Idealism is Hardly Ideal.

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Idealism is Hardly Ideal.

I think "external material world" is a dualistic habit we continue to carry from religious language. It presupposes that there is some homunculus that is presented the external world in a mental theatre inside our head.  But it serves our syntax well . The use of a subject and predicate places the I in the brain by tradition. Our language almost insures it. But if we posit a monism would not the only difference between a physical monisim and a mental one be semantics?  What would be the means of comparison?  What is internal to that spiritual/mental "external world."  What is internal to an external world? 

If thought or consciousness is a terminate  of a causal chain then it is simply a physical effect of a whole neural correlate of interacting physical events. They find their nexus as a symbolic effect of that which is sensed.  The real issue is a causal one when dualism is set aside.  Does a person's thought effect what occurs or does what occurs effect what one experiences?  Obviously we mean the latter. 

Solipsism, the  antithesis,  is rare and seems to be held only by contrary philosophers. We mistake the Eastern view of claiming the world is an illusion as meaning it is unreal.  An illusion is quite real. "Illusion" simply means the experience of something real  other than it is. That something is experienced but misinterpreted.  Illusion is that which deludes us. The Eastern mystic ( esp. Buddhists) ask one not to be attached to sensory experience (in other words not to make biased  judgements of an experience). This leads to better analysis of a real world.  So I am uncertain as to what religion idealism would actually be valid.

Panentheism and pantheism have a monism.  Buddhism has no real internality in that it posits the ego as a symbolic construct mistaken as the self or the experiences occurring. The "within" means direction...toward the self.  Hinduism posits that the internal and external are one. The Atman is but a manifestation of Brahmin. Brahmin is all. Atman is but its objectification.  It is similar to the use of Logos as the relative  image or form of God who is boundless or absolute.

So external and internal would be more of a linguistic device so that the narrative world as analog to the real world is distinguished.  I really do not know of many idealists save those of philosophical history.  Ultimately and practically those philosophers can not practice their belief consistently or legitimately.

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My biggest beef would be

My biggest beef would be with the obsession with the "material/immaterial" distinction as the ultimate dualism.

Associated with that would be the always implied or explicit denigration of "matter" as 'mere' matter, or of the barren-ness of a conceived world of 'nothing but' matter. Whereas 'matter' is what allows some kind of persistence of 'form' or structure, and of the evolution of progressively more complex and subtle structure which in turn are essential to provide a template, a substrate, a context, for complex processes, such as life and consciousness, among other things.

"Internal/external" is a reasonable definition of the perspective attached to some particular context: inward toward our own thoughts and feelings, outward to other centers of consciousness and on to the broader universe.

My 2c anyway....

Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality

"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris

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BobSpence1 wrote:My biggest

BobSpence1 wrote:

My biggest beef would be with the obsession with the "material/immaterial" distinction as the ultimate dualism.

Associated with that would be the always implied or explicit denigration of "matter" as 'mere' matter, or of the barren-ness of a conceived world of 'nothing but' matter. Whereas 'matter' is what allows some kind of persistence of 'form' or structure, and of the evolution of progressively more complex and subtle structure which in turn are essential to provide a template, a substrate, a context, for complex processes, such as life and consciousness, among other things.

"Internal/external" is a reasonable definition of the perspective attached to some particular context: inward toward our own thoughts and feelings, outward to other centers of consciousness and on to the broader universe.

My 2c anyway....

I agree. And I think what you have pointed out is an element that explains the the beginnings of Gnosticism in Neo-Platonic thought. Yes I think internal ultimately means  pointing toward the thoughts in the brain that is thinking them verses that which is thought about. But ultimately even our brain as a subject of thought becomes external in the comparision and thus probably one source from which dualism emerges.


 

"You can't write a chord ugly enough to say what you want to say sometimes, so you have to rely on a giraffe filled with whip cream."--Frank Zappa

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Have you read anything by

Have you read anything by Douglas Hofstadter? He is currently "College of Arts and Sciences Distinguished Professor of Cognitive Science" at Indiana University, according to Wikipedia.

I have his "Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid", and also "The Mind's I: Fantasies and Reflections on Self and Soul (co-edited with Daniel Dennett)", both very stimulating reads on this area, which came to mind when reading your response.

In particular I remember a significant consideration of the problem of 'recursion', which comes up when you start thinking about thinking, then thinking about that sort of thinking, etc. And in many other variations when you get into this topic.

Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality

"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris

The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me

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BobSpence1 wrote:Have you

BobSpence1 wrote:

Have you read anything by Douglas Hofstadter? He is currently "College of Arts and Sciences Distinguished Professor of Cognitive Science" at Indiana University, according to Wikipedia.

I have his "Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid", and also "The Mind's I: Fantasies and Reflections on Self and Soul (co-edited with Daniel Dennett)", both very stimulating reads on this area, which came to mind when reading your response.

In particular I remember a significant consideration of the problem of 'recursion', which comes up when you start thinking about thinking, then thinking about that sort of thinking, etc. And in many other variations when you get into this topic.

I read his Esher, Godel, Bach when it first came out. (79....80???) I read Mind's I when it first came out. That I think has been what influenced me about qualia. The article in it by Thomas Nagel, What It IS Like to Be a Bat.  I read his "I am a Strange Loop" when it came out a couple of years ago. It deals with self reference, recursiveness and Godel's Incompleteness Theory.  David Chalmers studied under Hofsdater.   I use his ant colony as an example of emergence a lot.  I think that consciousness and qualia are recursive loops in the brain that are durative in the recursiveness. I have not really researched that aspect. I am studying neural correlates of consciousness and the neural correlates of the CONTENTS of consciousness . Qualia seem to be the contents generated as  type of symbol that are simply nexuses of multiple specialzations of the brain. For example with the Mary problem when she sees red I think that you have a lower section on the left brain that associates it with our language specialiation. Also past and related aspects of the thing in question are like the bottom of an iceberg with the conscious aspect the experience. Emotional qualities are associated as the language and sensual experience comes back from the V1 (primary visual cortex)  by the dorsel stream through the thalamus and limbic areas.  But I think that consciousness itself seems to be simply a neural system that filters and attends a nexus of interactions. Of course this is self study and you know how that goes.


