KNOWING THE DIFFERENCE between what is real and what isn't.

by Terry 65 Replies latest jw experiences

• 

  BurnTheShips

  When a person experiences something

  on a personal level that they know was for them and them only, it will forever change their view of what is real.

  Things are no longer just black and white, and it causes people to look beyond the physical mundane way of seeing

  things. PERSONAL EXPERIENCES are what make people search "beyond" the normal concept of reality. If you have never

  had something happen to you of this nature, it's easy to see only the black and white view of reality.

  To be so caught up in "skepticism" that we deny what you point out so well is to stop being human and start being a machine.

  Burn
• 

  fifi40

  Terry

  Many years ago man believed the earth to be flat; they believed that allowing leeches to suck blood from our bodies was beneficial to our health; they believed keeping other men as slaves was ok and many more concepts that have later been proved to be false, inaccurate or unreasonable.

  Mankind has discovered, learnt and progressed throughout our existence only because 'a minority' chose to challenge the accepted or reality of their time.

  Whilst I agree fundamentally with what you are saying surely we have to allow for what we do not yet know or understand. How can we know that if someone claims to have had an experience say of the spirit world that this is not real. Whilst it is clearly good to be skeptical, to be critcal in our thinking, is it right to be so black and white that we dismiss what others claim to have experienced personally just because we have not experienced it.
• 

  BurnTheShips

  Sorry Terry, I am feeling a bit contrary here:

  What I feel may seem real and not be real at all.

  I may taste salty soup and exclaim how delicious it is. But, that is subjective opinion about personal taste.

  This we cannot confuse with objective realtiy.

  It all gets processed in the same gray matter. Even "objective" Science. All human action is subjective.

  We all live on the same planet. The same laws of Physics apply everywhere.

  Well, that only holds true until Science finds an exception! No one knows what goes on in those Black Holes. Do the laws of physics hold in there too?

  But, if everybody is marching West and you are going East it might be time to stop and ask yourself why you think you are so different?

  Everyone was marching East in 1491 for those Indian spices. Columbus sailed West. What a nutjob! When he found land he actually thought America was India! LOL. However, look how his mistake changed our view of the world. Or Copernicus, everyone said the Earth stood still, it was obvious, repeatable, "objective" observation. The sun moves. Copernicus was so crazy as to say the earth moved about sun in a perfect circle-as well as the rest of the Universe. What a nutjob! It is really in ellipses! And only the solar system!

  Burn
• 

  Sirona

  Years ago, people could not conceive of electricity. Today it is scientific fact.

  I think that certain things which are in the "esp" category will be proven scientifically eventually.

  I know of some documented experiments conducted which show significant results for ESP - so it could be argued that some things are already shown to exist, despite the fact that we're not sure how the information is transferred. (see my next post)

  As long as you KNOW what you are doing is __going beyond__the verifiable, the actual and the reality of existence; you have every right to do so.

  I know that some things I believe have not been proven by science yet. I also know that some things I've experienced have been proven to me to exist in reality.

  Sirona
• 

  Sirona

  I posted this elsewhere and have copied it for the purpose of this thread.

  Here are a couple of studies which have been conducted and their results. I have summarised - I do have much more information relating to the exact procedure of each experiment.

  A recent study conduced by Dean Radin et al at the University of Nevada, conducted a test on physiological responses to photographs. Photographs were categorised as "calm" or "emotional". The results showed that participants' electrodermal activity rose before a picture appeared on screen (in anticipation of the picture). What was significant was that despite pictures being shown totally randomly, participants' electrodermal activity rose more when the picture was going to be an "emotional" picture - before the picture even appeared on screen.

  Measuring electrodermal activity, heart rate and finger blood volume for participants showed a significantly greater response in participants when the picture was going to be an emotional one. This indicated an ability of the participant to "know", at least physiologically, whether the picture which was about to appear was going to be one which is classed as "emotional". This is precognition (or a form of knowing the future). This experiment has since been replicated with similar results.

  Another experiment tested whether information could be "sent" by one participant to another participant. These were conducted by Honorton et al starting in 1983. Due to critisisms of experimental method, this test has been refined over and over again to eliminate any problems in testing. Basically the "sender" would be in a sound proofed, steel walled, electromagnetically sheilded room. He would view a random (computer randomised) image. He would attempt to "send" this image to a person who was in a totally different room, often miles away from the sender's location. The receiver would then verbally give impressions they were "receiving" and later would view four images - and would pick one image which they thought the sender was trying to send.

  There would obviously be a certain number of participants who would pick the right image just by chance. The scientists gave a statistical figure which represented what would be expected just by chance. The results of this experiment were that there was a significant effect beyond chance with odds of around 50000 to 1. Other similar experiments have been conducted so that this experiment is well replicated, adding all results together produces odds against chance of a million billion to one.

  This appears to suggest that in scientific experiments human beings are able to transmit information to other human beings outside of our normal senses.
• 

  R.Crusoe

  Education doesn't do anything to us.

  Education is a tool. If you don't know how to use a tool, or, use it improperly you don't get the job done.

  Reality is simply the facts as they are.

  Imagine expecting to play a game and win without knowing the rules and penalties.

  Life isn't a game, but, it has things which work and things which don't work.

  Realizing we can have all sorts of choices which end in a good, better, best or worst life is essential to having any kind of life.

  Becoming indifferent is laziness. It leads to dull skills and a flabby, dreamworld coast along.

  How many slackers do you know personally? I know plenty.

  Education had you in a cell for beliefs education now has you with a different perspective on!

