Is the Life Force A Real Force?

[QuickSilver]

@halman

Perhaps I don’t want SCIENCE to look at my idea, but people, beings who can emote, share concepts, and imagine.

Albert Einstein
Richard Feinman
Carl Sagan
Neil DeGrasse Tyson
Stephen Hawking
Lawrence Krauss

Just a tiny number of scientists whose ability to emote, share concepts and imagine is not the least bit hindered by their commitment to the scientific method.

@halman

Someone mentioned mysticism way back in this thread, and that defines what I am questioning. I see around me phenomena which I can not explain with Newtonian, quantum, or astro-physics. I have had experiences which cause me to question causality and our perception of time.

Classic ‘god of the gaps’ argument.

@halman

I know that there are others who consider the power of a hand breaking bricks to be derived from something which SCIENCE does not know how to approach, because it is, by definition, ‘supernatural’.

Explained through high school physics: Impulse and momentum. You’re welcome.

@halman

Another poster tossed off one of my examples as being merely ‘teamwork’, as if such a thing were so obvious that there is no point in examining what is going on. But what IS going when people working together create or achieve something which could not have been created by the same individuals working separately? A group pulling in a net achieves a task which their individual strength, added together, could not achieve is one example of such activity. ‘Team spirit’ is not a phony or fabricated thing.

Some objectives are better accomplished by a group of people. Some are individual efforts.

@halman

Having heard the argument in favor of dark energy, and being aware of the evidence presented, doubt began to creep into my mind about whether Science has blinded itself to a part of the Cosmos because it does not fit into the rational, causal framework which we have created to explain what we see when we look outside our little speck of dust. Consider the prolonged refusal to accept that things fall out of the sky; Rocks do. Sometimes lots of them. Big 'uns, too. Meteor Crater in Arizona was not identified properly until less than a hundred years ago, if memory serves, even though theories of extra-planetary origin had been put forward as early as 1903. ‘Rocks don’t fall out of the sky’ people said, and the scientists considered that to be truth. They WANTED it to be the truth.

Nonsense. In what way is science discredited because we didn’t used to know things that we now understand very well?

@halman

Currency in the United States says “In God we trust.” Not only do we believe in an unseen, all-powerful being, but we trust it, too. My theory about the Life Force is, indeed, only a theory, but I consider it to be valid concept, worth exploring. There is nothing else out there that is going to save us from ourselves. (No, I am not suggesting that the Life Force is going to ‘save’ us. We need something to unite us.) Examining the Cosmos with an open mind and a willingness to believe is far different than duplicating someone’s results with a chemical reaction.

Back to, ‘god of the gaps’.

[Stoneburg]

@QuickSilver

Unless you can demostrate otherwise, conscience is bound by matter (the brain and body) and exhibited through complex electro-chemical process that can be measured, and what’s more, altered by internal and external actors.

And space, as it turns out, isn’t quite as empty as we previously thought.

Actually the Truth is what it is, no matter what you, me or anyone else “thinks”. From my perspective we (as in the human race) is exploring this universe through our senses and we quite frankly don’t know how it works. And most don’t even know what/who they are, since they are stuck in a story of “me” and filter their experiences through pre-existing memes.

Modern science has not been able to explain what consciousness is yet, hence the “hard problem”. Saying that consciousness is bound to matter is putting the cart before he horse from my perspective. Matter is a product of energy, not the other way around, so whether consciousness is energy, space or emptiness it definitely can’t be “bound” to matter.

And yes, there is a difference between space and emptiness, which is why I wrote “matter < energy < space < emptiness”. And when the mind directly knows and experiences emptiness, the ego or self disappears.

[Telemark]

@halman

Currency in the United States says “In God we trust.” Not only do we believe in an unseen, all-powerful being, but we trust it, too.

It was added to US currency in 1957, so before that apparently we didn’t believe or trust in an unseen, all-powerful being. Nice to know.

[Mikeisskeptical]

@Stoneburg

Modern science has not been able to explain what consciousness is yet, hence the “hard problem”. Saying that consciousness is bound to matter is putting the cart before he horse from my perspective. Matter is a product of energy, not the other way around, so whether consciousness is energy, space or emptiness it definitely can’t be “bound” to matter.

Let’s examine the idea for a moment that Conciousness is either space or emptiness. I think the best place to start is by providing a framework in which that statement could possibly have any meaning. I don’t mind admitting to being stumped.

[CurtC]

@halman

A group pulling in a net achieves a task which their individual strength, added together, could not achieve is one example of such activity. ‘Team spirit’ is not a phony or fabricated thing.

So this weekend I was putting the canvas cover over my boat. If I do it by myself, I have to unroll a little bit onto the right side, then walk around the boat and unroll a little on the left, then walk around the boat and unroll a little on the right, etc. etc. By myself, this takes about three minutes. But if I get my wife to help, we can do it together in about 20 seconds.

