Philosophy Now Forum

The idea of such a time capsule featured in an article not long ago in a reputable science journal, the name of which escapes me because I subscribe to a number of them. It was put as a serious proposal that we locate such a capsule on the moon to be found by the next species which evolves on our planet with the ability to go and open it. I thought it was an interesting idea and one well worth considering since in all likelihood any civilisation which develops the capacity to destroy itself will almost inevitably do so. I thought it might be a considerate gesture on our part to warn the future inheritors of our planet about a few of the things NOT to do.

Many years ago I did a "back-of-the-envelope" calculation of how many more times a species could evolve to our level of sentience on this planet before it became too uncomfortably hot for such an evolution. At the time I came up with a figure of about a hundred times but I've since decided that this figure should probably be revised downward somewhat. Would anybody else be willing to take a stab at it?

Well, this is the hottest year ever, so far, and the largest ever piece of ice just broke off of a glacier, so, Leo, you might want to revise your estimate.

14. Can meditation make you one with the Cosmos?

MEDITATION

People can’t usually ever see
Further than an order of magnitude
Beyond where they are rutted, but…
Some can intuit ultimate reality!

It says, in those ‘dreams’, Of ever waking,
It’s hard to convince you with dream-language,
As when, in wakeful reality,
To tell you of that which is beyond telling.

During meditation, one clears the mind,
And so, then, there’s no real self, just one quale—
A near nothing that has little need to be;
Is this what-it’s-like to be a pure soul?

Physics, once more direct, seems now but an
Immaterial science of math-shadows,
While mysticism, once but a foggy notion,
Now’s the direct observation of the Light.

Meditation shifts intention away
From controlling and acquiring,
Toward acceptance and observation:
One takes-in instead of acting upon.

Enlightenment’s not grasped or possessed—
Acquisitive aim locks the secret out—
The form of consciousness that one starts with;
This is why “the secret protects itself”.

The ‘spiritual’ refers to profound connection,
Though not through visions or ecstatic emotion,
But with the experience of connectedness that
Underlies reality, and nothing more.

Meditation relieves the survival self,
Shifting attention from acting to allowing,
From emotional identification to observation,
From instrumental thinking to receptive experience.

Meditation, renunciation, and service
Are not really mysterious, just different
From the usual object-oriented approach.
Mysticism is modern and ancient, not esoteric.

In serving the task, one forgets the self,
And accesses life’s connected aspects
That go beyond one’s self-centered consciousness—
The survival of mankind being at sake.

Awareness is the ultimate being,
Fundamentally connected with ‘soul’,
And cannot be known in terms of worldly
Objects—it’s like, well… you have to be there!

The connectedness of everything to everything,
A rudimentary perception in and of itself,
Experiential in its ultimate physical disposition,
Facilitates consciousness of exterior through interior.

Not exactly. Actually, the quietus
Of the brain’s self-boundary and ID center,
Via focus on mantras, hymns, or prayers,
Is but a neurological effect, nothing more.

(Tested via electrodes in expert Buddhist monk meditators)

Even long before the 1927 Solvay conference the problem of physics was always all about "the problem of the observer", Austin, and this goes all the way back to Descartes and Newton. These guys were just plain WRONG because the observer is made of the stuff of the universe itself. We are in and of this thing and cannot perceive it from god's external perch outside it and looking in. To understand the nature of reality we must observe our world from the inside looking out, which means from inside our own minds and looking BACKWARDS down the arrow of time. We live in the wake of our own past which stretches for 13.8 billion years into its own horizon. We exist on the boundary of a self-making cosmos and because the speed of light is finite we can observe only the holographic flicker which reality leaves behind.

15. Do OBEs and/or NDEs take you to some other realm?

NDE tunnels of light and such
Can be explained by neurology,
And OBEs by a condition called sleep paralysis,
In which one is partly awake,
But cannot move.

When one is half asleep but half awake,
Or even half dead or half alive,
One is in a mixed state of both.

OBEs can also be chemically induced,
Resulting in full blown episodes.
Neither, then, are proof of a beyond,
But of an altered brain state.

I’ve had several OBEs.

In the first one,
I noted that the scene
Looked as real as real could be,
But I did nothing further
Than to float around the bedroom,
Full of amazement.

I later figured that the dream model of reality
Is the same one that is employed
When we are awake.

During the second OBE,
I rearranged the items on my end table,
Even knocking one item off.

All still felt totally real to the touch and all that,
And I was sure that I would see the evidence
Of the end table results later when I fully awoke;
But when I really awoke
I saw that nothing had been moved.

I also found that I could awake
From dreams anytime
By clenching my whole body,
And so during the third OBE
I luckily found myself in a kind of halfway state
In which my dream-arms
Were seen to be fiddling with the end table stuff
While I could also see my real arms
Just lying beside me, unmoving.

It’s not only visions that come in an OBE,
But of any sense;
Once I kept a dream song playing
For 10-15 seconds after I awoke—
It was playing only on the mind-brain ‘radio’.