 

"You can't write a chord ugly enough to say what you want to say sometimes, so you have to rely on a giraffe filled with whip cream."--Frank Zappa

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Figures. If you have been

Figures. If you have been into this stuff that long, those books would have been 'must read's when you came across them.

I must pick up "I am a Strange Loop'.

Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality

"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris

The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me

From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology


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BobSpence1 wrote:Figures. If

BobSpence1 wrote:

Figures. If you have been into this stuff that long, those books would have been 'must read's when you came across them.

I must pick up "I am a Strange Loop'.

I think you will like I am a Strange Loop. Hofsdater has been a major player in A.I.  for 30 years.  Victor Stenger has a new book out  called, " The Fallacy of Fine Tuning"


 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Fallacy-Fine-Tuning-Victor-J-Stenger/dp/1616144432

I know that is up your alley. I'm gonna find one for Father's Day or Birthday. 

"You can't write a chord ugly enough to say what you want to say sometimes, so you have to rely on a giraffe filled with whip cream."--Frank Zappa

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 I am a proponent of

 I am a proponent of extraordinary materialism. I support this by practical and theoretical research of Dr. Philip Benjamin, James DeMeo, Dr. Henry Oldfield and others. Also, I've dug deeply into my perception and layers of consciousness and experienced transcendental things, I mean, experiences of extraordinary, benevolent conscious presence, to which my mind stood pale in comparison. AFAIK, neurology did not even begin to study such experiences. 

I think that common neurology and ordinary materialistic model are sufficient to explain our daily brain workings. So I focus on the extraordinary experiences, where the current models are insufficient. Or aren't they? Is there any book on the topic which deals with such fringe experiences?

This whole mechanistic concept of thinking relies on interaction through collision, better said, through weak nuclear force. Which is not viable, when it comes to considering biologic dark matter as our link between consciousness and the body. There must be other ways of interaction. Yeah, mind is material, but what kind of matter? It may actually be made of light-like sub-atomic particles organized by a field of some sort, into an orderly circulation roughly in shape of people's body, or aura. Not an actual atomic matter, much less neurons. Such a "body of light" is not something that can interact by collision, it will rather behave like a wave, it will influence others due to mutual resonance through closeness of vibration, for example. There are phenomena of influencing people's mind at a distance, for example we perceive a "tense atmosphere" in a room, or don't feel comfortably with people in a bus, or feel someone's gaze upon our back, or we see shoals of fish or birds all reacting in unison. With mechanistic thinking, we must seek lame and over-complicated explanations for such phenomena.
 

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Luminon,no internal

Luminon,

no internal experiences need anything outside 'conventional' science to explain, at least based on their perceived nature, no matter how strange to the person involved.

Unless you can show some empirical phenomenon that can be observed or detected in some fairly consistent way that is inconsistent with known science, not just your own limited understanding of science, you have nothing. Or perhaps some consistent ability to predict non-trivial and low-probability future events which are similarly externally and empirically recordable and verifiable, and not known to be associated with forces which might have affected the brain directly, such EM radiation. Or perhaps gain consistent knowledge of something well beyond any possible 'normal' means of detection, such as something a long distance away, and/or inside some impenetrable barriers, when tested by someone familiar with all the ways such apparently 'magical' abilities can be achieved.

There have been so many claims of woo that have been thoroughly and comprehensively debunked, or simply faded over time when they never manifested outside the imagination of their proponent, that the bar has to be set pretty high before we can justify spending time and resources investigating them.

'Dark matter' is known through its physical effects, it is not outside science in any 'non-physical' or 'non-natural' way, just that its interactions with other matter are very weak. There is zero logical justification for seizing on the concept for the world of 'woo'.

Auras have been shown to be non-existent, when people claiming to be able to see them have been subject to simple test situations.

The flocking behaviour of swarms is understood and been accurately simulated on computers without proposing or assuming any 'extra' communications.

Complex and subtle behaviour is an emergent phenomenon of complex processes, which only require sufficiently complex structures, not new forms of basic matter or energy.

Our minds and intuitions, and thoughts arising from internal experiences, have long been surpassed as viable sources of new understanding in themselves, that only comes from the deep study of reality outside our internal world, which continues to surprise us with deeply counter-intuitive phenomena. Just as our unassisted senses much earlier became inadequate for gaining new data, while our measuring instruments become ever more sensitive and accurate as technology progresses.

That really became blindingly obvious with Relativity and Quantum Theory, which both arose from trying to comprehend results from empirical research into physical reality. We still don't quite 'get' either concept outside their mathematical descriptions, but they are thoroughly established and proven. Our math and the growing ability of our computers to model complex ideas are what allow us to continue to make progress now.

Sorry, the result of an accumulation of avoiding responding to this kind of post from you.

Although I should say that away from these topics, you often make quite good responses, such as to typical theist nonsense.

Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality

"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris

The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me

From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology


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Luminon wrote: I am a

Luminon wrote:

 I am a proponent of extraordinary materialism. I support this by practical and theoretical research of Dr. Philip Benjamin, James DeMeo, Dr. Henry Oldfield and others. Also, I've dug deeply into my perception and layers of consciousness and experienced transcendental things, I mean, experiences of extraordinary, benevolent conscious presence, to which my mind stood pale in comparison. AFAIK, neurology did not even begin to study such experiences. 

I think that common neurology and ordinary materialistic model are sufficient to explain our daily brain workings. So I focus on the extraordinary experiences, where the current models are insufficient. Or aren't they? Is there any book on the topic which deals with such fringe experiences?

