Forums IMPORTANT: PLEASE READ Beyond Human Can i really fulfil my dreams?

I read how the professional (and amateur) skeptics have been trying to blow holes into the double blind prayer research. Time will tell, I suppose.

I'd like to believe that "Magickal Thinking" could produce success all on it's own. But, I'm more inclined to think that it works by decreasing stress, selfishness and negativity, so you can be more open to noticing and acting on the opportunities already around you.

But, like any effective myth or faith, it only really "works" when you believe in it.

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Originally posted by lad:
I read how the professional (and amateur) skeptics have been trying to blow holes into the double blind prayer research. Time will tell, I suppose.

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Time has already left the skeptics far behind.

They are clinging to an archaic materialist worldview, which has been experimentally disproven by modern quantum physics research.

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I'd like to believe that "Magickal Thinking" could produce success all on it's own.

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I wouldn't.

It requires a specific process, and there are different levels of skill and sensitivity with regard to manifestation.
Like in everything, some are very naturally talented at it, and can develop it to agreat degree, and some can't.

Those who have little or no ability at all in this area, or who never bother to investigate the matter for themselves first-hand, become "skeptics".

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But, like any effective myth or faith, it only really "works" when you believe in it.[/b]

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Wrong; It works when you effectively engage the process, practice it, and refine it.

And there are different technologies which produce different kinds of results, as our friends in the SFQ forum can surely tell us many stories about.

[This message has been edited by garics (edited August 22, 2005).]

[This message has been edited by garics (edited August 22, 2005).]

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Originally posted by babayada:
So, in terms of mindset and generalization, believing you can can can is what can get you into real trouble in some situations.

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You always seem to pick up examples of some arrogant people in not so normal (like facing a cobra) circumstances. Picking up some negative examples do not mean much - actually that's why most people are negative and don't get much accomplished in life. They just wake up, go to work to report to a boss, come back home, watch TV and sleep. Positive thinking, having goals and working toward accomplishing them with the faith and belief that it can be achieved by him/her is what gets you to your destination. Success is a journey and a series of events. It is not a TV with a remote control.

Most new age interpretations of quantum mechanics by non-physicists are MISinterpretations of it.

Skeptics are not the ones who are behind.

If you know anything about history you will see that we are supposed to be on the other side of the age of reason, in which we use the advanced methods of reasoning (a la the scientific method) to discover the truth and advance our thinking.

The new age and attendant movements are movements backwards into magical and superstitous thinking ... you know, the stuff the age of reason was supposed to be a movement AWAY from?

Praise pseudo-science and muddled thinking if you want, I am sure it feels good, but the thinking of most people who believe in superstition is not critical, rigorous, or advanced. In all reality it's rather primitive.

And just because hearing someone talk about quantum foam makes it SEEM like anything is possible and reality is just an ever shifting set of probabilities tending towards one outcome or another based on our perceptions, that doesn't mean that's what it is. The cat in the box IS either alive or dead. Our perception of it does nothing. The metaphor was intended to help explain our perception of events. It wasn't meant to be taken literally. Keep your wits about you. Quantum mechanics is just describing what we know to be true in new ways. It does not throw common sense out of the window, although it may appear to if you can't manage to keep your head on straight.

Just because we cannot measure location and speed of quantum particles simultaneously does not mean that a quanta does NOT have a location when we measure its speed or that it doesn't have a speed when we measure its location.

Give me a freaking break.

Did you know that a physics professor wrote an often quoted paper that, basically, proposed all the statements about the world that many would like to believe? It is a magical ever shifting morphic field subject to influence by will and yada yada yada. He did it to show how easily people can be made into fools. Its contents were completely erroneous. It was filled with glaring logical errors. But no one but hard scientists saw them, because what he said was pretty.

This essay is STILL being quoted. I wish I had a link to it so I could show you.

But, there you are. Deepak Chopra (his degree is NOT in physics, by the way) and others can talk about quantum mechanics all they want. The thing is, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, and taking discoveries out of context can lead to a whole bunch of nonsense.