I guess the moral is that
Sometimes a virtual dream reality
Cannot be told apart from the real,
Although it is always
And only the mind-brain
That puts a face on reality.

I was so sure that I was out of my body,
But one must also remember
That memory and imagination
Often images scenes from above (try it now).

When one is ‘floating’ above one’s body in an OBE,
It is not that Gravity’s laws have been repealed,
Nor is one in another dimension,
But just in the mind, as always.

It is also the case that people of different religions
See different religious symbols during NDE’s,
An indication that the phenomenon
Occurs within the mind, not without.

OBE’s are easily induced by drugs.
The fact that there are receptor sites in the brain
For such artificially produced chemicals means
That there are naturally produced
Brain chemicals that,
Under certain circumstances
(The stress of an trauma
Or an accident, for example),
Can induce any or all of the experiences
Typically associated with an NDE or OBE.

NDE’s are then nothing more than wild trips
Induced by the trauma of almost dying.

In an NDE, one is in danger of death
And so the brain is certainly not in a normal state,
Perhaps even being drained
Of oxygen and nutrients.

Lack of oxygen produces increased activity
Though disinhibition—
Mental modes that give rise to consciousness.

What about the experience of a tunnel in an NDE?
Well, the visual cortex is on the back of the brain
Where information from the retina is processed.
Lack of oxygen, plus drugs generated,
Can interfere with the normal rate
Of firing by nerve cells in this area.

When this occurs ‘stripes’ of neuronal activity
Move across the visual cortex,
Which is interpreted by the brain
As concentric rings or spirals.
These spirals may be ‘seen’ as a tunnel.

Seeing a light at the end of a tunnel
Is a result of how the visual cortex
Works in this state.

We normally only see clearly only
At about the size of a deck of cards
Held at arm’s length
(Try looking just a little away
And the clarity goes way down)—
This is the center of the tunnel
Which is caused by the neuronal stripes.

I am not dying to have an NDE.

I have to admit that I am not that keen on poetry. In fact I've always tended to say that if you have a think to say just bloody say it. Don't dress it up in arbitrary metre, rhyme or verse. Such devices that might appear clever, break from the meaning and make the statements open to interpretation. In some instances this can be beautiful.
But that was only true before I read this thread of doggerel.
Having read through the last effort from our resident poet master I can only say that my negative opinion of poetry has reached new levels of distain and utter horror. Don't give up the day job, if you have one.

Hobbes' Choice wrote:I have to admit that I am not that keen on poetry. In fact I've always tended to say that if you have a think to say just bloody say it. Don't dress it up in arbitrary metre, rhyme or verse. Such devices that might appear clever, break from the meaning and make the statements open to interpretation. In some instances this can be beautiful.
But that was only true before I read this thread of doggerel.
Having read through the last effort from our resident poet master I can only say that my negative opinion of poetry has reached new levels of distain and utter horror. Don't give up the day job, if you have one.

I don't want to discourage other's from their style of writing because any writing is better than none. But I happen to 'feel' the same as you on this. I like poetry but am more biased to relate it with music (perhaps I'm spoiled?) I think what I don't like about using it here is only about degree. Poetry, to me, is an art intent on creating the type of abstraction that is usually designed to be purposely obscure so that it appeals to the widest audience within some given domain. And as art, it can appeal to us best when such abstraction is done to provide multiple interpretations [thus, the obscurity] AND depends upon the reader to 'fill in the gaps' what they FEEL is true. So it is emotionally laden too which only gives it more power to some than it deserves when people think it provides more insight by audience interpretations rather than the author's.

Scott Mayers wrote:

Hobbes' Choice wrote:I have to admit that I am not that keen on poetry. In fact I've always tended to say that if you have a think to say just bloody say it. Don't dress it up in arbitrary metre, rhyme or verse. Such devices that might appear clever, break from the meaning and make the statements open to interpretation. In some instances this can be beautiful.
But that was only true before I read this thread of doggerel.
Having read through the last effort from our resident poet master I can only say that my negative opinion of poetry has reached new levels of distain and utter horror. Don't give up the day job, if you have one.

I don't want to discourage other's from their style of writing because any writing is better than none. But I happen to 'feel' the same as you on this. I like poetry but am more biased to relate it with music (perhaps I'm spoiled?) I think what I don't like about using it here is only about degree. Poetry, to me, is an art intent on creating the type of abstraction that is usually designed to be purposely obscure so that it appeals to the widest audience within some given domain. And as art, it can appeal to us best when such abstraction is done to provide multiple interpretations [thus, the obscurity] AND depends upon the reader to 'fill in the gaps' what they FEEL is true. So it is emotionally laden too which only gives it more power to some than it deserves when people think it provides more insight by audience interpretations rather than the author's.

Quite agree. On a philosophy Forum Obscurantism and multiple interpretations are not useful.

Hobbes' Choice wrote:
Quite agree. On a philosophy Forum Obscurantism and multiple interpretations are not useful.

Wait, I'm only saying that the obscurity of attractive poetry causes multiple indeterminate interpretations. It doesn't invalidate them by choosing to do so and I am not against them to continue. But I think it is helpful to point this out to those who use it so that they can have the capacity to narrow their meaning productively where it appears to be obscure.