This whole mechanistic concept of thinking relies on interaction through collision, better said, through weak nuclear force. Which is not viable, when it comes to considering biologic dark matter as our link between consciousness and the body. There must be other ways of interaction. Yeah, mind is material, but what kind of matter? It may actually be made of light-like sub-atomic particles organized by a field of some sort, into an orderly circulation roughly in shape of people's body, or aura. Not an actual atomic matter, much less neurons. Such a "body of light" is not something that can interact by collision, it will rather behave like a wave, it will influence others due to mutual resonance through closeness of vibration, for example. There are phenomena of influencing people's mind at a distance, for example we perceive a "tense atmosphere" in a room, or don't feel comfortably with people in a bus, or feel someone's gaze upon our back, or we see shoals of fish or birds all reacting in unison. With mechanistic thinking, we must seek lame and over-complicated explanations for such phenomena.
 

Hameroff and Penrose have proposed a theory of Quantum Consciousness. But it is more of a woo speculation than a proper hypothesis and is viewed as such by most of the world of neuroscience.  As Chalmers has pointed out even if such a speculative theory was determined to be correct it would not explain the hard question of consciousness any more than neurological processes do more than explain the functional aspects. In fact you would have only determined  a finer level of functionality. While even I speculate that qualia as the contents of consciousness and consciousness itself are physical states of an energy field it is still a wild eyed speculation that differs from woo only in the sense that it is a thought experiement for proper limitings of research.  There is simply no evidence for anything other than neural correlates of the contents of consciousness and correlates of consciousness itself.  We may state that we experience these contents but then are these contents merely experience themselves? We can assume that a conscious state with activity in thalamus, sub-thalamus, epithalamus, hypothalamus, the doresl area and frontal lobe is a correlate of the consciousness itself.  Does this activity in relation to a correlate of an experience of an apple for example create a sustaias attention and cned interaction in which the conscious correlate sustains the correlate of the apple's perception and so determine it ( objectify it) and continue other behaviors such as  understanding, contemplation or judgment?  THis would be a physical feedback or loop in the  neural network of alternating associations from language, memory, feeling, abstraction of properties and so forth.  These in turn are areas in the brain that can be activated and coordinated with other specialized areas or functions. 

 

 

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BobSpence1 wrote:My biggest

BobSpence1 wrote:

My biggest beef would be with the obsession with the "material/immaterial" distinction as the ultimate dualism.

Associated with that would be the always implied or explicit denigration of "matter" as 'mere' matter, or of the barren-ness of a conceived world of 'nothing but' matter. Whereas 'matter' is what allows some kind of persistence of 'form' or structure, and of the evolution of progressively more complex and subtle structure which in turn are essential to provide a template, a substrate, a context, for complex processes, such as life and consciousness, among other things.

"Internal/external" is a reasonable definition of the perspective attached to some particular context: inward toward our own thoughts and feelings, outward to other centers of consciousness and on to the broader universe.

My 2c anyway....

Sorry to back pedal here, I was thinking about this very thing today.  Specifically the T.A.G. as proposed by Matt Slick.  

I can see how historically, with a primitive understanding of natural processes such as brain function and it's physiology's influence on personality/cognitive ability, one can come to a dualistic understanding from simple speculation.  However, if the philosophical mumbo jumbo is considered only after a healthy dose of a contemporary understanding of science, it is difficult to understand why anyone would hold to such primitive notions as 'immaterial'.  

To consider anything other than 'material' one must first define a state that this immaterial is, rather then defining it as what it is not.  In my opinion, if you define anything as non material, or non physical, it is the same as calling it non-existent, and therefore completely irrelevant.  Unless one can show what this non physical quality is, the whole TAG argument is really nonsense.

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Ktulu wrote:BobSpence1

Ktulu wrote:

BobSpence1 wrote:

My biggest beef would be with the obsession with the "material/immaterial" distinction as the ultimate dualism.

Associated with that would be the always implied or explicit denigration of "matter" as 'mere' matter, or of the barren-ness of a conceived world of 'nothing but' matter. Whereas 'matter' is what allows some kind of persistence of 'form' or structure, and of the evolution of progressively more complex and subtle structure which in turn are essential to provide a template, a substrate, a context, for complex processes, such as life and consciousness, among other things.

"Internal/external" is a reasonable definition of the perspective attached to some particular context: inward toward our own thoughts and feelings, outward to other centers of consciousness and on to the broader universe.

My 2c anyway....

Sorry to back pedal here, I was thinking about this very thing today.  Specifically the T.A.G. as proposed by Matt Slick.  

I can see how historically, with a primitive understanding of natural processes such as brain function and it's physiology's influence on personality/cognitive ability, one can come to a dualistic understanding from simple speculation.  However, if the philosophical mumbo jumbo is considered only after a healthy dose of a contemporary understanding of science, it is difficult to understand why anyone would hold to such primitive notions as 'immaterial'.  

To consider anything other than 'material' one must first define a state that this immaterial is, rather then defining it as what it is not.  In my opinion, if you define anything as non material, or non physical, it is the same as calling it non-existent, and therefore completely irrelevant.  Unless one can show what this non physical quality is, the whole TAG argument is really nonsense.

I can not prove it but I can lay out the history. It seems that primitive man sw death as the stopping of breathing and moving. Breath, air and wind are invisible. We think nothing of it but imagine breathing on your hand and warming it if you are neanderthal.  We see the development of four elements with air as the primary element in many religions. The word pneuma is translated as winf, breath,or air from the Greek philosophic period and Christian text.  The idea of the immateral and invisible seems to be associated in these speculations. 


 

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That reminds me of the

That reminds me of the oh-so-common response from a Theist when we query why we should believe in something totally undetectable, not ( 'physically' ) perceivable, as 'God'.

"You can't see air!".... As though only sight confirmed physical existence, ignoring touch and feel, as of wind and breath. I wonder what they think is in an inflated balloon, that they can physically handle and feel the contents of...

