Naturally, spirits do have interaction with our human universe. If they did not, we would have zero knowledge of their existence – whereas direct observational evidence (albeit in the form of anecdotal experiences) does exist in spades. Try reading some MPSIMS threads on paranormal encounters – nearly everybody has a spooky story to tell!
It’s quoted around the 4 or 5 minute mark, and the context isn’t important. You’re also mistaken to assume only one universe exists (advanced quantum physics presumes the existence of infinite parallel universes) – but since that’s rather off-topic, I’m willing to drop this particular thread of discussion.
According to advanced quantum physics, yes. (I know…it’s a mindfuck.) And these parallel universes do intersect all the time, you just have to look very hard for the evidence. (The mode of transmission is probably via the 11th Dimension, the interconnecting “membrane” theorized by M-Theory.) But like I said earlier, this is rather off-topic – parallel universes have nothing to do with souls at all.
Take a sheet of paper. Two dimensions, right? Now roll it up into a tube. Roll it tighter and tighter. Eventually you get something that looks like a very thin straw. From a distance that straw would look one-dimensional. All you could see is length. But if you looked really closely you would notice that there was actually a second dimension there curled up tightly.
That’s what the extra dimensions from string theory are. They’re right here. We’re moving around inside them right now. But they’re curled up so tightly we don’t notice them.
I suppose you also believe in fairies, alien abductions, djinni, night hags, 900 foot Jesus, UFOs, Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, vampires, and all the other silliness that people have claimed to have seen over the millennia ?
Not a bit of it. Well…night hags, yes. But only after I sober up.
Look, just because you’ve never encountered a spirit doesn’t meant they don’t exist. In fact, you’ve probably encountered many spirits but never noticed them, or interpreted them as something else. Don’t assume your subjective reality is the same as consensus reality – they are clear and separate things.
Going by all the evidence, no one has EVER encountered a spirit, and also going by all the evidence they aren’t even possible. Unsupported assertions of extraordinary events and violations of physical laws aren’t evidence.
Are you saying all those people who believe is spirits are liars? Or are you merely jealous of them? And I’ve already explained how spirits can exist within the bounds of mainstream scientific theory – so why don’t you just concede the point? You’re beginning to sound like a close-minded asshole.
Some are liars; some are deluded; some are just wrong. Eyewitness testimony of anything is terribly unreliable; especially in an area where so many have religious convictions, and in many cases would feel outright virtuous for lying. And such an extraordinary claim requires some very impressive evidence to deserve being taken seriously; not unsupported claims.
And why would I be jealous ?
No, you didn’t. You made some handwaving involving a theory you obviously don’t understand.
There’s nothing “sad” about it; it’s the simple truth.
What do you mean? You never dream? You never imagine? You never come up with something creative, something that is uniquely you? Because, all those things are part of your own personal subjective reality, and I’m hoping you simply misinterpreted the definition – because having no dreams and no imagination would be a sad, lonely place to be.
Dreams and imagination aren’t real, therefore aren’t “subjective reality”. Subjective anything isn’t real; that’s what makes it subjective and not objective. “Subjective reality” is an oxymoron.
Of course they are real. They are triggered by brain activity which can be monitored and observed by EEG and MRI machines. Experiencing a strong dream can affect your emotions, and sometimes it can inspire you to make a change in your life. Imagination can change the world – just ask Stephen King, J.K. Rowling, or Peter Jackson.
If you are compelled to impose a superficial dichotomy between “consensus” reality and “inner” reality, by claiming one is “real” and the other is not, then you probably aren’t qualified to be part of this scientific discussion. They are both halves of the whole – to claim one is more “real” than the other is incredibly silly and even somewhat biased.
Don’t be silly; dream a boat; buy a boat and see which is better at getting you across a river.
When you start talking about the supposed reality of spirits and claiming evidence for them just because you’ve convinced yourselves they exist, that’s like claiming that dreaming about a boat proves you own one.
Believe it or not, I was actually quite skeptical about auras, chakras, and all that spiritual-based stuff until I started hanging out with a New Age church, and took classes on how to use wiccan magick. Turns out, a lot of this stuff does work – and it works because there is a genuine science behind it. I don’t presume to understand all of it, but most of the low-level stuff has such obvious science behind it, I don’t even think of it as magick anymore.