A lot of so-called support of various new age ideas is just drawing wrong conclusions from good science by pushing ideas outside of their proper contexts. For instance, many use that example of the rotation of one particle being affected by another over great distances to be proof of telepathy. Ummm, ok. The logic is: because it can be seen as analgous, it must be true. And that is NOT proof. It might be poetry, but it's not reason and not science.

Lets take the growing amount of evidence that everything in the universe is connected. The rotation example serves to support that. Some people say, "See! We are all connected, we are all one mind!" Well, that's a hell of a leap. I think we are all connected, more or less, but connected HOW is the question. And the examples from quantum mechanics do not answer that question. As far as I know, they don't know HOW it's all wired together, they just have evidence that it is. Adding the how because something is analogous is, again, not scientific and it's not scientifically proven. Sorry.

DesertSphinx,

Yes. And an example I use to explain a point is not my life.

I am not against planning and having goals. If you read what I have written you'll probably see where I agree that planning and pursuing goals is a good thing.

[This message has been edited by babayada (edited August 25, 2005).]

You know what ... I was just thinking, words are cheap. Let's put this crap to a test.

Why don't we agree on a sum of money. You guys can talk to each other in email if you want and come up with a sum of money. Keep it secret from me, but all make sure you agree on the same sum. Make it something significant. Over two-thousand dollars US would be nice.

Then, using your powers of mindset, try to actualize me receiving this sum within a specified period of time. If mindset can affect reality in measurable ways in this regard, I should receive the money.

Up for it?

If I receive the sum (in one lump sum, not in small parts) by a certain date, I will post a message in which I eat crow and admit that I was wrong and so many others here are right.

Want to put your money where your mouths are?

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Originally posted by babayada:

Just because we cannot measure location and speed of quantum particles simultaneously does not mean that a quanta does NOT have a location when we measure its speed or that it doesn't have a speed when we measure its location.

Give me a freaking break.

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"I believe that the existence of the classical path can be pregnantly formulated as follows: The path comes into existence only when we observe it."

-Werner Heisenberg

(BTW classical path means distinct location and velocity of a particle in the sense described by Isaac Newton)

Perhaps you would accuse Werner Heisenberg, one of the founders of modern quantum theory, of being a new-age pseudoscientist.

BTW, I was a math major in college who took five semesters of physics, including quantum mechanics with multivariate calculus.

Based on your descriptions of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle and Bell's Theorem, I can surmise that YOU aren't getting your information from a physics textbook.

I will respond more to this later but am currently too busy with work, moving into a new apartment, and other fun stuff like that

[This message has been edited by garics (edited August 25, 2005).]

I would like to examine more fully the context of that quote, but as far as I have read, his philosophy on the subject is bunk.

I have to state that his proposal can be put this way:

The limits of our measuring tools are the limits of the universe.

Following this logic, if the tree falls and no one is there to see or hear it, it doesn't fall at all. But any person with a developed brain learns object permanence. When mommy and daddy go "peek a boo!" and then cover their faces with their hands, they don't disappear from existence. They are hidden behind their hands. The same with position and velocity.

So, which shell is the pea under? Velocity or position?

When people hear "observing a phenomenon changes it" they are bamboozled, because they don't know what measuring devices are being used. If you say, "Observing someone changes them fundamentally by the act of observing" they may or may not understand. But when you add, "Well, by 'observe' I mean eviscerate so we can get a look at their insides," the picture becomes perfectly clear. The way we measure quanta often affects the nature of the quanta because we're bouncing stuff off of them!

Much of what you propose is a regression not only historically in terms of the progress of reason, but even the progress of basic cognitive ability and mental functioning acquired early in childhood. In this light, the new age is quite literally retarded.

Try this on for size:
http://www.skepticreport.com/tools/quantum.htm

[This message has been edited by babayada (edited August 25, 2005).]

What I said is very simple:
"...Bottomline is to get the fastest result, you do need to believe, have faith that you can accomplish, make your goals and targets and work toward them consistently."