IOW, the primitive idea that something that can be sensed and detected in so many ways apart from direct vision is the essence of an 'immaterial substance'.

Exhaled breath. Expiration. Inspiration. Spirit. => Soul.

Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality

"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris

The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me

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BobSpence1 wrote:That

BobSpence1 wrote:

That reminds me of the oh-so-common response from a Theist when we query why we should believe in something totally undetectable, not ( 'physically' ) perceivable, as 'God'.

"You can't see air!".... As though only sight confirmed physical existence, ignoring touch and feel, as of wind and breath. I wonder what they think is in an inflated balloon, that they can physically handle and feel the contents of...

IOW, the primitive idea that something that can be sensed and detected in so many ways apart from direct vision is the essence of an 'immaterial substance'.

Exhaled breath. Expiration. Inspiration. Spirit. => Soul.

It seems to be the case in the Greek language. In the Hebrew texts you have the same things like Gen 2:7 God breathed into man his spirit ( breath) and he became a living soul.  OR And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. The word "ruach"  in Hebrew means wind, breath and spirit.  The Spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life" (33:4). enesis 2:7, "The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life." I found this website at random:

http://198.62.75.1/www1/ofm/mag/TSmgenB1.html

 

Wind is always connected in some way with the appearance or the action of God, but indicates, however, a reality that is always in motion. In Psalm 18:11 it says: “He mounted a cherub and flew, borne on the wings of the wind”. God appears to Ezekiel in a stormwind (Ezekiel 1:4). God speaks to Job “from the midst of the storm” (Job 38:1). The encounter of the prophet Elijah with the Lord is manifested as a gentle breeze, “the whisper of a gentle breeze” (1 Kings 19:12). Still, there is need to pay be attentive to all this in way as not to be misunderstood. The fire, the stormwind, the earthquake are only manifestations. God “was not in the wind ... in the earthquake ... in the fire” (1 Kings 19:11-12). E.g. “The Lord swept the sea with a strong east wind” (Exodus 14:21), and so the people were able to cross the Red Sea. In the Book of Jonah, God sent “a burning east wind, and the sun beat upon Jonah’s head” (Jonah 4:Cool. “In hurricane and tempest is his path” (Nahum 1:3). Briefly then, whether it is a question of a gentle breeze (Job 4:15) or of a mighty wind (Job 8:2), or even a violent storm (Psalm 55:9), it is always God who is moving it. And it is always God who is the source of the action sustained by ruah.

The prophecy of Isaiah 32:15-20 is very interesting: the ruah will transform the desert into a garden bringing forth peace and justice. Here, it is not possible to translate the Hebrew word as wind. Ruah expressly signifies spirit, understood as a power capable of transforming not only natural phenomena, but also the hearts of men. The wind is as if always the object of the action of God; man observes it (2 Kings 3:17), but is never able to control it (Ecclesiastes 8:Cool. The power present in the wind, and no one knows where it comes from, are elements which make it possible to see in them the mysterious presence of God. The wind does not come from God when it indicates a reality, carnal or futile, which perishes: “Ah, all of them are nothing, their works are nought, their idols are empty wind!” (Isaiah 4:29). “The prophets (false) have become wind, and the word is not in them” (Jeremiah 5:13).

As in the preceding images, ruah is able to give life, but also destroy it. In Isaiah, the drunkards of Ephraim are destroyed in a violent storm (Isaiah 28:2). In Ezekiel, God lets loose his anger in the wind: “I will let loose the stormwinds; because of my anger there shall be a flooding rain ...” (Ezekiel 13:13). In other passages, the wind is likewise understood as the breath of God wich gives life to the dead (Ezekiel 37, 2 Samuel 22:16; Psalm 18:16). And breath is indeed the other important meaning for ruah. Still, it is not easy to distinguish between the two meanings as we have previously stated. The famous passage from Genesis 1:2 in which it says that the “breath of God hovered over the waters” is able to be understood as wind, or simply as the breath of the Creator.

“When you sent forth your spirit (or wind), they are created, and you renew the face of the earth” (Psalm 104:30). The excerpts in which ruah is clearly understood as breath or breathing are most numerous, and almost always signify the ongoing revelation of the Holy Spirit. In many cases, the “concrete” meanings of wind and breath are not as noticeable from a visible perspective. That is, it is not possible to have a precise idea of the real stability of the images of wind and breath. In many of these passages the meanings “fluctuate”.

When they had the meaning of breath or breathing, the word ruah often becomes associated with another word which is like a synonym: neshamah.

“Thus says God, the Lord, who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spreads out the earth with its crops, Who gives breath (neshamah) to its people and spirit (ruah) to those who walk on it” (Isaiah 42:5). [ the Lord who ... forms the spirit within the intimacy of man” (Zechariah 12:1). During the flood “everything on dry land with the faintest breath of life in its nostrils died out” (Genesis 7:21). Not only in man, but also in animals, therefore, there is a “breath of life” (Genesis 1:30), even though it is well distinguished from that of man, to whom all the animals are subservient. God is the same who blows the breath of life into man: “the Lord God formed man out of the clay of the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and so man became a living being” (Genesis 2:7). The Lord is “God of the spirits of all mankind” (Numbers 16:22), and “in his hand is the life breath (ruah) of all mankind” (Job 12:10). It is necessary to be attentive and not confuse these meanings of ruah with those which indicate, on the contrary, simply psychological conditions of the soul. (In the morning, her spirit (ruah) was disturbed” 1 Samuel 1:15.)

Considering what has been said, we are already able to draw some important considerations. The spirit is never an autonomous entity of man or of the universe, nor even a superior quality that would distinguish man from animal. But it is always, and exclusively, a reality that proceeds from God. He it is that gives the vital breath to all living things, and He it is who makes and helps his people grow. He it is who stirs up the wind, the fire, the water to bring every change. It is necessary to add, moreover, that the spirit is always opposite to the flesh (Isaiah 31:3) which is the sole reality which is subject to the will of man. God gives the spirit. In fact, whenever He wishes, He takes it back. The presence of the spirit gives life to the world and to man, and without it (without, that is, the presence of God), the flesh perishes.

