Question for Tao

[wil]

Sort of a cross between me and what I will one day forever be. Dead to the world

Namaste Tao,

How do you explain people that have knowledge of something they shouldn't?

Speak multiple languages without being taught.

Play complicated musical pieces by ear? Not just the memory, how did their fingers suddenly learn to move that fast over the notes?

Do you feel it is just an accident of wiring? Like the accident of creation?

 

[Tao_Equus]

Namaste Tao,

How do you explain people that have knowledge of something they shouldn't?

Speak multiple languages without being taught.

I need verified examples where this has been subject to rigorous scrutiny.

Play complicated musical pieces by ear? Not just the memory, how did their fingers suddenly learn to move that fast over the notes?

There are many mysteries of the brain and how particular individuals are "wired". Many people with Aspergers syndrome, for example, are able to perform that which seems to most of us amazing feats of dexterity in a number of cognitive functions. These are rare physiological features that sometimes crop up and can be mapped by brain scanning. They are not supernaturally endowed.

Do you feel it is just an accident of wiring? Like the accident of creation?

Accident is the wrong word. I see it more as one of the more uncommon but recurrent abilities of DNA to keep on testing out the suitability of particular mutations in a changing environment. DNA does this like clock work and not as a concious choice of course.
As for "like creation", are you referring to life?, people? or everything?


tao

 

[path_of_one]

What about precognition and retrocognition? Telepathy and telempathy?

I know people who do these things. One sheriff detective I know does retrocog to solve violent crimes. He sees a video in his head of what happened at a given location once he gets there. Then he knows where the evidence is. He has precog too, but no way of doing anything about it. He's also been places that he already knew where everything was, though he hadn't been there before.

I've experimented enough in telepathy and telempathy to know it works. It isn't that hard to do, either.

Naturally, there are other "psychic" stuff reported, but these are pretty concrete in terms of verifiability- not too fuzzy and quite testable. There's quite a bit of literature stacking up in psychology regarding reincarnation.

I also tend to think there is something there if Federal programs (particularly the DOD) fund research on parapsychology, remote viewing, etc.

I don't think science in general has a problem thinking there is stuff going on beyond the material world. I've read leading physicists, psychologists, neurologists, etc. that find that the world is more complex and has more going on than we previously thought. It's not a particularly new paradigm or anything. One person's science isn't another's... even in science. You can always argue all the scientists who don't agree with you are quacks, but then the argument back is that you're stuck in an old paradigm and refusing to recognize new data and theories. Truth is probably somewhere in the middle... some quacks, some rigidity in not moving forward.

And I mean "you" as in the collective world sense, not "you" as in Tao.

 

[Tao_Equus]

Hi Path,

Well for me to say that I do not believe there is anything in remote viewing and related paranormal claims would be silly as there are a few posts here where I have expressed my belief that there is some ability there. But I see it as part of a science we do not yet fully understand, and not as evidence for some supernatural realm where God and the spirits reside. Time and space behave weirdly under quantum conditions and as we are as much a part of the quantum world as the atomic one it is possible that we are able to both send and receive information over time and distance in ways that are impossible at the atomic scale.

That said in times past I have looked pretty closely at many claims of psychic ability and I would estimate that 99% of them are not true. And there are many liars that are only to willing to cash in on peoples gullibility. So before I can begin to accept any claim I like to see some independent evidence gathered to support it.


tao

 

[path_of_one]

But I see it as part of a science we do not yet fully understand, and not as evidence for some supernatural realm where God and the spirits reside.

I think that's the mistake in most people's view of the universe (if I may be so bold): to see a natural vs. supernatural distinction. God and the spirits are part of nature too. And we are part of the supernatural. It's all one big system.

Time and space behave weirdly under quantum conditions and as we are as much a part of the quantum world as the atomic one it is possible that we are able to both send and receive information over time and distance in ways that are impossible at the atomic scale.

Yep. I think this is also how real magic works. Things appear miraculous on the gross level of reality but, in fact, the universe is just a sea of energy and probabilities, and it is our intent and perception that makes that gross level of reality. So what appears to be a miracle is, in fact, just a new perception of the same natural stuff yielding and unexpected result.

That said in times past I have looked pretty closely at many claims of psychic ability and I would estimate that 99% of them are not true. And there are many liars that are only to willing to cash in on peoples gullibility. So before I can begin to accept any claim I like to see some independent evidence gathered to support it.