It does not require people to learn quantum physics or string theories. You'd like everyone to focus on you making $2000+ to prove your point? I think most people have better things to do with their time (like practicing Qigong - do you know how that works?). Please go and research some of the medical reviews about Qigong and mind-body concentration technics.

Everything has to exist in the unseen before the seen. An architect visualizes/imagines a building before it is being built. How do scientists explain a thought? A geometric point (it is a definition by the way)? When you mention about visiting a friend, in your mind/thoughts/imagination, you have already gone, visited, greeted, had meals, had fun & came back home in less than a fraction of a second. When you want to drive to a certain place, you already visualize the whole route, possible stop points, traffic, weather conditions, etc before going there - that's why it makes it smoother and you are more confident that you can certainly go there. When you go somewhere for the first time and have no visual guidelines, your mind keeps wondering "what if, is it, how come, where the heck is that street, ...." etc. What will you eat for tomorrow's dinner? Well, you see, you already visualized all possible items. This is visualization, imagination. The more you use it with your projected goals and plans, the better result you get WHEN you work. You don't need a magic wand or Einstein's theory or particle physics to understand that.

As we grow, we learn new things. A few hundred and thousand years ago people thought earth is flat, center of the universe - science evolved since then - the idea of science and scientists is that it is an ever evolving subject. Our thought process, belief changes as we learn new things and accept new realities (like wow! we can fly!!).

Our current scientists have never seen God or heard his voice but over 5 Billion people believe in God. What scientific explanation? What is the perfect scientific explanation of feeling, love, dreaming - only opinions and we are still learning.

What would happen if you are in a car next week and someone hits you from behind and gives you $5000 for compensation? Would you consider that an accident or it happened because some of us read your question and thought about you getting $2k+?

Have you ever practiced Qigong? Photoreading? Aren't they weird/different? Are they hypes?

DS,

I agree that to get your goals quickly, belief in your capability helps if that belief accurately reflects your ability.

If you have an inaccurate belief, it can slow things down. That is, if you believe in yourself too much you risk incompetence, if your believe too little you risk not trying.

What I do not believe are notions like "everything has to exist in the unsees before the seen." The unseen where? A mind? Your point of view presupposes a cosmology in which I do not believe. So should the universe disappear? According to the logic in such statements, apparently it should. Ahh, but then we get all manner of speculative crap as to the reason it does not. You could use Occam's razor and cut all through that.

Scientists might explain thought as the result of electrochemical activity in the brain. You could go to a forum where people who have spent their lives studying this issue discuss it and ask your question there.

You are confusing imagination with reality, my friend. Try eating imaginary food and drinking imaginary water for a month. Perhaps then you'll learn that thoughts are not, in fact, things.

Our imaginations are the result of brain activity. We use our brains to process information about the world. The information only exists as a relation between our brains and the world by way of our senses. We use our brain activity to do things in the world and make differences in the world around us. What happens in our brains is just processes in the meat. This is why we have to actually DO THINGS. You go to the store and buy food. Real food. You eat it with a real, not imaginary mouth, and you digest it not with thoughts but with your squishy internal bits.

The new "realities" we learn about come about through the process of experimentation. (They aren't new realities, BTW, reality remains constant, our perceptions of it change.) This is where we test our ideas against reality. According to your world view, any idea should work because it's an idea. But every idea does not work. Ideas aren't realities, ideas aren't things. Ideas are the result of wet processes in the brain and do not exist without brains to create them.

I have played around with Qigong. Here is my recommendation for you: go buy The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sachs. It offers undeniable proof that thoughts as we conceive them and much of what we think of as ourselves or our spirits or souls are simply results of the brain being the way it is. He documents cases of unusual brain damage in which a person's perception of reality is completely transformed. Sadly, it's all in the brain. Read it and you'll see what I mean. Reading it made me very sad, but it is better to look the ugly truth in the eye than live with pretty lies. You may want to take the blue pill. Sometimes I do to. But it's best to have guts and swallow the bitter red one.