 

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Fascinating stuff.It seems

Fascinating stuff.

It seems that, to that way of thought, 'air' only 'manifests' when it is motion, as wind or breath. Which reflects the physical reality that in the open environment, ie when it is not trapped in a container of some sort, it really does not impinge on our senses unless it is in motion.

One can see how those attributions of wind, storm, and breath, as being manifestations of 'God' in some way, do indeed follow. 'Air' in the sense we understand it, is either not something people are aware of, or is just an 'element', but wind and breath are something different. They have some 'force', or 'action'.

Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality

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TGBaker
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BobSpence1 wrote:Fascinating

BobSpence1 wrote:

Fascinating stuff.

It seems that, to that way of thought, 'air' only 'manifests' when it is motion, as wind or breath. Which reflects the physical reality that in the open environment, ie when it is not trapped in a container of some sort, it really does not impinge on our senses unless it is in motion.

One can see how those attributions of wind, storm, and breath, as being manifestations of 'God' in some way, do indeed follow. 'Air' in the sense we understand it, is either not something people are aware of, or is just an 'element', but wind and breath are something different. They have some 'force', or 'action'.

Yes and in the New Testament John 3:8 The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit."  Most of the arguments that we have made have been with conservative Christianity which embodies the effects of Greek Philosophy ( the attributes like Mr. Metphysics posits). 

The article I did on Sophisticated Theology which is a newer fad will be a bit more difficult to argue because will will be dealing with moderates and liberal Christians. They embrace an Open Theism which I encountered in the 80's at Emory but seems to be just trickling down to general laity.  These theologians admit that the criticisms of the attributes of god are contradictory. They define  god in humanistic terms and use the Bible passages that show where god changes his mind.  The notes that I asked you to look at is setting Open Theism against the logical arguments of classical theism. One or both are wrong.  

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_theism

 

I think that without the defense of god as a logical necessity the Open Theism can be defeated with plain Biblical Criticism for they have no where else to derive there construct of god apart from taking atheistic criticisms and incorporating them into there definitions!!!!

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BobSpence1 wrote:no internal

BobSpence1 wrote:

no internal experiences need anything outside 'conventional' science to explain, at least based on their perceived nature, no matter how strange to the person involved.

I actually meant the current scientific knowledge plus the trend to avoid anything that resembles woo. Anyway, does an internal experience counts, if it is experienced externally, like outside of the body?

BobSpence1 wrote:
 There have been so many claims of woo that have been thoroughly and comprehensively debunked, or simply faded over time when they never manifested outside the imagination of their proponent, that the bar has to be set pretty high before we can justify spending time and resources investigating them.

'Dark matter' is known through its physical effects, it is not outside science in any 'non-physical' or 'non-natural' way, just that its interactions with other matter are very weak. There is zero logical justification for seizing on the concept for the world of 'woo'.

If you check out my sources, you will see that this is not woo but a serious theory and practice, independent on the people doing it. Idea for such a research of course did not come out of nowhere, it is a common heritage of many cultures and daily experience of people with appropriate sensitivity or training.

BobSpence1 wrote:
 Auras have been shown to be non-existent, when people claiming to be able to see them have been subject to simple test situations. 
Well, I'm not disappearing anywhere. Should anyone with proper brain imaging equipment offer to test my claims, he's welcome. But tell me, why should we test fallible individuals, when there are technical devices that can do the testing objectively? 

BobSpence1 wrote:
 The flocking behaviour of swarms is understood and been accurately simulated on computers without proposing or assuming any 'extra' communications. 
All right, I just wonder if there is any reaction delay that would show the flock reactions are gradually spreading and not simultaneous. 

BobSpence1 wrote:
 Complex and subtle behaviour is an emergent phenomenon of complex processes, which only require sufficiently complex structures, not new forms of basic matter or energy.
It is not about complexity, but causality. We can safely say which external stimuli produce which reaction in our consciousness. But there are also internal stimuli, some of which are pretty mysterious. Where do these come from? With common people, there is not much to research, they are occupied by external world. But mystics and visionaries are occupied with another world, supposedly internal, which looks and feels external and has it's laws, though different from what we see around.
I think that the supposed "braindidit" explanation will not hold forever, not with increasing evidence that we are an open system to the subtle material worlds around. 

BobSpence1 wrote:
 Our minds and intuitions, and thoughts arising from internal experiences, have long been surpassed as viable sources of new understanding in themselves, that only comes from the deep study of reality outside our internal world, which continues to surprise us with deeply counter-intuitive phenomena. Just as our unassisted senses much earlier became inadequate for gaining new data, while our measuring instruments become ever more sensitive and accurate as technology progresses.

That really became blindingly obvious with Relativity and Quantum Theory, which both arose from trying to comprehend results from empirical research into physical reality. We still don't quite 'get' either concept outside their mathematical descriptions, but they are thoroughly established and proven. Our math and the growing ability of our computers to model complex ideas are what allow us to continue to make progress now.

Relativity is big. Quantum theory is small. In between there are man-sized mysteries, which are hidden by their material quality, not their size or scale. As my sources suggest, dark matter is a part of our living processes, specially nerve system. This is why in this case people can be competent as detectors.
I don't say I understand how it interacts with living cells, I just say who has theory, skills or technology to prove it. If you ever travel near Ashland, Oregon, you can have a look for yourself in James DeMeo's lab. You should have more patience with him, apparently, he does proper experiments, has published in peer-reviewed journal and disbelieves in chemtrails. 

BobSpence1 wrote:
 Sorry, the result of an accumulation of avoiding responding to this kind of post from you.

Although I should say that away from these topics, you often make quite good responses, such as to typical theist nonsense.