I don't propose discriminating against people for using it. I've used art to help provide clarity by sample which can provide a means to aid us in relating to each other better.

It's hard to conceive of a more metaphorical language than the one which physics already uses. When it comes to obfuscation the language of mathematics wins the chocolates ahead of anything a poet might conceive of. I mean for fuck's sake boys and girls: an expanding space? a curved space? particle superposition? wave/particle duality? virtual particles? black holes? etc etc etc

We know these things are metaphors but metaphors for what? In their hubris the geeks remain stonily silent.

For the use of art imagery in physics try this one from the world of drama.

You are playing the lead role in your own private soap opera, a story of your own creation. You came into the story at a finite point in time and you will leave it at a finite point in time and so you are both ACTOR and ACTED UPON. The universe will be forever changed because of your existence in it.

You are surrounded by a gazillion other physical entities all going through the same experience with a greater or lesser level of awareness of this truth. You interact with them in the MAKING of the future but you can observe them only in the past. You are all alone in your moment NOW and surrounded by ghosts.

Scott Mayers wrote:

Hobbes' Choice wrote:
Quite agree. On a philosophy Forum Obscurantism and multiple interpretations are not useful.

Wait, I'm only saying that the obscurity of attractive poetry causes multiple indeterminate interpretations. It doesn't invalidate them by choosing to do so and I am not against them to continue. But I think it is helpful to point this out to those who use it so that they can have the capacity to narrow their meaning productively where it appears to be obscure.

I don't propose discriminating against people for using it. I've used art to help provide clarity by sample which can provide a means to aid us in relating to each other better.

Aesthetics is for art. I really don't see a role for poetry in mainstream philosophy (at least for the range of questions we tend to deal with), and in particular this thread.

Obvious Leo wrote:It's hard to conceive of a more metaphorical language than the one which physics already uses. When it comes to obfuscation the language of mathematics wins the chocolates ahead of anything a poet might conceive of. I mean for fuck's sake boys and girls: an expanding space? a curved space? particle superposition? wave/particle duality? virtual particles? black holes? etc etc etc

We know these things are metaphors but metaphors for what? In their hubris the geeks remain stonily silent.

I too share similar differences on physics but this doesn't mean they don't have a validity to their procedures or conclusions. For instance, I am certain that dark energy is the cause of the expansion of space which in turn is also a function of gravity (as a push or pressure). Particle superposition is also not something that is invalid but to me just a misinterpretation of what matter actually is. But they use a top-down approach via practical means to interpret reality without accepting a bottom-up approach [a logical argument from basic principles to explain reality]. This is why I opt to begin using nothingness as a start and try to demonstrate how this can still derive things like laws and apparent abstraction of number and/or logic as real things. We need both approaches to discover truth regardless of whether you agree to using nothingness as I do, one thing as others do, or an infinite set of things.

Superpostion/duality? This can be a result of how I explained strings as forms of spirals that originate what matter is. It's structure necessarily presents particles as having a symmetry that extends in two opposing directions and the 'superposition' is represented by how the spin of one arm at some given distance has an equal and opposing spin and vector direction on the other arm. [see "My theory" This is just an example of how things can be argued by a different perspective, not necessarily something you should or should not agree to.

Obvious Leo wrote:For the use of art imagery in physics try this one from the world of drama.

You are playing the lead role in your own private soap opera, a story of your own creation. You came into the story at a finite point in time and you will leave it at a finite point in time and so you are both ACTOR and ACTED UPON. The universe will be forever changed because of your existence in it.

You are surrounded by a gazillion other physical entities all going through the same experience with a greater or lesser level of awareness of this truth. You interact with them in the MAKING of the future but you can observe them only in the past. You are all alone in your moment NOW and surrounded by ghosts.

Good example. But we appeal to art because we are also logically confined to biological imperatives that command us to act or react to our emotions with a priority over any amount of logic competing with it. The models of science may be 'art' too in this respect where they appear relatively obscure to others. Yet they are unavoidable. The only other way to demonstrate ideas we discuss about reality is to directly denote them in practice, something not everyone is eligible to do.

Scott Mayers wrote: The models of science may be 'art' too in this respect where they appear relatively obscure to others.

Absolutely so. Our models of science do not inform our stories of the universe, Scott, and this is where physics puts the cart before the horse. The universe just does what the universe does and it is through our narratives of this behaviour that we create our various models.

You've got this all completely back to front, my friend, because your expanding space and your dark energy are only a part of one particular story of the universe and not a feature of reality itself. Your multiverse is merely the infinite index of possibilities for such a story, none of which are reality itself. These things have always been known to philosophy so why would you reject them at a time when physics has hit a brick wall? Why should our map all of a sudden be synonymous with our territory and why this map?

This is the stupidest question in human history which physics keeps asking itself.

Q. Why do our "laws of physics" describe the universe we live in instead of some other universe?

A. Because that's what we designed the fucking things to do!!!