This is a perfect example of what you’re talking about with teamwork, but I don’t see how you can think anything supernatural or “not understood by science” is going on here.

My theory about the Life Force is, indeed, only a theory…

No, it’s not a theory. Theories in science have been supported by evidence. If you want your idea to become a theory, you need to figure out how to test it.

[Mikeisskeptical]

@CurtC

No, it’s not a theory. Theories in science have been supported by evidence. If you want your idea to become a theory, you need to figure out how to test it.

Exactly. It’s at best a hypothesis and a failed one. I don’t think it even qualifies for that label though. It doesn’t appear to me to be falsifiable or, as yet, clearly articulated enough to really investigate. The way I would describe it is as a thing somebody said. Like ‘all beachballs are Tuesday monopoly’ or ‘wing monkey special coincidence’.

[Czarcasm]

@Stoneburg

Actually the Truth is what it is, no matter what you, me or anyone else “thinks”.

When people start talking about the “Truth”, I have found that it is usually a good time to slip the wallet from the back pocket to the front zippered vest pocket, find my hat and coat, and “remember” a medical appointment.

[Stoneburg]

@Mikeisskeptical

Let’s examine the idea for a moment that Conciousness is either space or emptiness. I think the best place to start is by providing a framework in which that statement could possibly have any meaning. I don’t mind admitting to being stumped.

I don’t really feel like writing down a huge framework and entering into a round of “cite?” and fighting about it. Either people want to understand it or they want to keep their current Belief System. My experience with this board is that people cling to their Belief Systems like it was a life and death situation. If someone was honestly interested in having an actual conversation about it I’d love to, but I’ve been frequenting this board for a decade and that’s not really what this board is about in my experience. People are mainly here to fight about the validity of their Belief Systems and Opinions and are as a general rule absolutely not interested in changing them or exploring new perspectives.

If you want to look at an intellectual framework that describes the things I’ve mentioned I guess I would recommend you looking into the work of Ken Wilber. My point is basically that we can’t find awareness/consciousness because that is what is looking, just as you can’t see your own eye, and our linear minds can not understand concepts like infinity and emptiness. In order to “understand” what those mean you have to effectively bypass the logical/rational mind and look at experience without filters, at least temporarily. In order to do that you either need to be lucky, do some serious meditation practice, or use a very high dose of some psychedelic. But since those things will automatically be written off as either “spiritual nonsense” or “drug induced hallucinations” there’s really no point in discussing them with people who have not had the experience.

[Czarcasm]

The problem is your belief system and your inability to accept any examination of it from those who don’t already subscribe to it. This is the very definition of “Close-minded”

[Smeghead]

Science is, at its heart, just the idea that “Hey, these ideas are all fun and good and stuff, but howsabout we actually CHECK to see if they’re right? You know, see if our ideas actually meet reality?” This seems like an obvious thing to do, but it’s astounding to see how negatively that attitude can be viewed.

I see around me phenomena which I can not explain with Newtonian, quantum, or astro-physics

You have not identified one single, solitary phenomenon, fact, or event that cannot easily and fully be explained by modern science. You desperately WANT there to be such things, and so you couch your “examples” in vague, meaningless terms that prevent anyone from actually being able to tell what it is you’re talking about.

Your original question is if this mystical bullshit you’re talking about is a “real” force. Well, here in reality, the way we figure that out is by TESTING. As has been explained ad nauseum, you think it’s real? Super. Then what does that mean? How do we tell the difference between a universe in which it IS real vs one where it is, well, mystical bullshit? Until you come up with a test that can be done to prove it one way or another, then ALL YOU HAVE IS A BUNCH OF WORDS. You can mentally masturbate over words all you want, as this thread so nobly proves, but you’re not going to convince anyone with a shred of rationality without some evidence.

Cue the sob-story “Oh, but no one will LISTEN to me! Everyone is just so CLOSE-MINDED!!” Yeah, well, that’s how reality works. No one SHOULD listen to someone without evidence. If I, as a biologist, attempted to publish a paper detailing my revolutionary theory about how, I don’t know, mice come from Martian meteors, and under the “data” section, wrote “just trust me on this one”, I would be laughed out of science, and rightfully so. Why should YOU get to just bullshit your way through the process when those of us actually working in reality are held to incredibly high standards? We NEED those standards to make sure that we don’t accept ideas that turn out later to be completely and totally wrong.

[QuickSilver]

@Stoneburg

In order to “understand” what those mean you have to effectively bypass the logical/rational mind and look at experience without filters, at least temporarily. In order to do that you either need to be lucky, do some serious meditation practice, or use a very high dose of some psychedelic. But since those things will automatically be written off as either “spiritual nonsense” or “drug induced hallucinations” there’s really no point in discussing them with people who have not had the experience.

