Originally Posted by JonLaw

I tell the law of gravity what it can go do with itself every time I raise my hand and touch my nose.

LOL well, it continues exerting the same force on you that it has always done, and one of these days -- hopefully long from now -- it is going to win the struggle.

Originally Posted by JonLaw

I tell the law of gravity what it can go do with itself every time I raise my hand and touch my nose.

No, it is just the electromagnetic forces powering your muscles overcoming the gravitational force of the earth.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

Nonsense. No biologist would ever make that claim; it's too obvious that there are things about living processes that we don't yet understand, species that haven't even been classified, mysteries still about how life originated in the first place -- there's no such thing as a "complete" science and biology is definitely not an exception.

Yes, they claim to know about "life;" that's what I mean, as if there was nothing more than the dead universe they report. Of course their kind of knowledge, whatever it is, is not complete.

As I thought. So you believe that there are elements of reality that exist in an objective sense, and are part of the world we observe/experience, but that do not obey the same laws of nature that all of matter and energy do. Would that be an accurate statement?

Yes, they are part of the world we experience. Laws of nature are man made attempts to summarize patterns of regularity that we see. If something does not obey these laws, that just means these laws are too limited and need revision. But "matter and energy" is part of a continuum which includes life, mind, spirit and the divine; Jon put it well.

It's impossible to understand mystical statements from the outside; they are descriptions of things language isn't designed to describe. Only by undergoing mystical experience oneself can the statements of mystics make any sense at all, and even then misunderstanding is very common.

What makes the perception of oneness experienced in cosmic consciousness any more (or less) real than the perception of separate identity experienced in normal consciousness?

First there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is a mountain again. Before enlightenment, chop wood and carry water; after enlightenment, chop wood and carry water. Enlightenment reveals that the reality perceived in a non-enlightened state is not absolute. It does not reveal that that reality is false.

I agree totally. But what is also true, is that what we experience in mystical consciousness, is what there is. We are one with the world we know, not separate.

The heart (which is not the same as the heart chakra) is an organ involved in the pumping of blood, and not involved in mentation at all except insofar as it's necessary to keep the brain alive. The soul does not exist. The aura is a magical field surrounding the body. The heart chakra, and the chakras generally, are magical forces associated with the spinal column. "The center of our being" is a meaningless phrase. The "akashik records" is an imaginary entity that facilitates the obtaining of information by psi; it has no literal existence. A body being kept alive on life-support with a dead brain experiences nothing, or at least is able to report no experience.

All of these things, insofar as they are real data, can be accounted for without departing from the brain being the organ of all mentation, provided we include my own model of magic/psi. They cannot be accounted for by biology or neuroscience at present, but that does not justify leaping directly to a supernatural account of these realities, which -- although I know you'll be reluctant to apply that tag -- is exactly what you are doing here.

The physical heart, and the heart chakra, are the same, but on different levels. The chakras are centers of the subtle body, that have exactly corresponding expressions in the physical body (nerve ganglia and hormone centers). The chakras in turn correspond to similar patterns in larger physical systems, and in the larger world soul. As above, so below; as within, so without.

I disagree with your statements here. But if science can embrace what you have suggested in other posts you made above, looking at its objects as more alive and free, then perhaps folks like me don't have to refer to spirit or soul. Or we might, but we can understand there is no essential difference in the meanings of those words.

But it does matter, Eric. The disagreements we are having all come down exactly to the fact that you don't believe it.

It still doesn't matter. Matter doesn't exist; that's a demonstrable fact. And I know that to be true, quite clearly. But if my report of what I know, does not conform to what you need to conclude about my "beliefs," I have no power over that. That is your conclusion. Again, it works better to say that my view is wrong in your opinion because it is contradictory, than to tell me what I believe.

An "entity" is no more and no less than something which exists. The physical world is an entity. My computer is an entity. The soul, if there was such a thing, would be an entity. To say that you believe in entities is only to say that you believe things exist. You do. Don't get hung up on the word.