I think most people have intuitive/psychic capacity, but very very few work at it hard enough to be consistent. I know I don't. It'd probably be like another full PhD study. I have played around enough to see there is something there, and I'm naturally OK at some things, but to be exceedingly accurate in anything, you have to use it a lot (just like any natural ability).

Most of the people I know who are genuine don't try to make money off it. They may use it in their line of work- as a doctor, or a counselor, or a teacher, or a manager, or a... but they don't put out a shingle that says "readings for $100" or whatever. Nothing against professional psychics personally, but I'm always wary.

I know enough of the interior workings to know...
1. There's a whole lot that leading language, body language, and face expression can tell you that ain't paranormal, it's just being good at observation and theory.
2. There's a whole lot more that empathy and a little bit of telepathy can tell you.
3. You can say you get #1 and #2 from: angels, dead people, ETs, ancient ancestor spirits from 35000 years ago, whatever and suddenly seem much more exciting (and well paid) than if you were just reading someone's energy, emotion, and thought.

 

[wil]

...Well for me to say that I do not believe there is anything in remote viewing and related paranormal claims would be silly as there are a few posts here where I have expressed my belief that there is some ability there. But I see it as part of a science we do not yet fully understand, and not as evidence for some supernatural realm where God and the spirits reside.

Is there a reason G!d must be supernatural? Cannot G!d just be natural? When we are speaking of texts that are thousands of years old, when folks hardly knew how babies were created, prior to thoughts of germs and bacteria, why would we expect these folks to create thought/science/G!d in any way that we can understand today?

What they were trying to explain is the origin of life, of the workings of the universe, and so they called it G!d. And identified the allness, the potential, the creative force as such. Over time many have identified that G!d is not the anthropomorphic, not unnatural or supernatural, but the fiber that holds this whole thing together.

So you accept the possibilitity of some tele whatever...the mere thought of which was lambasted by science numerous times in the past as folly. But now with cell phones we are transmitting and receiving invisible signals through man's invention...which brings back into the realm of acceptablity that we may have this potential without the invention...

Can you open your mind to G!d in the same way? Can you surmize that folks thousands of years ago may just have the concept right but the details askew, just as we have the same with scientists throughout the ages. Yes each and every one over the centuries is proved wrong, but with their research we were able to stand on their shoulders and discover what we know believe to be true (which in turn 500 years from now will be looked back on as if we were illiterate cave men). So can we not stand on the shoulders of those who had the insights which wrote the Gita, the Torah, the Koran etc and harvest the gems???

 

[Tao_Equus]

Is there a reason G!d must be supernatural? Cannot G!d just be natural? When we are speaking of texts that are thousands of years old, when folks hardly knew how babies were created, prior to thoughts of germs and bacteria, why would we expect these folks to create thought/science/G!d in any way that we can understand today?

What they were trying to explain is the origin of life, of the workings of the universe, and so they called it G!d. And identified the allness, the potential, the creative force as such. Over time many have identified that G!d is not the anthropomorphic, not unnatural or supernatural, but the fiber that holds this whole thing together.

So you accept the possibilitity of some tele whatever...the mere thought of which was lambasted by science numerous times in the past as folly. But now with cell phones we are transmitting and receiving invisible signals through man's invention...which brings back into the realm of acceptablity that we may have this potential without the invention...

Can you open your mind to G!d in the same way? Can you surmize that folks thousands of years ago may just have the concept right but the details askew, just as we have the same with scientists throughout the ages. Yes each and every one over the centuries is proved wrong, but with their research we were able to stand on their shoulders and discover what we know believe to be true (which in turn 500 years from now will be looked back on as if we were illiterate cave men). So can we not stand on the shoulders of those who had the insights which wrote the Gita, the Torah, the Koran etc and harvest the gems???

Wil,
Thx for the post and can I say that I am honoured that you took the trouble specifically for me to address these issues.
It is not the first time that you have tried to express these thoughts to me, to ask me to question if I come down too hard in favour of cold rationalism. And in the doing neglect the value to be found in various paradigms. For me, here at CR, there is a place I can come and read the experience of spirituality that is meaningful to the posters. I draw from them both positive and negatives that are of real value in channelling my thinking. It happens to be where I am at at this time that I am particularly trying to focus on the concrete effects religion has had and will have into the future on the ability of humankind to solve the perennial issues of war, inequality and injustice and the looming threats of global warming and a global food crisis. I realise that my demeanour of uncompromising critical scrutiny makes some theists uncomfortable, and makes me appear as dogmatic as any zealot, but I do try to present honest discourse that stimulates debate on the real issues facing mankind. I have firm, but rarely rigid, views of my own that are maybe not the norm here but in some sense they are representative of many people across the world. In some sense we are all ambassadors for a certain way of thinking not unique to ourselves.