So a logical/rational mind is viewing reality through filters when sober. But a mind under the chemical influence of drugs is seeing things… clearly?

I suggest you (don’t) try making that argument when you are stopped for a DUI.

[Mikeisskeptical]

@Stoneburg

I don’t really feel like writing down a huge framework and entering into a round of “cite?” and fighting about it. Either people want to understand it or they want to keep their current Belief System. My experience with this board is that people cling to their Belief Systems like it was a life and death situation. If someone was honestly interested in having an actual conversation about it I’d love to, but I’ve been frequenting this board for a decade and that’s not really what this board is about in my experience. People are mainly here to fight about the validity of their Belief Systems and Opinions and are as a general rule absolutely not interested in changing them or exploring new perspectives.

If you want to look at an intellectual framework that describes the things I’ve mentioned I guess I would recommend you looking into the work of Ken Wilber. My point is basically that we can’t find awareness/consciousness because that is what is looking, just as you can’t see your own eye, and our linear minds can not understand concepts like infinity and emptiness. In order to “understand” what those mean you have to effectively bypass the logical/rational mind and look at experience without filters, at least temporarily. In order to do that you either need to be lucky, do some serious meditation practice, or use a very high dose of some psychedelic. But since those things will automatically be written off as either “spiritual nonsense” or “drug induced hallucinations” there’s really no point in discussing them with people who have not had the experience.

Contrary to your implied assumptions, I don’t scoff at meditation or recreational self-medication. I think the experience you are describing is a real thing. It is, I believe, the breaking the illusion of the cartesian theatre. The feeling we all have that we are inside our skulls, looking out at the world. I have sought the experience myself. It doesn’t justify the claims you make about reality though. I really don’t know what you mean by the idea that consciousness could be emptiness. I wasn’t (just) being flippant. As far as I can see, that seems like a meaningless statement. I’d genuinely love to be shown why I’m wrong though. It would mean I would learn something entirely new about the universe. The sense of having your beliefs shaken is the other experience I spend a lot of time pursuing. I’ve succeeded a few times in my life and it’s been amazing.

[Mikeisskeptical]

emptiness

1The state of containing nothing:
the vast emptiness of space

2The quality of lacking meaning or sincerity; meaninglessness:
he realizes the emptiness of his statement

3The quality of having no value or purpose; futility:
feelings of emptiness and loneliness

Are you going by a different definition? If so, that would be a good place to start.

[CurtC]

@Stoneburg

People are mainly here to fight about the validity of their Belief Systems and Opinions and are as a general rule absolutely not interested in changing them or exploring new perspectives.

Funny you say that, because I think this board, more than the vast majority of Internet gatherings, is made up of people who have changed their Belief Systems and Opinions (why the caps?). I know I have. What it took for us to change is evidence and reason. And now we (most of us here) would require more evidence and reason to change again, because we realize that’s the only way to know anything about the world we live in.

We outright reject fantasy based on our known cognitive biases, because we realize that the biases exist and you have to figure out how to work around them.

Now it seems to me that you’ve fallen into a trap of your own bias, but you can convince me I’m wrong. Just bring evidence.

[Stoneburg]

@QuickSilver

So a logical/rational mind is viewing reality through filters when sober. But a mind under the chemical influence of drugs is seeing things… clearly?

I suggest you (don’t) try making that argument when you are stopped for a DUI.

Thank you for proving my point. This is exactly why there is no desire to discuss these things with most people.

@CurtC

Funny you say that, because I think this board, more than the vast majority of Internet gatherings, is made up of people who have changed their Belief Systems and Opinions (why the caps?). I know I have. What it took for us to change is evidence and reason. And now we (most of us here) would require more evidence and reason to change again, because we realize that’s the only way to know anything about the world we live in.

We outright reject fantasy based on our known cognitive biases, because we realize that the biases exist and you have to figure out how to work around them.

Now it seems to me that you’ve fallen into a trap of your own bias, but you can convince me I’m wrong. Just bring evidence.

The reason for the caps is that I find it humorous that Belief System becomes BS for short, which I think is very apt. I don’t actually have any Belief Systems anymore in the sense of clinging to one as being true.

I’m really not interested in ”convincing” you or anyone else, I am completely selfish that way. Your beliefs or ideas mean absolutely nothing to me and I don’t see it as my job to try and change them, I am only interested in defeating my own ignorance, not butting head with others. If someone is genuinely interested I love exploring the subject, but the attitude ”I am right and you now have to prove otherwise!” is incredibly unattractive to me and I’m not interested in playing that game. I’ve already held the Belief Systems and opinions that you do, I’m not interested in going back to them even if it was possible, once you have seen that Santa is not real, you can’t go back to believing in him.