Responding to theists is simple, they usually just neglect logic. This is not a problem of logic, but propagating my personal findings and independent research which supports them.  If I have something, why should I be ashamed to point attention to it? Skeptics are something like a scientist's spam filter, it's their job to turn away deluded people, so scientists can work in peace. 

 

TGBaker wrote:

Hameroff and Penrose have proposed a theory of Quantum Consciousness. But it is more of a woo speculation than a proper hypothesis and is viewed as such by most of the world of neuroscience.  As Chalmers has pointed out even if such a speculative theory was determined to be correct it would not explain the hard question of consciousness any more than neurological processes do more than explain the functional aspects. In fact you would have only determined  a finer level of functionality. While even I speculate that qualia as the contents of consciousness and consciousness itself are physical states of an energy field it is still a wild eyed speculation that differs from woo only in the sense that it is a thought experiement for proper limitings of research.  There is simply no evidence for anything other than neural correlates of the contents of consciousness and correlates of consciousness itself.  We may state that we experience these contents but then are these contents merely experience themselves? We can assume that a conscious state with activity in thalamus, sub-thalamus, epithalamus, hypothalamus, the doresl area and frontal lobe is a correlate of the consciousness itself.  Does this activity in relation to a correlate of an experience of an apple for example create a sustaias attention and cned interaction in which the conscious correlate sustains the correlate of the apple's perception and so determine it ( objectify it) and continue other behaviors such as  understanding, contemplation or judgment?  THis would be a physical feedback or loop in the  neural network of alternating associations from language, memory, feeling, abstraction of properties and so forth.  These in turn are areas in the brain that can be activated and coordinated with other specialized areas or functions. 

When you say evidence, you probably mean a solid, peer-reviewed evidence, which can be easily reproduced by someone else on a random normal person's brain. In this way you will get an average function of a brain. By studying conscious response on mundane objects like an apple, you will get a brain response that evolution developed on our countless ancestors, who ever glimpsed an apple and passed their genes forward. This is the good old "duh, Sherlock" scientific approach. I can leave that, as Sheldon Cooper from TBBT said, 'to Oompa-Loompas of science.'

If there is any energetic or non-chemical basis to the consciousness, I don't believe that showing a normal apple to normal people will make the brain kneel in awe and show what's beyond it.  We need to study fringe phenomena, occult or mystical anomalies and crackpots. Most of all, people who use their nerve system in most unusual and innovative ways possible and yet remain sane and sober. Hence, they are virtually invisible in the society, have their mundane jobs (or need not to care about money) and value their privacy and freedom way too high over the 1 million dollars offered by J. Randi. 

Occult literature is quite clear on which brain parts, organs and etheric centers are interconnected and how they enter into modes of activity, which distinguishes savage tribesmen from a developed man of today and even more from geniuses and visionaries. It is practically a complex theory, ready to be tested. If scientists need a preliminary evidence, see my sources. 

 

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Luminon wrote:BobSpence1

Luminon wrote:

BobSpence1 wrote:

no internal experiences need anything outside 'conventional' science to explain, at least based on their perceived nature, no matter how strange to the person involved.

I actually meant the current scientific knowledge plus the trend to avoid anything that resembles woo. Anyway, does an internal experience counts, if it is experienced externally, like outside of the body?

 

TGBaker:  I could posit a scenario that I keep in dialogue with some other theories. There is no internality in that that which we call consciousness is an emergent spike, peak or point where even thoughts are processes that come from the unconscious to the conscious. Consciousness then is a responsive message to associated areas of the brain that they share one thought, idea or context.  Consciousness is then a loop in which hearing, seeing, feeling, emotions, seeing and language linking are combined into a syntax called experience.

 

TGBaker wrote:

Hameroff and Penrose have proposed a theory of Quantum Consciousness. But it is more of a woo speculation than a proper hypothesis and is viewed as such by most of the world of neuroscience.  As Chalmers has pointed out even if such a speculative theory was determined to be correct it would not explain the hard question of consciousness any more than neurological processes do more than explain the functional aspects. In fact you would have only determined  a finer level of functionality. While even I speculate that qualia as the contents of consciousness and consciousness itself are physical states of an energy field it is still a wild eyed speculation that differs from woo only in the sense that it is a thought experiement for proper limitings of research.  There is simply no evidence for anything other than neural correlates of the contents of consciousness and correlates of consciousness itself.  We may state that we experience these contents but then are these contents merely experience themselves? We can assume that a conscious state with activity in thalamus, sub-thalamus, epithalamus, hypothalamus, the doresl area and frontal lobe is a correlate of the consciousness itself.  Does this activity in relation to a correlate of an experience of an apple for example create a sustaias attention and cned interaction in which the conscious correlate sustains the correlate of the apple's perception and so determine it ( objectify it) and continue other behaviors such as  understanding, contemplation or judgment?  THis would be a physical feedback or loop in the  neural network of alternating associations from language, memory, feeling, abstraction of properties and so forth.  These in turn are areas in the brain that can be activated and coordinated with other specialized areas or functions. 

When you say evidence, you probably mean a solid, peer-reviewed evidence, which can be easily reproduced by someone else on a random normal person's brain. In this way you will get an average function of a brain. By studying conscious response on mundane objects like an apple, you will get a brain response that evolution developed on our countless ancestors, who ever glimpsed an apple and passed their genes forward. This is the good old "duh, Sherlock" scientific approach. I can leave that, as Sheldon Cooper from TBBT said, 'to Oompa-Loompas of science.'

If there is any energetic or non-chemical basis to the consciousness, I don't believe that showing a normal apple to normal people will make the brain kneel in awe and show what's beyond it.  We need to study fringe phenomena, occult or mystical anomalies and crackpots. Most of all, people who use their nerve system in most unusual and innovative ways possible and yet remain sane and sober. Hence, they are virtually invisible in the society, have their mundane jobs (or need not to care about money) and value their privacy and freedom way too high over the 1 million dollars offered by J. Randi. 

