Somehow, I see those effects as having something in common, something which Western culture seems to ignore, disregard, or misunderstand, and that is ‘spirituality’. America is the most aspiritual nation I know of, completely obsessed with the ‘scientific method’ and ‘rational thought’. We cannot thoroughly explain electromagnetic force, or gravity, or quark spin states, but believe that they are scientific, and therefore will be understood at some point.
‘Spirit’ is an English word with many meanings. Few of them are based upon science, but most people would say that they have had experience with ‘spirit’, whether it be at a football game, or in a church, on a youth camp outing, in school, or at home. Yet, ‘spirituality’ is something which does not qualify as a subject worthy of scientific investigation, or only for investigations which set out to ‘prove’ that spirituality is a sham, a fake, an illusion.
A person is alive one moment, and dead the next. What has changed about their physical composition, chemical balance, or whatever you want to describe their physical being with? Something made them alive, and then it left. What was it?
Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster.
Because it is something that is not testable or repeatable. I’m not going to teach you the fundamentals of logic and reason and the scientific method. But one of the fundamental tenets is that it describes the universe in a way that is observable and repeatable. The sun always come up in the east and sets in the west. Even if you don’t know why, you can test this theory to be true.
Scientific investigations of “spirit” as you describe it are better left to research on psychology and human consciousness, rather than physics. How people perceive their world and themselves is something that does get a lot of scientific study.
Again…hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster.
What it was, was process and activity. An engine that is running is different from one that has stopped, because the process and activity has ceased.
It sounds like you want us to accept the existence of something which by definition cannot be observed. If it cannot be observed, why shoukd we even suspect it exists?
Chemical processes can start and stop. When someone dies, a large and complex network of chemical reactions stops – not instantly, by any means, but over a period of time. The marrow in the bones of the femur keeps on producing red blood cells for a while after brain activity has totally ceased.
When a candle goes out, do you consider it a mystery what happened to cause the light and heat to cease?
Really? Have you not been paying attention to American politics at all? An idiot in Kentucky is in jail because she is disobeying the law due to her spirituality. Four years ago almost all Republican candidates denied evolution because of their spirituality. In Europe for the most part even if a politician is a believer they see no need to blather about God every minute.
In the 19th century there was tons of investigation of the spirit world - all of which came up empty. That is because it is utter bilge. What course of research would you recommend?
If this were true, determining what death means wouldn’t be so difficult. We’ve got this poor little girl being kept on a respirator by her parents because they won’t believe she is dead.
Your computer is running, and kind of alive. If the power supply malfunctioned and sent ten volts to all the chips, they’d get fried and the computer would be dead. Yet you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference from looking at the circuit board. Same thing with people. When we die we lose vital functions and pretty soon our parts degenerate.
Actually, this isn’t true. There have been very many investigations that hoped to find scientific evidence of the paranormal (‘spirituality’ being a subset thereof). None of them succeeded. Any time it looks like someone did actually reap significant results from their experiment it turns out to be experimental error, wishful thinking or deliberate bullshit.
Can you suggest a framework for an scientific investigation of spirituality that you think would be fair? How should we go looking for this stuff?
None of the phenomena you list as examples of your “force” in action are in any way mysterious. Science has already provided perfectly valid, workable explanations of each and every one of them without needing to invoke mystical bullshit on top of stuff that actually, you know, exists. The thermodynamics of life and order, for instance, have been thoroughly examined and calculated, and to anyone with a basic understanding of the laws of physics it should be self-evident that there’s nothing there needing to be explained. HINT: the earth is not a closed system, and we’re being powered by a massive entropy-producing ball of gas up there in the sky.
From one padawan to another: Don’t let these skeptical materialists get you down, halman. Mysticism is elusive by its nature. Experiment! Go to an acupuncturist, sit in an orgone accumulator, ingest a hallucinogen, meditate for twelve years in a lamasery. Experience firsthand, form your own opinion.
Science is the understanding that opinion is worthless bullshit, and we should really check it against reality before deciding that what you think is true.
The fact that those who had the “urge” to reproduce reproduced while those that didn’t didn’t. So all that we see today are the ones that had such an urge. Basically life is a particular arrangement of atoms and molecules that successfully reproduces itself, and so as a result took over the world. This is evolution in a nutshell.
The theory of evolution isn’t actually so much a theory based on observed biology (although it is that too) as it is a mathematical tautology.
That particular arrangement of cells which allowed the person to function. Its like taking the a copy of war and peace chopping it up into little pieces of one word each and then randomly reassembling them. You still have all of the physical components of the book but you no longer have war and peace. Where did it go? Was there some spirit of the book that left?
Are you the kinda guy to scoff at love because of its biological basis? Should that prevent you from seeking relationships? I’d say not. Same deal with spiritual practices. I’m not making a claim about Life Force, I simply provided some examples of pertinent methods and technologies which could contribute to an informed opinion. Does engaging in any them exclude a scientific perspective? I’d say not. Why all this phobia about personal experimentation?
You may very well walk away wondering why the hell you laid there for hours with needles in your “meridians” or with an appreciation of why Reich was accused of medical heresy. Defense rests.
As for my opinion on life force… i take it for granted. All the NRG running through the biosphere and the cosmos. Heaven and Earth. The more expansive your notion becomes the more you bear on metaphysics. How do we understand it, apart from science? I often refer to Tao Te Ching, verse 1… grease the mind for paradox…
Forgive the shorthand. I picked it up in chemistry class. I’m not being hippydippy here. I mean ENERGY… kinetic, potential, chemical, the “ability to do work”, cannot be created nor destroyed, equivalent with matter… plenty mystifying, perhaps more so than qi or prana since it taps into the realm of the measurable.
But like the Injuns say, nature is foremost The Great Mystery. As OP pointed out, modern cosmologists maintain most of everything is nothing breeding more nothing that adds to everything infinitely…