@Mikeisskeptical

Contrary to your implied assumptions, I don’t scoff at meditation or recreational self-medication. I think the experience you are describing is a real thing. It is, I believe, the breaking the illusion of the cartesian theatre. The feeling we all have that we are inside our skulls, looking out at the world. I have sought the experience myself. It doesn’t justify the claims you make about reality though. I really don’t know what you mean by the idea that consciousness could be emptiness. I wasn’t (just) being flippant. As far as I can see, that seems like a meaningless statement. I’d genuinely love to be shown why I’m wrong though. It would mean I would learn something entirely new about the universe. The sense of having your beliefs shaken is the other experience I spend a lot of time pursuing. I’ve succeeded a few times in my life and it’s been amazing.

If that is true I think that makes you a minority on this board. Most people here seem married to their memes and more interested in proving themselves right than wrong. My attitude has been the opposite as my inclination is to prove myself wrong rather than right. By constantly questioning ”my” beliefs I was hoping to arrive closer and closer to the truth. Finally I (by accident) turned that doubt and questioning inwards, and the trance was broken. As you put it, ”I” saw through the ”cartesian theatre” and the joke was that there was no ”me”, the ”me” effectively WAS the illusion and that is why it is almost impossible to see through it.

Unfortunately the experience was not permanent and I spent two years trying to ”get it back”, succeeding once through Zen meditation and once through use of psychedelics. My conclusion from the experiences, combined with study of some esoteric teachings (mainly Buddhism and Advaita) led me to the inevitable conclusion that what the word ”emptiness” points to is the same as what the word ”awareness” points to, and that essentially everything is a form of consciousness/awareness/emptiness playing with itself. The problem of course being that language itself is just a system of symbols and as such part of the illusion of theater. Since our rational mind is basically an operating system running on language it is impossible for it to know reality, it can only know symbols.

The ”truth” or ”gnosis” or whatever you want to call it only appears when the rational mind ceases, which puts us in a Catch 22. Our desire to intellectually understand it actually creates a barrier preventing us from seeing it. And since the rational mind equates this experience with death, it will do everything it can to put it off.

[Czarcasm]

@Stoneburg

The ”truth” or ”gnosis” or whatever you want to call it only appears when the rational mind ceases, which puts us in a Catch 22. Our desire to intellectually understand it actually creates a barrier preventing us from seeing it. And since the rational mind equates this experience with death, it will do everything it can to put it off.

I’m sorry, but…what? Did you come up with this on your own, or from some wooster?

[QuickSilver]

@Stoneburg

My conclusion from the experiences, combined with study of some esoteric teachings (mainly Buddhism and Advaita) led me to the inevitable conclusion that what the word ”emptiness” points to is the same as what the word ”awareness” points to, and that essentially everything is a form of consciousness/awareness/emptiness playing with itself.

In other words, awareness is beyond the flow of space time events.

Is that correct?

[Mikeisskeptical]

I’m sorry Stoneburg, but that just reads like a defeatist apology for faulty reasoning to me. You eschew ‘rational thought’ but then talk about drawing conclusions. You describe these conclusions as inevitable which makes me think your agnosticism is at the very least overstated. You describe experiences which appear to be explicable such as the dissolution of the sense of self and then invoke quasi-supernatural explanations.

What seems most likely to me, is that you have had a profound and life altering experience. You do not know how to explain it and feel like it is not the kind of thing that science takes seriously. You have attempted to rationalise it in spite of your insistence that it is not the kind of thing that can be rationalised. You have read the writings of others who have reported similar experiences in an attempt to gain insight into what you claim cannot be expressed in language. Ultimately you have drawn conclusions which are not warranted.

Please tell me if you think there might be some truth in what I’m saying or if not, why not?

Also, minor point, our minds are not software running on language. imagine an ‘L’ shape. now imagine it flipped 90 degrees. Are you picturing it? Good. Now would you agree that you used thought to do that? Of course. Did you use words? Probably not.

Thought and language are not the same thing. In spite of this fact, I was able to use words to covey the idea. I would suggest that it is similar for your experiences. Subjective and abstract though they might be, it is not impossible to examine them rationally, nor is it a waste of time attempting to communicate them to others.

[Mangetout]

@halman

Perhaps I don’t want SCIENCE to look at my idea, but people, beings who can emote, share concepts, and imagine.

Perhaps so, but in that case, I would suggest not bothering to make blathering complaints about how science won’t look at your idea; you know - like this one:

@halman

We call these things ‘mystical’, or ‘spiritual’, as if to deny them scientific validity. Just because we don’t know how to measure it does not mean that it doesn’t exist.

Or this one:

@halman

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.

[Czarcasm]

A sure sign of Woo: The advocation of Science…but only if it is used for the purpose of Woo promotion.