  Education is a tool used inappropriately to control large populations against their better judgements using fear and indoctrination, imprinting and conditioning!

  Education may be used to liberate and promote creativity but the big picture is to develop ways of doing thi within even more powerful systems of educational viruses virulent and mutating!

  Reality is an ilussion peculiar to each individual based upon the permutation of their experiences to date, which filter what they see in real time dependent upon that histology of experience unique to them!

  I played many a game in my youth with individuals who just loved to win at all costs and would destroy the gameboard when losing was inevitable. Pure 'rush' individuals who act the same in adulthood and 'busy ' themselves appearing as healthy members of society who successfully gain from it and occupy their time doing so whilst others have become disillusioned with the whole 'rat race' and find it virtually impossible to stimulate ambitions to inspire themselves to join in the whole charade they perceive and so are more than likely end up on the streets branded a 'parasite' to society!

  So I take your point but know for a fact it is only a single frame in the film of life!

  Heart condition is impossible to read with the actions you see in front of you!!!
• 

  hmike

  Terry, I would agree with about 90% of your opening post. To be fair, everything should be subject to skepticism, perhaps even skepticism itself.
• 

  Terry

  What I feel may seem real and not be real at all.

  I may taste salty soup and exclaim how delicious it is. But, that is subjective opinion about personal taste.

  This we cannot confuse with objective realtiy.

  It all gets processed in the same gray matter. Even "objective" Science. All human action is subjective.

  You miss the point entirely!

  Objective matters are confirmable, testable and falsifiable. Subjective matters are not. That is key in distinguishing science and useful, practical knowledge from mere imagination.

  Mystics and superstitious purveyors of non-fact fall back on the idea that everything is all the same.

  The fact that NASA can build a ponderous vehicle to orbit and land on the moon should demonstrate what gray matter is capable of when verifiable and testable ideas match the real world.
• 

  Terry

  Mankind has discovered, learnt and progressed throughout our existence only because 'a minority' chose to challenge the accepted or reality of their time .

  Whilst I agree fundamentally with what you are saying surely we have to allow for what we do not yet know or understand. How can we know that if someone claims to have had an experience say of the spirit world that this is not real. Whilst it is clearly good to be skeptical, to be critcal in our thinking, is it right to be so black and white that we dismiss what others claim to have experienced personally just because we have not experienced it.

  I think you are confused.

  There is no reality of their time or any other time.

  Reality isn't a matter of opinion. Reality simply is.

  What people say, think, feel, postulate and, above all: believe about reality is a separate issue from reality itself.

  Let us go back to the mundane example of that table sitting over there in the corner of the room you and I are in.

  The table is what it is. I say it looks like mahogony. You say it looks like oak. Neither of our opinons changes the table one tiny bit!

  Reality cannot be shaped by our misconstrual of it. Only our behavior is affected by our errors of perception.

  That is where science has triumphed over religion and superstition. To the extent something is analyzed, tested, verifed and falsified; to that extent it is finally KNOWN in a factual sense.

  That is where religion and superstition utterly fail. Too many opinions about which are entirely beyond testing and confimation.

  Reality simply is what it is.

  It is our individual job to clarify our perceptions and test our opinions and find a way to falsify (demonstrate it isn't true) where we are wrong.

  The first rung in the ladder of knowing is healthy skepticism.
• 

  journey-on

  One of the things that boggles my mind is how really tiny our world is. Yet, we think our scientists are "gods"…. able to know and tell us everything we laymen don’t understand about this great Universe in a scientifically "proven" way.

  I don’t put 100% of my faith in science and what they tell me is "reality". Here’s why:

  If you took the entire beach along any major coast and pulled from it one tiny grain of sand, that would represent the size of our earth in this great cosmos. We are just beginning to understand how the physical world operates on a super tiny scale (quantum physics). We have become awed and amazed and sometimes confused at the strange physics displayed on such a small scale. It just seems "unreal"! Some scientists have speculated that if we were able to venture gazillions of light years out into space, the physics we know here would probably be tossed out the window and we would see amazing if not incomprehensible phenomena when viewed on such a massive scale.

  Yet, we are expected to buy hook, line, and sinker into everything "Science" tells us. They are mere humans operating in this tiny human world upon this little bitty grain of sand called Earth and more times than not they get it wrong before they get it right. We look out at the vastness of space with our small 21st century science and scientific tools, and we all ooh and aah at how much we know and can calculate based on our 21st century mathematics and 21st century computers and equipment. It’s really laughable to think we have the answers and that there is no reality outside just what this physical body can see, taste, hear, smell, and touch.

  Take the brain for instance. We actually "know" very little about it. I used an analogy in a post a while back about what an alien with a totally different anatomy would think about the brain if he held the 3-lb. gray mass up and looked at it, cut into it, and dissected it. Just by looking, touching, smelling, tasting, and hearing, there is no way you can understand the brain and its methods of mind and consciousness, creativeness, analytical capability, etc. etc. The "supernatural" reality of it cannot be comprehended…only the mundane reality of it.

  But every now and then, someone will get a glimpse and know that there is more than the eye can see. That’s when humanity gives birth to the truly gifted visionaries that become the "new" mathematicians, scientists, engineers, astrophysicists, etc. that are able to take it one step further on our path of evolution physically, intellectually, and spiritually.

  So, if you are saying that ONLY the mundane reality is the true reality, you're not seeing the bigger picture. Like the brain, you are leaving out a major piece of the puzzle of reality if all you see and accept is the 3-lb. blob of gray mass.