As I am not a man living 1000s of years ago and I am not a believer in any religious faith the views I present are neither archaic nor religiously motivated. In some of my posts I have tried to explain that I do understand why religious beliefs arose in mankind by citing exactly the same reasoning that you ask me to consider. But understanding that the attempts of the ancients to explain their universe were no more naive than our modern ones with science does not deflect me from very real truths of so many people dying or being made to suffer in the name of one God or another. I do not, and have not, precluded the existence of a creative entity but to me it is (a) implausible and (b) irrelevant because there is clearly no intervention to prevent the many terrible acts perpetrated each day in the name of God. You may cite 100 acts of kindness carried out by people of faith for every death carried out in its name and to me it is still 1 death too many. I do not think human kindness needs permission from religion to be naturally given out by the vast majority of people. And I think more generally in wider society religion is one of the key factors that prevent different communities from intermingling. If they do not mix there can be no acts of kindness. I see a key factor to a global harmony emerging is a lot more inter-marriage between different communities and nationalities, but religions too often scorn this. There are many other areas where i see the influence of religion as contrary to real progress but I will leave that for now and address the personal spirituality that you seem to find the important part of it all that you seem to think I miss.

I do not need to express a belief in a creator or creative force to be awed and humbled by the pure scale and majesty of universe I glimpse. In the same way that I cannot concern myself in any rational way with the bacteria that live out their lives in my gut the universe does not care about me. I accept that. I do not need the universe to acknowledge me to be happy and content to simply be alive to witness the moments of existence I witness. I believe that our passions and longings that emerged from our evolution as social animals result in all the notions of the spiritual humankind possesses. Spirituality is a part of the human condition and not a part of some universal truth. That is not to say that it has no value, it does in at least as much as it gives some people a framework with which to express their social values and logic. But for me personally I dont need it. I feel that it has been hinted that I am somehow "missing the point" and that I have adopted a dogmatic scientific approach as my 'spirituality'. This is not the case. It is true that I trust the principles of science over the emotive faith of the spiritual but I have not made a choice between them. It is not for me either one or the other. I reject spirituality because I do not find it useful to me and I embrace science because it is the best way we have to study anything and has yielded so many evidences of its ability to deliver real answers. I do not see it as a competition between the two and I never have. The disdain I have for the spiritual comes from its intimate association with religion. Again I see it as not being worth the price all its negatives accrue. It is the language and ritual of spirituality that most clearly defines it and they are exactly what religions use to lead people into terrible wrongs. So whilst all these wrongs continue I will continue to find it difficult to see the value of spirituality to both myself and to mankind. We have after all been playing with this for many 1000s of years but it has been analytical thought and not spiritual that has brought us progress. You have made a huge personal investment of your time and psyche in your beliefs. I never did that and maybe that is why I am able to describe it in ways that seem so alien to your thinking. Having no spirituality does not prevent me from feeling all the emotions you do, does not prevent me caring, loving, missing, mourning, or anything else in the whole range of the human condition. I am not alone in that. There are many millions of people like that. I just read 82% of sweden ticked atheist in their latest census. Is there a more socially advanced, caring and longer lived or happier population on this planet than Sweden? That there are many caring and compassionate atheists out there shows that religion and spirituality are superfluous at best, and very arguably damaging to us as a species. I do not say what I say here without thinking Wil, and I do not say it to annoy people. I say it because it is my heartfelt best interpretation of the facts as I see them.



regards

tao

 

[path_of_one]

I find it all very interesting that as science merges more with spirituality, some determine that spirituality is irrelevant or worthless. Perhaps it is the conceptualization of science and spirituality that gets in the way.

It is easy to think that religion has had predominantly negative effects for humankind, but it would be, I think, an incorrect analysis of the data. I can get into details if you want, Tao, with references (once I return home- I'm leaving tomorrow AM for a root canal out of state- yay).

