Forums IMPORTANT: PLEASE READ Beyond Human Trust in Science

Regardless of whether a glass is considered half full or half empty it still contains the same volume of liquid, hence as Babayada suggests, "one reality but two perceptions."

And does it matter exactly what the Universe is, be it vibrating strings, quarks, holograms or otherwise, whatever it is, it is, and probably is for all of us.

As regards the picture, it doesn't matter how you view it, whether with your eyes, fingers or your feet, a picture is still a picture; that is the reality, the rest is perception.

And yes, it might be a sad world if we saw everything in black and white but then how can we be absolutely sure that it would, maybe it wouldn't, maybe it would be a better world. And of course, if we state unequivocally that it would be a sad world if we all saw everything in black and white, does that show a lack of flexibility?

Great thread guys.

Regards, and stay chilled.
Steve.

Hi Steve,

A couple of points I obviously need to clarify,

Perception and reality.
Perception is the observation by the senses leading to the minds understanding of reality.
I don't dispute 'reality' but it is how the individual understands it which creates their own reality.

'Seeing the world in black and white' is, as I am sure you know, a well known saying. It means someone sees things in extremes and does not appreciate the infinite gradations of grey which lie between the two. When I say it would be a sad world if it was black and white I mean that we would not have all the wonderful possibilities which the shades and tones of grey would provide if we were so tightly bound by stringent rules.

Cheers
Love and light
Faune

I don't really percieve Technology as being Science's Sister. You can arrive at Technology through Music, cooking recipes, politics, law, photoreading etc. Although called a Applied Science methinks that is a very limited concept. It will encompass science but is not limited to it.

Also don't see that Science is getting beat up here. As with all perceptions, everyone sees the reality of science as being somewhat different.

One of my perceptions of Science is a bunch of guys in lab coats slowly puttering around the american cancer society collecting $750,000 a year salary. What a great job of marketing. Now when I see money raising events for them I avoid them like the plague.

When I hear of Scientists for food companies developing digestion blocks and keep their customers hungary so they will purchase more food, becoming obese and not getting the nuitrition from food and then have to purchase vitamins and supplements to get what they really need, what am I suppose to think?

Science is somewhat like a gun. It can be used as a weapon or for peace keeping. It is also a very valuable subject to the world as a society.

You also might thank the media for portraying the evil scientists the way they do. Only the bad ones get the media exposure. The rest of the good guys don't sell any news.

Harmony with the universe, I think, comes from realizing that it does not conform to your wishes and beliefs. Like any partner, you got to learn to accept it for what it is, warts and all. This doesn't mean you can't work with reality to make changes. It means you have to work with reality, at least in some part of the process, to make changes.

You can boil water at sea level by creating pressure, yes. Perhaps I should have specified that by stating "at sea level" I was implying at a specific pressure, Jeff? No. You knew that. You're just trying to show me that for every rule there is an exception (except when there isn't). I get it. Just as I am sure you get the significance of knowing you have to change the pressure instead of increasing your desire for it or visualizing harder.

Faune, the wonder of reality is that we get to both share in it AND have our own, unique experiences of it. But reality is reality. You might like shrimp tempura, I might hate it, but it's still shrimp tempura. There isn't any loss of unique experience by admitting that it's the same piece of shrimp tempura from which we both took a bite.

A blind person can feel a painting and because of his or her enhanced sense of touch will probably have a more rich tactile experience of it than a person who touches it and is not blind. Same painting, though. Two totally different experiences of one reality.

Being realistic doesn't mean living without color. Reality is where we get our experiences of color from after all. And for all its limits, reality offers a tremendous amount of choice... real choice.

The longer I live the more I realize that fighting for limitlessness and freedom in youth was a wasted effort. I really do think that if I had only been able to see my limits with sobriety and work within them I would have achieved much more and had a much more satisfying life.

Believe me, I have lived a very privileged life. My problems have often been because of lack of limits. I have experienced more freedom in certain areas than a lot of people. I got whatever I wanted. As I look back, I realize that if I hadn't been able to simply just get whatever I wanted, I would have had to work within limits, and this would have made me ask the important questions like, "This thing I want so badly, is it really worthwhile? What would it be like if I had it? Is it really worth it?"

Instead, there was a tremendous amount of waste. I had more than others, but from a certain perspective I had much less.

Limits aren't so bad, so long as they do not strangle you.

