Aug 21 2011: Aldous Huxley's essay on comparative religion, The Perennial Philosophy, was the turning point for me. The brain (at least, the part adapted to dealing with, the worldly, more superficial sphere of knowledge), as a reducing valve for survival in time, makes sense to me.
His later experiences under the effects of the halucinogen, mescalin, recorded in Heaven and Helll The Doors of Perception, if not quite as beautiful, is at least as fascinating. Here is a YouTube gem:
Jul 20 2011: Jim Lloyd, I think the solution to the multiverse/intersubjective question is a simple and anything but counter-intuitive one - although, ironically, secular fundamentalsits will doubtless claim it to be counter-rational! They, of course, claim that the absurdity of paradoxes are 'counter-intuitive', when they really mean, or should mean, 'counter-rational'! But then, they believe that paradoxes are not really total mysteries at all. One day, science will explain them all!We all come into this world alone, we know not whence, and leave it, we know not whither - at least in terms of the details. It would seem to me that what would answer perfectly to the 'inter-subjective' concept would be if we are each born into a little world of our own, all of which are seamlessly coordinated to appear a single world at the mechanistic level, but not at the quantum level. A Jewish mystic once commented to the effect that, when a man dies, a whole world dies with him.
This is all very personal, but so is light in its relationship to us, as indicated above; while light is all but a synonym of God in Christianity, and I believe is celebrated in festivals of most of the great religions.
Jul 20 2011: "I still think science is driven more by what we expect to find than some objective truth.. "I'd slightly amend that, Scott, to "I still think science is driven more by what 'we' want to find than some objective truth." How else can one explain the failure to acknowledge that light entertains a personal relationship with the observer? A man stands on the cusp of the globe facing the direction of its rotation and with the light of the sun shining on his back. The light will always hit him at its absolute same speed, taking account neither of the speed of the earth's rotation nor his own constant speed in the same direction. In other words, it is customised, indeed, personalised. In the light (sic) of this unambiguous fact, materialism is clearly not a metaphysical paradigm, but a nonsense; while the great, theist and Christian paradigm-changers of the last century were right; the prevailing, informal, but actual paradigm, unsurprisingly, plain wrong. It certainly ties in with Planck's remark: "I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness."
Jul 2 2011: "Could it be possible that ultimately the universe is explained through the essential ideas of metaphysics? Will we find that after all there was a limit to objective and experimental study?"
Absolutely. Max Planck could scarcely have expressed the matter more succinctly and unequivocally. No progress has been made since, with regard to the force he spoke of, of course, because it is clearly beyond the scope of empirical science, at least, as defined by our hegemonic Einsteinian "naive realists"/secular fundamentalists.
"As a man who has devoted his whole life to the most clear headed science, to the study of matter, I can tell you as a result of my research about atoms this much: There is no matter as such. All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particle of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter."
The impression I have had for a long time is that the further physicists have advanced, the more securely they are locked out by imponderable paradoxes, which, were they not real, would be oxymorons.
The more intelligent scientists have accepted, at least privately (the corporate sponsors who fund the piper don't approve of discussions of quantum physics), that paradoxes are by definition imponderable, but must be accepted as mysteries, no less magical than the mysteries of the Christian faith. The "naive realists" proclaim to the effect that it is only a question of time before science will fathom all the secrets of the universe and beyond. I imagine it was to these that James Watson was referring when he remarked:
"One could not be a successful scientist without realizing that, in contrast to the popular conception supported by newspapers and mothers of scientists, a goodly number of scientists are not only narrow-minded and dull, but also just stupid."
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A reply on Conversation: Have you believed something - or the idea of something - and discovered you were mistaken, or wrong? What's your story & what did you learn?
His later experiences under the effects of the halucinogen, mescalin, recorded in Heaven and Helll The Doors of Perception, if not quite as beautiful, is at least as fascinating. Here is a YouTube gem:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5d4wWGK4Ig&feature=player_embedded
A reply on Conversation: Have you believed something - or the idea of something - and discovered you were mistaken, or wrong? What's your story & what did you learn?
www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=10&ItemID=4647
A comment on Conversation: Are science explanations of the universe tending more and more toward metaphysics and philosophy?
This is all very personal, but so is light in its relationship to us, as indicated above; while light is all but a synonym of God in Christianity, and I believe is celebrated in festivals of most of the great religions.
A comment on Conversation: Are science explanations of the universe tending more and more toward metaphysics and philosophy?
A comment on Conversation: Are science explanations of the universe tending more and more toward metaphysics and philosophy?
Absolutely. Max Planck could scarcely have expressed the matter more succinctly and unequivocally. No progress has been made since, with regard to the force he spoke of, of course, because it is clearly beyond the scope of empirical science, at least, as defined by our hegemonic Einsteinian "naive realists"/secular fundamentalists.
"As a man who has devoted his whole life to the most clear headed science, to the study of matter, I can tell you as a result of my research about atoms this much: There is no matter as such. All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particle of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter."
The impression I have had for a long time is that the further physicists have advanced, the more securely they are locked out by imponderable paradoxes, which, were they not real, would be oxymorons.
The more intelligent scientists have accepted, at least privately (the corporate sponsors who fund the piper don't approve of discussions of quantum physics), that paradoxes are by definition imponderable, but must be accepted as mysteries, no less magical than the mysteries of the Christian faith. The "naive realists" proclaim to the effect that it is only a question of time before science will fathom all the secrets of the universe and beyond. I imagine it was to these that James Watson was referring when he remarked:
"One could not be a successful scientist without realizing that, in contrast to the popular conception supported by newspapers and mothers of scientists, a goodly number of scientists are not only narrow-minded and dull, but also just stupid."