More faulty logic in your post: quantity equals truth. Because so many people believe something, it must be so. You say this right after saying that people erroneously thought the world was flat. So was the world flat when everyone believed it to be so? Or is it possible for large quantities of people, such as yourself, to be totally wrong?

If someone hit me in a car next week and I got $5000.00 dollars I would post it here. It may have been a coincidence, but then again it may not. It would give me pause. It'd also make me think that if someone caused that, they were a real jerk and that I hope that karma actually works so that they'd get a nice accident, too.

I have to say it is very convenient that people have better things to do than perform experiments that would confirm or eradicate their beliefs. That is, put their rhetoric to a real test. I understand you're busy believing what makes you feel comfortable and just don't have time to see if those beliefs really reflect reality or not. The truth hurts sometimes.

I think there is something to Qigong, but the mechanics of how it actually works are speculative, as far as I am concerned.

I think Photoreading is pretty much a sham. When they say, PHOTOREAD ZILLIONS OF WORDS PER MINUTE! And then say, well, we don't really mean read ... by photoread we mean ... blah blah blah. Intentionally misleading advertising and flim flammery. That being said, there are parts to it that are helpful.

[This message has been edited by babayada (edited August 26, 2005).]

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Originally posted by babayada:
I would like to examine more fully the context of that quote, but as far as I have read, his philosophy on the subject is bunk.

But any person with a developed brain learns object permanence. When mommy and daddy go "peek a boo!" and then cover their faces with their hands, they don't disappear from existence. They are hidden behind their hands. The same with position and velocity.

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Well, the problem with your argument, is that no one has ever
"seen" an electron. Electrons are only detected to exist
through the filtering mechanism of high-precision laboratory
equipment, which can provide various clues as to what they
are, but do not, in any sense, provide the observer with a first-
hand glimpse of an actual electron.

Therefore, your analogy is invalid, as are the
conclusions you drew from it.

Additionally, you seem to be suggesting with this argument,
that any scientific result, which violates the laws of
"common sense" as they appear to our five senses, is
(necessarily) pseudoscience and is invalid...
Well all I can say is, I'm glad that this point-of-view
didn't carry the day when Einstein's Theory of Special
Relativity arrived on the
scene, in the early part of the last century.

As you probably know, many of the conclusions of special
relativity, completely violate the reality-picture afforded
by our naive experiential perception of the world through the
medium of our five senses.

(Or maybe there's a skeptical website somewhere, that argues
against the conclusions of Special Relativity...?)

I.e., everyday reality suggests that the mass of an object stays constant
even if it moves relative to an observer. It would
also seem plausible, from everyday common sense, and the notions derived
from our senses, that velocities are
additive; this, if I am moving at a speed A and I throw an object
with a speed B, the velocty of that object as measured by a
stationary obeserver will be A + B. This isn't true either, it is
only approximately true, for speeds much less than the speed of light.

Profound scientific discoveries, are always about
violating our notions of "ordinary common sense," and without
exception, there is always a pool of sceptics who decry them
on this basis. (Just as there was a LARGE group of people who considered the Special Theory to be rubbish, until it was repeatedly confirmed experimentally.) However, as in the case of special relativity, the
"focusing mechanism" provided by advanced laboratory experimentation
has confirmed these un-commonplace notions, to be
correct. Thank God there are indivduals wiling to
inquire into the nature if reality, no matter how paradoxical
or bewildering the results may seem....

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Try this on for size:
http://www.skepticreport.com/tools/quantum.htm

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I've tried it on for size...and its a couple of sizes too small,
unfortunately. This guy seems to be proposing the idea
that electrons are merely "flying billiard balls", that always
travel with a definite trajectory, and not anything else.

Unfortunately this does little to explain the two-slit experiment;
in fact, the two-slit experiment, which any physics major
has contact with in his freshman year at college, completely
invalidates the notion that electrons are merely "tiny billiard
balls", flying around with definite trajectory.