Re: Master Lin....

Let me start off by saying that I respect energy workers. I don't know what it is they do, really. I don't know if its subtle energy or if something like subtle energy exists. I *suspect* it does. I don't know. I have experienced healing at the hands of an energy worker, so there you go.

I haven't read his book. But I bet that what happened is that there was something about the particular circumstances that allowed the electricity to pass through him without harming him. A lot of the sensational stuff that people do to impress others is based on laws of physics, and anyone can do it. Firewalking, beds of nails, wood breaking and all that stuff. It's to impress people who don't know what's really going on.

I think the way the quantum world works (from what little I know) is pretty amazing. It appears to me that through probability, this crazy stuff at the quantum level gives rise to the fairly predictable world we sense and live in. Things look crazy at the quantum level, I think, because of the limits of our senses and tools and our fresh acquaintance with it. As time goes by and we learn more and more about it, I am guessing that we'll discover something that makes us go, "OH! So that's how it is! Well, that makes perfect sense!"

May take us a while to get there.

When I see new agers taking stuff like the split screen experiments as evidence that consciousness creates reality, I get pretty upset. I think they are jumping to conclusions and making a mockery of Quantum Mechanics.

I guess my opinion of it is summed up this way: just because something appears magical, that doesn't mean magic exists... it just means that the universe is filled with mystery.

That was nicely written Babayada.

Paul Scheele brought something up at a retreat one time about successful people and that is they find one way to get the result they want and then once Mastered will find another way to do the same thing completely unrelated to the first. They just keep on doing this. If they crash and burn, they have so many way of doing things in their repretoire, it's like a non-event.

In a way it is seeing a reality and have the choice to deal with it in a multiple of ways.

I once heard the story of the little boy who's mother made him take piano lessons forever and a day. He wasn't getting it so his mother bought tickets to go see a famous Virtuoso play and show her son what she wanted.

Before the show the boy got seperated from the mom and saw the piano on the stage so he went to play. After a few key strokes the Virtuoso came on the stage and placed his arms around the young boy and told him to continue playing. He played along with and around the young lad creating a masterpiece. The crowd gave a standing ovation.

This story impressed me alot and I took it to work with me to put into practise there. So when my group of engineers takes on a project I will do anything I can to support them but they will do the work and they will do it their way, I do my best to predict which direction they are going and prepare things for them at the right places.

The result has to be the right one or they keep on working on it until complete and probably not the way I personally would do it. From doing it this way I develope competent people and some good friendships. I also get to experience a way different reality than my own.

Because they work from their perceptions,experience and information a reality is changed and different from what I would have made or done in their place.

I do not believe that consciousness creates reality. Reality is energy that already exists and can only transform into another energy state.

In the art of Aikido there is much talk about unifying mind and body with plenty of demonstrations with ones mind engaged and without it.

In Sping Forest Qigong, Master Lin has another interpretation of the Yin/Yang symbol that adds a yellow line between the yin and yang that stands for consciousness. To me, both of these are saying the same thing.

I believe that if your consciousness is actively unified with the energy known as reality then you have a pretty good chance of getting what you want. If you sit back and wish, not much will happen.

As I grow it seems to get more elegant and beautiful but is basically "get off your butt and go to work, you'll feel alot better if you do." Reality.

Aloha

Jeff

Babayada , Jeff and Coyote,

Thankyou for your responses they clarify at great deal.
I will think of things in a different way .You see you all have your own views on the subject and that is what I love so much about this forum.
We are so diverse in our 'perceptions' that it makes for a world.full of interest and possibilities.

Love and light
Faune

Well said, Faune. If the universe were left entirely to "scientists" we'd still think it was flat, and that the Sun rotates around the Earth. That's what scientists once thought. It takes someone with vision and courage to truly understand the universe--and more so to try to explain it to the rigid "scientific" community.

Do we need science? Of course we do, but not as an orthodox church, fundamental and unbending. The best and most significant discoveries throughout the ages have always flown in the face of the "science" of the times, and sometimes resulted in the discoverer being jailed or even having his/her life threatened.

Bless the scientists, but also bless those who dare to question them.

Faune.

Don't worry about it, honestly, no clarification is necessary.

Regards, and stay cool!

Steve.

Cheers Steve,

I'm too old to be worried about science and the nit picking about words.
I'm just enjoying the debate.

Love and light
Faune