Occult literature is quite clear on which brain parts, organs and etheric centers are interconnected and how they enter into modes of activity, which distinguishes savage tribesmen from a developed man of today and even more from geniuses and visionaries. It is practically a complex theory, ready to be tested. If scientists need a preliminary evidence, see my sources. 

 

I am tired of studying fringe phenomena, occult or mystical anomolies and crackpots because apart from studied of mystical brain states I have found nothing that is of interest.  I have studied most religions translated some from their text been privy to facsimiles of the Dead Sea Scrolls, read them 7 or 8 times.  Studied Gnostic writings, Kundalini, Tantric, apophatic mystical daoism,  Tibetan Buddhism, lived with Druids and worshipped with Baha'is.  The fascination and desire for the transcendent is just that. The only thing that is transcended is reality.  If you think about a conscious moment and scientific knowledge you would concluded that as far as you are concerned all things are the past. You are the only present. For by the time you have experienced anything it will have occurred and traveled either by light or sound wave. The future is simply a filter whereby you can experience other than your self.

 

 

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Luminon,no matter how much

Luminon,

no matter how much some experience 'feels like' it is a very special kind, and completely different from 'normal' experiences, no matter how convincing some 'out of body' experience seems, that in itself is in no way evidence that they are anything more than the workings of your own thoughts and imagination. The conviction that 'this is real', or that you are 'really' experiencing or perceiving another world, is all part of the experience itself, and counts for nothing. Dreams can often feel more 'real' than 'reality', that is well known.

Unless you have actual physical evidence or solid proof of information gained that you could not obtain or have known by any other means.

I have read Penrose, and heard him interviewed, and whatever his credentials in Quantum Theory, his attempts to 'explain' aspects of consciousness are way outside his field of competence.

Conciousness is not 'chemical', any more than a computer program is itself made of semiconductors, or is electronic. Chemicals influence it very much, especially in terms of moods and emotional aspects, and chemistry forms the lower-level substrate of the neuronal networks and the mechanics by which they interact, but the phenomenon itself is a complex process involving a vast number of neurons in complex patterns of interaction.

You missed the point of my reference to Quantum Theory and Relativity - they show how inadequate intuition is to understand reality.

Even within the normal range, Complexity theory, Chaos, the implications of multiple non-linear feed-back loops, lead to firmly established results which demolish many older ideas of what 'causality' and 'determinism' imply, or even really mean.

Most of your comments are based around the kind of ideas and 'reasoning' that are themselves reason I so seldom attempt to engage you. You have so many misconceptions about the nature and practice of science, and about the state of current scientific knowledge, and you are so firmly wedded to your perspective, that it would almost certainly take far too long to even attempt to explain where I see you may be wrong, at enough points to have any real impact on your understanding.

Even if there is more information you feel I am missing in your 'sources', I see in your accounts so many quite explicit misconceptions that I have little confidence that you really have a coherent world-view behind it all. Your failure to grasp many really simple physical explanations I have tried to present to you over the years, for what you have seen as strange phenomenon, is what also makes it far more plausible to me that your ideas are based on mis-understanding or faulty intuition than on having grasped some principles that someone like me simply cannot or refuses to.

 

Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality

"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris

The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me

From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology


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 TGBaker wrote:I am tired

 

TGBaker wrote:
I am tired of studying fringe phenomena, occult or mystical anomolies and crackpots because apart from studied of mystical brain states I have found nothing that is of interest.  I have studied most religions translated some from their text been privy to facsimiles of the Dead Sea Scrolls, read them 7 or 8 times.  Studied Gnostic writings, Kundalini, Tantric, apophatic mystical daoism,  Tibetan Buddhism, lived with Druids and worshipped with Baha'is.  The fascination and desire for the transcendent is just that. The only thing that is transcended is reality.  If you think about a conscious moment and scientific knowledge you would concluded that as far as you are concerned all things are the past. You are the only present. For by the time you have experienced anything it will have occurred and traveled either by light or sound wave. The future is simply a filter whereby you can experience other than your self. 
I am sorry you had to go through all this. Organized religion is the poor man's spirituality. Religious people do not investigate the phenomena, they worship them from a distance. They can not agree upon how much literally to take their text, much less on actual technical meaning of esoteric metaphors. Mystics are cheaters, they may have experiences, but they don't help to build the road of science by laying down facts. In comparison, an occultist will try to understand the phenomena and utilize them efficiently, without devotion or desire. In that an occultist is similar to a scientist, except he also uses subjective methods. Modern occult books are more like textbooks. There is no need for ancient sources, except to explain them in light of modern knowledge.

For example, Leadbeater was a clairvoyant Theosophist and he used his talent to observe sub-atomic structure of elements, gaseous and four finer etheric degrees of matter. The results of his observations are summed up with illustrations in the book Occult Chemistry, ready for examination. A chemist or physicist might find them interesting. There seems to be a partial correlation between the number of observed so-called "atoms" (particles of the atom of an element) and its scientifically known relative atomic weight.

 

 

BobSpence1 wrote:

Luminon,

no matter how much some experience 'feels like' it is a very special kind, and completely different from 'normal' experiences, no matter how convincing some 'out of body' experience seems, that in itself is in no way evidence that they are anything more than the workings of your own thoughts and imagination. The conviction that 'this is real', or that you are 'really' experiencing or perceiving another world, is all part of the experience itself, and counts for nothing. Dreams can often feel more 'real' than 'reality', that is well known.

I think you miss the point here. I might have some experiences, but the point is that my perception is permanently expanded or shifted in a certain way, compared to a normal person. It is an instrument of observation. So I can and do make everyday observations under various circumstances. I performed many succesful observations, some of which would not be possible if the phenomena would not be real, physical and capable of influencing other people, under favorable circumstances. This is where my loud mouth comes from. 

