String theory, Relativity, and angels

by onacruse 133 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

• 

  Sirona

  Terry,

  Some interesting ideas here. Yes, I have read your wordy posts

  Allow me to give you some insight into my wierd and wonderful thinking.

  Should I hold open the possibility that there really is a Santa Claus? I'm am sure you would say "no".

  I would not say "no"

  And the reason you would say no would stem from your awareness of the reality which refutes the myth.

  What reality is that? Santa may exist somewhere, even if it is in the minds of millions of children. That, IMHO, gives him a form of existence - and before anyone starts talking about pink unicorns, this goes for those too. This does not mean that I'm deluded enough to think Santa is walking around somewhere in Lapland (excluding the santa wannabes LOL), it just means that I accept the influence of the image of Santa and don't think that closing my mind to such images is to be preferred.

  Should we teach children that Santa Claus is an actually-existing person just so we can politely "fool" them into have an experience of mystical joy?

  He may not be an actually existing person, but honestly I don't think that is any reason to completely discount the myth and prevent the magical feeling he evokes in children.

  Some things are true and other things are not true. If we confuse what is true with what is NOT we lose our grasp of reality.

  Again, what is this "reality"? Quoting the matrix "what is real?" Why is an exclusive acceptance of things purely physical and testable the ultimate aim?

  You mentioned that you had spent 20+ years believing a myth and this had harmed you. Evidently you threw the baby out with the bathwater and decided that all things untestable are harmful.

  Sirona
• 

  myauntfanny

  Terry

  I disavow mystical things because the SOURCE is hidden and cannot be tested.

  I did a degree in mathematics many moons ago and I still like to read those "new science" types books that all the mainstream scientists hate because they are so irrational/paradigm busting (depending on your point of view). Stuff like Zero Point Field theory and yadda yadda yadda. So that's my caveat, I am NOT a scientist. But my feeble understanding of quantum theory was that you can't measure both the speed and mass of an electron at the same time, so you never actually can "observe" an electron. An electron, the SOURCE, is both hidden and can't be tested. We see only traces, the signs of its passing. And this "seeing" is also only a subjective experience. Why shouldn't the mystical experience also be viewed as a trace of something we can never see or measure, but that leaves its mark?

  I actually looked up the word bloviating in the Oxford English and it doesn't seem to exist, which only increases my admiration for it. Anyone who can make up cool words like that is tops in my book.
• 

  funkyderek

  SAHS:

  This might sound somewhat simplistic, but think about it: if the physical realm of matter and energy exists (which it does, since you exist along with the computer screen you are reading right now), and if the ?spirit realm? exists (i.e., including whatever entity that would constitute a ?cause? of our matter/energy world), then there must be, on some ultimate, all-encompassing level, a ?theoretical theory? which would mathematically quantify both together. (I say ?theoretical theory? because it must exist as a virtual concept, but as yet remains unformulated.)

  This makes sense. Anything that happens in the physical world can be measured. If the "spiritual" world interacts with the physical world, then these interactions can also - in principle - be measured. If the spiritual world does not interact with the physical world, then it does not concern us and, in effect, does not exist.

  Could it be that perhaps what we call ?God,? ?Jesus,? ?angels,? and even the ?holy spirit? are also composed of super strings?the same as the super strings which make up all the various ?-ton? particles of matter and energy as we know it, but with those super strings vibrating at a different frequency? If so, could that ?different frequency? be construed as a different ?phase,? or ?phase shift?? Could that explain the interaction of spirit ?creatures? and spirit ?forces? with people and things in our world? In other words, could it explain how the ?spirit realm? and ?physical realm? can exist in the same place at the same time?

  A different "phase", a different time, a different space. It doesn't really matter where, when or whether these postulated entities exist. The only way we can know for sure is if we can measure their interactions with our own universe. If we can, then we can start to figure out the nature of their universe (or section of it). If no such interactions can be measured, then we should (tentatively) assume they do not exist in any meaningful sense - at least until evidence for their existence comes to light.
• 

  funkyderek

  myauntfanny:

  Why shouldn't the mystical experience also be viewed as a trace of something we can never see or measure, but that leaves its mark?

  If it "leaves its mark", then we can measure the mark and work backwards from there.

