "reward & punishment" on the earthly scale, even if such a system is not necessarily answerable to human culture-specific morality?

Is not Karma ultimately a form of "natural justice" in that action has consequence?

 

[Blue]

With due respect to SS and LM, I do not really understand all this stuff about 'end of times'. Sorry to be not up to par on this one! lol

Does this refer to the physical end of our perceiveable Universe?
If so,I will not be likely to be around to appreciate it.
Does it refer to the death of our bodies?
I see no evidence that persuades me of a 'life' beyond death.
Does it refer to something 'Biblical' in 'Revelations' terms? (An apocalyse?).
Well... if one wishes to wax poetical...! lol

Re: retribution, Brian, I find it very difficult to conceive of any spiritual retribution...that doesn't have its origins in human beings' actions/behaviours.
Apply the term to a vengeful 'God' and we are in debateable territory for sure!
Apply the term to reaping as we sow... sort of Karma like, and we have to consider that some reap what they don't expect...(Fact!) because of infestation, mutations, lack of water and light, on the crop to be harvested.

A confused 'Blue'....

 

[Blue]

Sorry... to make things clear, I do not feel, or think, that there is 'natural' justice.

'Justice' is just a human concept. (... which may, or may not, be projected upon a 'God' or Gods and Goddesses, again by human beings?)

Good and bad things 'happen'... why claim 'chance' has an intelligence behind it... it doesn't seem to achieve anything in conceptual terms beyond being a vague and rather poetic/mystical notion?

 

[Sacredstar]

Dear Blue

With due respect to SS and LM, I do not really understand all this stuff about 'end of times'. Sorry to be not up to par on this one! lol

1. Does this refer to the physical end of our perceiveable Universe

2. Does it refer to the death of our bodies?

3. I see no evidence that persuades me of a 'life' beyond death.

4. Does it refer to something 'Biblical' in 'Revelations' terms? (An apocalyse?).

5. retribution, Brian, I find it very difficult to conceive of any spiritual retribution...that doesn't have its origins in human beings' actions/behaviours. Apply the term to reaping as we sow... sort of Karma like, and we have to consider that some reap what they don't expect...(Fact!) because of infestation, mutations, lack of water and light, on the crop to be harvested.

1. It is not the end of the universe, as I understand it, it is the end of the world as we have known it e.g. our perceptin of it. It is a totally new reality of the golden age. A new heaven and earth becoming one.

2. No, the death of old ideas, concepts, perceptions and belief systems. e.g. the world is not flat.

3. This is another thread perhaps you would like to start it.

4. Yes the Brides of Christ are being called. The Lover and the Beloved.

5. Reaping what we sow, it is clear that we are reaping what we sow on this planet right now, we are destroying the lifeforce, nature, animals and ourselves and there does not appear to be an end to selfishness at the moment. It is rotting the roots of the tree of life.

But yet I have faith and hope that GODs flock will rise and say enough it enough.

Love beyond measure

Sacredstar

 

[Sacredstar]

Dear Brian

Is not Karma ultimately a form of "natural justice" in that action has consequence?

I say yes it is, cause and effect.

Sacredstar

 

[mirrorinthefog]

Sorry... to make things clear, I do not feel, or think, that there is 'natural' justice.

'Justice' is just a human concept. (... which may, or may not, be projected upon a 'God' or Gods and Goddesses, again by human beings?)

Good and bad things 'happen'... why claim 'chance' has an intelligence behind it... it doesn't seem to achieve anything in conceptual terms beyond being a vague and rather poetic/mystical notion?

Just to be the devil's advocate, for the sake of arguement

If there is no natural justice, then our deeds have no bearing on our overall well being, no matter how moral or immoral, and everything is left to chance. Why bother with artificial concepts of morality, since they seem to obscure our true nature?

It seems like we would be resisting what should naturally prevail. Ideals and morals simply prevent us from understanding our own inherit needs, regarless of how it impacts others around us. It would certianly save a lot of time and energy not to fight for something that obviously is pointless, since good or bad means nothing in the real world.

Wouldn't it be easier to revert to a "survival of the fittest" strategy and weed out those less fortunate then ourselves, since they're obviously of no use to the rest of the practical, logic-based world, with whom power and fortune should lie? Why contribute to the population problem? There would be no need to hide behind the mask of "good" and "bad" deeds, no threats of punishment from some high and mighty source, no need for maintaining harmony except to maintain one's interests. Since chance will favor those who are stronger and more able to cope with life, those who have no strength would be considered excess and either exploited for what they're worth or cast aside.

What's the point of morality if they are man-made concepts with no bearing on the natural scheme of things:? The world, nature, the universe, etc. is unthinking and logical, doesn't stop to consider the unfortunate, has no human sentiments such as "justice" or "mercy" or "evil" and doesn't romanticize about the significance of human life. Why should we?


Just a thought...

 

[Vajradhara]

The point about "justice" being nothing more equivalent than "retribution" is definitely an interesting one to raise - but is no one going to argue for some system of "reward & punishment" on the earthly scale, even if such a system is not necessarily answerable to human culture-specific morality?

Is not Karma ultimately a form of "natural justice" in that action has consequence?

Namaste Brian,

it depends on whos' teaching of Karma that you follow, Sanatan Dharma or Buddha Dharma, as they are a bit different from each other.

from the Buddhist view, if, in fact, all actions produced karmic consequence that couldn't be mitigated, there would be no chance for liberation. that is not the Buddhist view.

generally speaking, most beings will reap the full consequence of their actions since they are not engaging in any actions to directly counter act said consequences. from our point of view, if a being decides to start practicing the teachings, they will get to a point where they can mitigate the reaping of their karmic energy.

further, the fruit of Karma can be of either postive, negative or neutral characteristics... and these things are based on a whole host of physchological factors which is well beyond the scope of this conversation.

my point, essentially, is that most beings aren't really seeking justice, they are seeking retribution.

which, to my way of thinking, is markedly different.

 

[green lantern]

Natural or Divine Justice does exist because I choose to believe. All things will be tried, and judicial decision will be passed in the end...even if it will be in the Celestial Kingdom. My proof is only opinion like others, but I guess we will find out during our transition.