BobSpence1 wrote:
 Unless you have actual physical evidence or solid proof of information gained that you could not obtain or have known by any other means.
I know what you mean, but did it ever occur to you, that there may be more forms of matter, than just solid? What about liquid, gaseous or the four etheric states? This is why I provided the link to James DeMeo, who apparently invented a solid proof in form of repeatable measurements. 

BobSpence1 wrote:
 I have read Penrose, and heard him interviewed, and whatever his credentials in Quantum Theory, his attempts to 'explain' aspects of consciousness are way outside his field of competence.
Well, according to Wikipedia, his hypothesis can only work in extremely high temperatures, so Quantum Consciousness is probably not the answer.

BobSpence1 wrote:
 Conciousness is not 'chemical', any more than a computer program is itself made of semiconductors, or is electronic. Chemicals influence it very much, especially in terms of moods and emotional aspects, and chemistry forms the lower-level substrate of the neuronal networks and the mechanics by which they interact, but the phenomenon itself is a complex process involving a vast number of neurons in complex patterns of interaction.
Looks like we use words differently. I try to rely on the effect called "you know what I mean", because I must refer to things and people you're not familiar with. For you, there is one science and one world of woo. For me there is the scientific method, institution, knowledge, favorite theories, rejected theories, unjustifiedly rejected theories, mainstream research, independent research, bogus research, and so on.

So if you promise you benevolently overlook an ambiguous word, (in this case, chemical) I promise I won't use this word as an argument.

BobSpence1 wrote:
 You missed the point of my reference to Quantum Theory and Relativity - they show how inadequate intuition is to understand reality.

Even within the normal range, Complexity theory, Chaos, the implications of multiple non-linear feed-back loops, lead to firmly established results which demolish many older ideas of what 'causality' and 'determinism' imply, or even really mean.

I was under impression that interpreting these words in any other way than mathemathically on quantum level is woo-mongering. Do you mean that these new counter-intuitive results have anything to do with our reality or consciousness?

BobSpence1 wrote:
 Most of your comments are based around the kind of ideas and 'reasoning' that are themselves reason I so seldom attempt to engage you. You have so many misconceptions about the nature and practice of science, and about the state of current scientific knowledge, and you are so firmly wedded to your perspective, that it would almost certainly take far too long to even attempt to explain where I see you may be wrong, at enough points to have any real impact on your understanding. 

Even if there is more information you feel I am missing in your 'sources', I see in your accounts so many quite explicit misconceptions that I have little confidence that you really have a coherent world-view behind it all. Your failure to grasp many really simple physical explanations I have tried to present to you over the years, for what you have seen as strange phenomenon, is what also makes it far more plausible to me that your ideas are based on mis-understanding or faulty intuition than on having grasped some principles that someone like me simply cannot or refuses to.

This sounds promising, I feel we're finally getting somewhere. Maybe this is exactly what I need! My dreamed-up ideal holiday would be to spend some time doing stuff and debating with a group of people somewhere away, and then in the end we'd all write a critical evaluation of each other. Really, sometimes I feel like playing a MMORPG character with most of stats hidden, visible only to other people, who should better tell me about them.

So, let's try, pretty please. I've started a topic.

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Luminon wrote: TGBaker

Luminon wrote:

 

TGBaker wrote:
I am tired of studying fringe phenomena, occult or mystical anomolies and crackpots because apart from studied of mystical brain states I have found nothing that is of interest.  I have studied most religions translated some from their text been privy to facsimiles of the Dead Sea Scrolls, read them 7 or 8 times.  Studied Gnostic writings, Kundalini, Tantric, apophatic mystical daoism,  Tibetan Buddhism, lived with Druids and worshipped with Baha'is.  The fascination and desire for the transcendent is just that. The only thing that is transcended is reality.  If you think about a conscious moment and scientific knowledge you would concluded that as far as you are concerned all things are the past. You are the only present. For by the time you have experienced anything it will have occurred and traveled either by light or sound wave. The future is simply a filter whereby you can experience other than your self. 
I am sorry you had to go through all this. Organized religion is the poor man's spirituality. Religious people do not investigate the phenomena, they worship them from a distance. They can not agree upon how much literally to take their text, much less on actual technical meaning of esoteric metaphors. Mystics are cheaters, they may have experiences, but they don't help to build the road of science by laying down facts. In comparison, an occultist will try to understand the phenomena and utilize them efficiently, without devotion or desire. In that an occultist is similar to a scientist, except he also uses subjective methods. Modern occult books are more like textbooks. There is no need for ancient sources, except to explain them in light of modern knowledge.

For example, Leadbeater was a clairvoyant Theosophist and he used his talent to observe sub-atomic structure of elements, gaseous and four finer etheric degrees of matter. The results of his observations are summed up with illustrations in the book Occult Chemistry, ready for examination. A chemist or physicist might find them interesting. There seems to be a partial correlation between the number of observed so-called "atoms" (particles of the atom of an element) and its scientifically known relative atomic weight.

 

I am sorry Luminon but I went through my Theosophical and Annie Besant period back when I was 19 or 20. I have a considerable alchemy collection too ( Francis Bacan  et al  and Vonyich ) but there is nothing that I have found that has evidentiary import like true historical or scientific methodology. I have not had in my posession or seen varified evidence of anything that goes beyond the secular and scientific world view. You can find number correlation between many things other than chemical. It is no different a preposterous claim than Greg Braden  stating there is Hebrew alphabet in the DNA "code".  There was supposed numerical codes in the Hebrew Bible that was popular when I was in Seminary called The Bible Code and whispered its debt to Kabalah.  Show me something that convinces me rather than talk about. I have researched "claimers' for years and found naught. Actually I found a lot of times people taking advantage of other people and delusion but that is a secondary observation to the research.

 

 

"You can't write a chord ugly enough to say what you want to say sometimes, so you have to rely on a giraffe filled with whip cream."--Frank Zappa

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