  I actually looked up the word bloviating in the Oxford English and it doesn't seem to exist

  From dictionary.com:

  blo·vi·ate ( P ) Pronunciation Key (bl
  intr.v. Slang blo·vi·at·ed, blo·vi·at·ing, blo·vi·ates

  To discourse at length in a pompous or boastful manner: ?the rural Babbitt who bloviates about ?progress? and ?growth?? (George Rebeck).
• 

  LittleToe

  So how do we measure them, beyond acknowledging idiosyncratic behaviour in our own universe?
• 

  myauntfanny

  LT: Please clarify, how do we measure what?

  FD: Well, I'm disappointed in the Oxford English.

  Terry: I still admire you for using the word bloviating, even if you didn't make it up.
• 

  Sirona

  Evidence? What about evidence for ESP?
  

  Looking for an experiment with greater "street validity" to the average person, Schlitz then decided to follow up on the work of William Braud and Donna Schaefer who had conducted an experiment monitoring people?s ANS when being stared at from a distance. With a post-doc fellowship from Stanford University, Schlitz teamed up with Stephen LaBerge to study closely the effects of remote staring. They set up their experiment so that in one room a person was being monitored by a video camera, while in another room someone intermittently stared at that person through the video. Thus, the two participants were completely shielded from each other?s sense perception. Again, the person being stared at showed a higher galvanic skin response and greater autonomic nervous activity during the periods when stared at. Overall, there was a statistically significant increase in ANS when people were being stared at

  http://www.esalenctr.org/display/confpage.cfm?confid=8&pageid=77&pgtype=1

  In summarising the precognition findings, Honorton and Ferrari concluded ?the forced-choice

  precognition experiments confirm the existence of a small but highly significant precognition

  effect.? (p. 300). Furthermore, they concluded that the most important outcome of the metaanalysis

  was the identification of moderating variables, which not only provides guidelines for

  future research, but may also help expand our understanding of the phenomena.

  http://www.tcm.phy.cam.ac.uk/~bdj10/psi/delanoy/delanoy.pdf

  Sirona
• 

  LittleToe

  MAF:
  "Spirit" [realms / dimensions / whatever]
• 

  myauntfanny

  FD: So you're saying that since we have no criteria for measuring mystical experiences, we should believe and behave as if they must necessarily signify nothing? We can't measure emotions either, but they often signify very important things, or so it seems to me.
• 

  Sirona

  Also of interest

  http://www.tcm.phy.cam.ac.uk/~bdj10/psi/tucson.html

  http://www.survivalafterdeath.org/articles/keen/critics.htm

  Even Mrs. Emily Bradshaw, our wise, lively and charismatic spirit informer during the Scole sittings, said that replication is what we want.

  But it isn't, because it isn't possible. The parrot-cry for replication is based on a totally false understanding of the nature of psychic experiences. Replication implies complete control over all the parameters of an experiment. The experimenter must know just what temperature, humidity, size, number, pressure, weight etc., will be required. Any change in one of these variables can wreck the experiment and falsify the results. This is orthodox science. It works admirably for the purpose for which it is designed. But it is entirely inappropriate to the psychic world. Here we have little or no control over the parameters. We cannot even be sure of what they are, let alone how they function. An attempt at replication is immediately sabotaged by the experimenter effect: the fact that the personality, attitude, vibrations of the himself is known to have an effect on the outcome. Strange to say this was demonstrated nearly half a century ago in a classic experiment conducted with G.W. Fisk by one of the Scole Report's critics, Professor Donald West. We can rarely say, let alone determine, when a spirit originated voice or phenomenon will occur, or what form it will take.

  This is no idle, academic debate. If you take the remarkable experiments conducted last year (and still continuing) by Professor Gary Schwartz and his colleagues in the University of Arizona with five gifted mediums, you will see that he has produced statistically overwhelming evidence of their ability, under conditions which rule out cold reading, sensory impressions, prior knowledge and the like, to identify a number of deceased relatives of a screened and unknown sitter. The published account of this (by the Society for Psychical Research) was attended by allegations that his control system might allow for error. His later experiments sought to dispose of any such reservations. We are now invited to replicate the results he achieved. That's impossible, because even were we able to get hold of the same mediums, they would have to be working with a different subject, operating in a different environment, with different experimenters emanating different vibrations.