Here’s a simple spell you can try yourself. When you hear a baby crying in a crowded restaurant, tap your fingers on the table. It has to be loud enough to get the baby’s attention, but quiet enough so it doesn’t distract anyone else’s attention. If you find the right rhythm (and this part’s more art than science) the baby will stop crying. Why does it work? Very simple – you distracted the baby long enough to make it stop thinking, “FEED ME DAMMIT!” and instead start thinking, “Hmm, what’s that?” Pure science. Try it some time.
As for your silly boat analogy – no, an imaginary boat won’t help you cross a physical river; but a physical boat won’t help you cross an imaginary river, either. (And, if you know how to apply The Secret, “imagining” a boat can lead you to a physical boat, or guide you to a ford where you can cross without requiring any boat at all.)
:rolleyes: And that has absolutely nothing to do with wiccan magic, voodoo, mystic crystals, or any other such nonsense. That’s just simple psychology. By that logic, if I scrawl a little inverted pentagram in the corner of a hundred dollar bill, the fact that people give me what I want in return for it proves the power of Satanism.
But we are speaking of the real world. Dreams are irrelevant.
That statement is just mind boggling. From my point of view, one could say, “I love it when evidence offered is seen as a lack of evidence.” One of the reasons I don’t participate much in these discussions anymore is because of exactly that. One may disagree with the conclusions of my evidence. One may say that my evidence does not satisfy him personally. But pretending that no evidence has been offered just because one doesn’t consider it to be convincing is not just intellectual dishonesty; it is intellectual bankruptcy. There is simply nothing to convince you that I am offering evidence worth acknowledgment other than for you to live my life. That’s not going to happen. What will happen is that every item of evidence offered will be rebutted with some metaphor or claim or denial that is nothing more than a counterpoint — not a refutation. “I disagree” is not a refutation. I said years ago that people on both sides of this argument have valid points, each of us coming to the discussion with reasonably drawn conclusions based on our own knowledge and experience. Apparently, some are unwilling to return even this basic courtesy. And until that happens, no progess will be made to understand one another. We don’t have to convert each other. I don’t think that’s even the point of these discussions. For me, the point is to understand each other better. If that’s not going to happen, there’s no reason to engage as far as I’m concerned. And so, this is Liberal out. Enjoy. (You may now fling your martyr, get off the cross, take my ball home, or whatever ad hominems at will. I frankly don’t care anymore.)
First of all, do some research. Pentagrams are a PAGAN symbol, not a sign of devil-worship. It’s only Christian prejudice that makes people assume that pentagrams are evil. That said, I’ve experimented with pentagrams recently, and they are VERY powerful – they can literally summon demons. (And by that I mean people’s inner demons…)
Second, knock it off with the straw men. Naturally, writing a pagan symbol on a $100 bill (which btw is just a scrap of worthless paper, it only has value because all people believe in the FICTION that money has value, if you don’t believe me take a look at what’s happening in Zimbabwe) has zero affect on its monetary value – but that has nothing whatsoever to do with the original OP on whether souls exist or not. Why are you continuing this hijack? Does the concept of spirits & magick frighten you that much?
Perhaps you don’t recall some of our previous discussions. That’s fair, they happened many years ago. Perhaps you might consider that I’ve changed in my absence. That’s fair, as well. But the comment was not about what someone considered personally convincing like their own empirical results. It was about the whole “there’s all these dimensions we don’t know about” remark.
As a relativist that sometimes teeters into full-blown subjectivism it’s something I accept as true without protest. But it was not what motivated my comment.
Wonderful way to end a soliloquy about understanding each other and open discussion.
I think it’s clear there is something we refer to as spirit. A combination of intellect, our emotional make up, and our moral compass. Perhaps that’s what makes up our consciousness, although we are sometimes unaware of parts of our own consciousness. I think it’s also fairly clear that personally and as a race or a society that spirit is evolving. Hopefully, slowly and painfully, towards something better.
The question of whether that spirit is something that exists aside from our physical bodies is currently unanswerable IMO. We don’t know. We can’t know. In fact there is no need to know. Is it an area worthy of inquiry and exploration? That seems obviously so. We can continue that exploration, that quest for understanding and growth without any definitive answer to that question.
I’d say acknowledgment of a spirit is perfectly reasonable if we agree that it’s a part or perhaps the entirety, of what we also call our consciousness. Our intellect, our emotions, our moral compass.
(Inside joke, sorry.)