You are hung up on it, to the extent that you think there are actual entities or things. If it is just a turn of phrase, that's OK. But you believe in logic, which is based on thinking in "entities" (remember, "a thing is a think"), and you impose either/or thinking on me, since you don't seem very able yourself to think in other terms.

You believe there are parts of reality which do not behave according to natural law. You listed some of them yourself, above: the akashik records, the energy body, the soul. You also believe there are parts of reality which do behave according to natural law. by "natural law" I mean the way nature is observed to behave, as discovered using scientific method.

I would agree with what you have stated here. I just realize how limited that method is, and consequently it has difficulty observing some "parts of reality." I think though, that science can also study these parts, and can at least observe the effects. However, skeptics probably (such as yourself) could still dispute the meaning or source that may be attributed to those observed effects. So I'm not sure scientific methods, as generally conceived now, can succeed in describing these or many other parts of reality to those people such as yourself who are not open to their possibility of existing.

Whether you think of these two different sorts of reality as two completely separate blocks with empty space between them, or as two ends of a continuum with the space between them filled in, is purely a matter of visualization and not pertinent to the question. The important fact is that you regard part of reality as immune to natural law.

And those natural laws are purely man-made, not aspects of the universe itself. They can be revised, and frequently are. So it is certainly possible for the human mind to comprehend these parts of reality as part of the same universe as those parts that are more easily described today by "natural law" i.e. those aspects which seem to us stable and predictable, toward the end of the continuum we call "material" or "physical."

I'm glad we are communicating a little better, and you are getting closer to saying what I have said when you describe my views, in words closer to what I mean. We are still a ways apart though; you can't really understand my point of view within the terms of your point of view; they are different. And it's fine that we probably will never agree in our world views. A universe of different views is what we live in; all part of what I call the circle of philosophy.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

To postulate that parts of reality exist which violate the laws of nature is to postulate the existence of things which are radically different in nature from what we observe on a very fundamental level.

Or maybe, not so fundamental...

Of course, if natural law indicates what is "fundamental," and the spirit is not, then this is not really "non-dualistic" in the sense of healing the rift declared by Descartes. It is materialism per se. A true "non-dualism," Brian and Odin, would be as spiritualist as much as materialist, and would bring together spirit and matter without destroying one or the other side of the equation, as you are doing

If you are adjusting your words now and calling them "events" rather than "metaphors," it brings things a bit closer. You prefer a "non-dualistic" rather than a "supernatural" explanation for them. Your definition of "supernatural" means "beyond natural law," and that's fine too, and so where we disagree is that I think, yes, they are beyond the explanations of "natural law" as they are now known to conventional, mostly-mechanistic empirically-verifiable science. Perhaps not however beyond a "natural law" that might include or somehow account for genuine free will and consciousness-- which are definitely part of the universe that we experience/observe, and which I call spirit or soul, aka the 5th element.

Speaking of which, some scientists are now saying Einstein was wrong and the aether exists, and that it might be the "dark energy" and/or "dark matter" that remains invisible but bends light. what is it? Nobody knows. I'm not calling it "spirit" though some people might. We don't know yet. But what is causing the universe to speed up its expansion? Not the big bang apparently. And how is the universe so fine-tuned that a little tiny difference in the strong force could throw everything off to such an extent that we wouldn't be here?

Originally Posted by JonLaw

I tell the law of gravity what it can go do with itself every time I raise my hand and touch my nose.

Me too! Maybe we ought to have a vote. Brian and Odin can vote for the law of gravity, and we can vote against it. Let Hutch and TnT and others cast the deciding votes, and we can change the world!

one of these days -- hopefully long from now -- it is going to win the struggle.

But only on the "wood" that is left over from the "life" and "soul" that created it! We ourselves won't be there!