Religion, like all social institutions, has advantages and disadvantages, contexts in which is helps and others in which it hinders. It is an integrated part of a culture, and so it cannot be analyzed merely as a category of human behavior and thought without being placed in context with other aspects of society. Blanket generalizations about social or cultural attributes are rarely useful or accurate, which is why anthropology and sociology make so few of them.

I appreciate your sincerity, Tao, and your honesty. But I would challenge that the science and analysis behind it would be considered faulty...

I think atheism is fine. It doesn't really affect me, and as you say, most atheists I've met are nice people. I'm not on a mission to get people to believe in God. I see that as a very individual and personal thing. What I rail against is the position that somehow spirituality and religion are invalid and extraneous, because that is simply not what I observe, both in my own life and in the historical and social data.

There are lots of problems with organized religion. But to say it is worthless is akin to saying there are lots of problems with economy, politics/government, and language too-- so they are also irrelevant and deleterious and should be abandoned. If you seriously study the cross-cultural data, the functions of religion are fairly clear- just check out the enormous literature on medical anthropology and cultural ecology for some of the functions. That we separate science from spirituality is itself a rather arbitrary and odd occurrence in the first world West, and one that is tenuous at best.

Modern science has generated a track record of horrible human and environmental rights violations just as religion has. It's also generated some great and wonderful innovations. There is nothing shiny and special about science that makes it immune from the horrible ways people choose to use social institutions. It was science, not religion, that came up with nuclear weapons. Science, not religion, that experimented on Jews during the Holocaust. Science, not religion, that insisted for years on classifying races in a heirarchical manner to justify others' exploitation. Science, not religion, that has allowed us to become incredibly unsustainable, outstripping our resource base. Case in point- the first world is the most scientifically advanced, yet it would take 5 earths if everyone lived as we do. Science allows the deepening of inequality. Religion may justify disadvantageous human actions, but science does its part by contributing the means.

Bottom line, how I see it-- the problem isn't science or religion. It is people. Science and religions are tools. People are the ones who choose how to use them. That is what the data support.

 

[Snoopy]

(once I return home- I'm leaving tomorrow AM for a root canal out of state- yay).

I recently had double root canal work done on me; by a dentist who trained in the good ol US of A; so I'm hoping you've been just fine Path. I'd like to think the use of meditation assisted me through the two one hour sessions but maybe it was more the anaesthetic.

s.

 

[wil]

Namaste Tao,

Please do not think I am trying to convert you. As you indicated folks here assist you in developing and understanding of their spirtuality. Likewise your views assist me in understanding your beliefs and in the process, clarify, tweek, question mine. For this I am grateful to all here.

But here is my question still. You have indicated that you see the potential of remote viewing, and thought transfer type possibilities.

I don't see G!d as any kind of entity and believe me it took years to be able to discuss the word without thinking of my sunday school upbringing. But I do see G!d as all of us connected, all of us and all of everything as manifestations. And the reason that communication is possible is due to the fact that we are one. Part of the great collective. Same reason folks have skills that cannot currently be explained. I can't give you specifics but through my life I've seen television specials not on supernatural but on idiot savants, and others with extraordinary skills, extraordinary because we all don't have them or don't acces them.

 

[Tao_Equus]

Wil,

That savants and geniuses regularly appear in the human gene pool for me only goes to prove that DNA has an inbuilt capacity to always cover as many options as possible. Gifted people with innate, not learned, abilities need no supernatural explanation, they can be perfectly understood on that level, DNA covers all bases. It throws up mutations with a regular automatic frequency. To read into it some higher causation is not really honest.

The connectedness of all things, and I mean by that every sub-atomic particle in the universe, is something that feels right to me given both my personal experience and my observational search. But that connectedness to me has no higher or purposeful origin nor goal. It is benign, the relationship being just as automatic as that of DNA as above. I think we are indeed pretty close on where our overviews currently sit in many respects. But I cannot attach a label that implies deity, or some such notion of purpose where I honestly cannot see any. In addition to me God has become a very dirty word. Its association with the very worst of the crimes against our own kind and nature as a whole make it something akin to calling a wonderful meal a plate of vomit. I can and am happy to refer to the whole as supernature, but I refuse to get dragged into supernatural language that to me is when all said and done, fanciful and non-existent without the human choice and submission to the ignorance that we call faith/belief.


tao