Here's a description:

Two streams of electrons are fired at a screen, which can register
their impact and measure the number of electrons hitting the screen. A barrier
is placed in between the electron source and the screen, and two small holes,
just large enough for the electrons to pass through, are
made in the screen. When both sources are firing, let's say that
a value of 60% of the elctrons are found to arrive at the
incandescent screen on the other side of the border.

When one of the holes is covered, however, it is found thsat a
GREATER PERCENTAGE of electrons hits the incandescent screen.
This completely violates the notion that electrons are "tiny billiard balls" for they
are obviously interfering with each other in some wave like
way, when both slits are open...even materialistic observers
are baffled by this, and quantum physics has yet to really
explain the "wave-particle duality"; i.e., sometimes electrons seem
to behave like particles, sometimes they seem to behave like
waves.

So the a priori notion that electrons are tiny billiard balls, and nothing more,
is totally invalid,
and is contradicted by the facts of experience.
Where did that idea come from, anyway? Why is that more
sensible or intelligent than another expalanation? Because its
easier to understand? That's a pretty poor criteria for the
validity of a scientific assumption, if you ask me.)

BTW, what are your credentials and education in this area?

You earlier attacked Deepak Chopra (whose books I've never read,
and whose views on quantum physics I am completely unfamilar with)
for not having credentials....Then you invalidated the statements of one of
the scientists who originated the theory (and with that comment, by extension
you invalidated the ideas of Niels Bohr, one of the greatest scientific
geniuses of the 20th century, who said..."Anyone who is not shocked by
quantum mechanics has failed to understand it.")...
So which is it? Do credentials and university education matter, or do they
not?
Or do only consider that someone has "credentials" in this area
if they write for a skeptical website??

If so, this is a perfect example of "mere belief", which you usually criticize.

BTW, your evaluation of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, and the reason for the Uncertainty relation, are not correct; nor are the opinions of that guy on the website....its the wave-like nature of the medium used for measurement, as well as the inherently wave-like properties of the "particle" being measured, that is the true source of the uncertainty, not the size of the particles, or the limits of the measuring equipment...

I'll explain it more later, but I only have so much time and space here....

(edit)...the area
of experimental results derived from investigation of the focusing
mechanism provided by high tech laboratory equipment..you have attacked others and parrot what
the skeptical websites say, even though they **edit*
..don't necessarily have the proper credentials for discussing these matters.

And likewise, with technologies like yoga, qigong, meditation, and other exercises
which "focus" the mechanism of human consciousness, and thereby disclose
greater, and in some cases, non-"common-sense" truths about the different levels of reality, you *edit*are don't necessarily have experience with those either.

The spiritual reality
is not a matter of mere belief; the great truths of the wisdom traditions
are not afforded by people who are merely "offering an opinion", without any experience.

They are offered by those who have actually DONE THE EXPERIMENTS (the experiments being, yoga/qigong/
meditation poractice, for 20-30 years, for an entire lifetime, until
the "focusing mechanism" is precise enough to yield information about
the higher subjective truths of reality.

(For more information about the difference between TRUE spiritual
practitioners (i.e., those who have actually DONE THE EXPERIMENTS), and those merely offering mythological beliefs and opinions,
see Ken Wilbur and his commentary on the "pre-trans fallacy", an error
indulged in by skeptics, postmodern poststructuralists, and other naive realists...)

You have not done these experiments... therefore
all your cynical criticism and aggressiveness towards
those who are actively pursuing these options, *edit* not as valuable as it could be.

What you should do, instead surfing the internet
and trying to talk down to people who are
engaged in "the great experiment" (of human consciousness), or instead of indiscriminately criticising
someone who offers something besides the "billiard ball"
theory of reality, is go out and experiment with a
movement or meditation practice for yourself, for about five years. Daily.

With sincere dedication, and open to whatever phenomena arises, and whatever
truths and levels of reality begin to unfold.

Your whole disposition will change thereby, and only in that case will your views on the
matter have any legitmacy, or claim to truth-value.

[This message has been edited by garics (edited September 02, 2005).]