"Witchi tai tai gimerah wo-rah-nee-ko wo-rah-nee-ko hey ney hey ney no ah"

Prince

PS: Everything is Everything

Originally Posted by princeofcats67

"Witchi tai tai gimerah wo-rah-nee-ko wo-rah-nee-ko hey ney hey ney no ah"

Prince

PS: Everything is Everything

Water spirit feeling springin round my head, makes me feel glad that I'm not dead!

http://youtu.be/lAMKL2KKumo

(I guess you know, one of my favorite songs)

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

Yes, they claim to know about "life;" that's what I mean, as if there was nothing more than the dead universe they report. Of course their kind of knowledge, whatever it is, is not complete.

No. But let me translate for you: biology affirmatively rejects vitalism, a non-material soul, and many of the concepts from theosophy and Hermetic thought, as without foundation. It's not that biology claims that its models are complete, but that it refuses to consider ideas that you are fond of but for which there is no evidence.

Yes, they are part of the world we experience. Laws of nature are man made attempts to summarize patterns of regularity that we see. If something does not obey these laws, that just means these laws are too limited and need revision. But "matter and energy" is part of a continuum which includes life, mind, spirit and the divine; Jon put it well.

Let's get away for a moment from phenomena that you and I know are real, but that biologists often can't perceive and have doubts about, and take up something that (I will argue) is of a similar nature that everyone knows is real: dreams.

Dreams are of a similar nature to the "astral plane" of Hermetic thought. They appear to be sensory experience, but they are not; the senses are not actually involved. Now, I believe there are three different models that may be conceived about dreams.

1) Dreams represent activity of the cerebral cortex during sleep, including the portions of it dealing with memory, emotion, cognition (although all of these may be skewed in ways that would be detected in waking consciousness), and the processing of sensory information. Dreaming creates an imaginary experience for the dreamer, and appears to serve a not-well-understood but clearly positive function in terms of health, as a lack of dreams is associated with health problems.

2) Dreams represent a time when the soul leaves the body while the body is unconscious and travels on the astral plane.

3) Dreams are basically #1, but with the addition of psi, so that the dreamer may also acquire true information and solve problems in dreams.

I'll take #3, as you probably know. But the point is, we must distinguish between the phenomenon to be explained and the explanation offered. The phenomenon here is dream: we go to sleep, we experience certain things.

Why do I think #3 (or even #1) is a better model for dreaming than #2? There are two reasons.

1) It is more economical. We do not have to assume the existence of something (the astral plane) for which there is no direct evidence.
2) It explains more. If we see dreams as the result of brain activity within sleep, we can account for rapid eye movements, brain activity while dreaming as registered on EEGs, and the weird way our thinking operates while we dream -- we accept things and do things in dreams that we would not normally do. If the soul rather than the brain is the organ of thought, and a dream means the soul is sojourning on the astral plane, we should not expect to detect any signs of dreaming in the body or the brain, and we also should not expect any difference in cognition, memory, or feelings.

The experience remains the same no matter how we explain it, but the brain-activity model works better for the above reasons. Even without psi, it leaves room for dreams to have meaning and provide lessons, and of course if we include psi then that becomes even more so.

Similarly, all of the phenomena that you explain in these New Agey ways can be explained without resorting to them, and it's better to do so because otherwise we end up with a clumsy, cumbersome, hodge-podge picture of the world we live in.

I agree totally. But what is also true, is that what we experience in mystical consciousness, is what there is. We are one with the world we know, not separate.

Almost. We are one with the world we know, AND separate. The difference is one of perspective, and both perspectives are valid, each for its own purpose.

The physical heart, and the heart chakra, are the same, but on different levels.

Sorry, Eric, but that's nonsense, and there is absolutely no evidence for it except for the coincidental location of the chakra at about the same place as the heart. (In fact, I would say that the popular conception of the heart as the center of emotion comes entirely from experience of the heart chakra. The heart itself has no function whatever in emotion except to respond to it on some occasions by increasing or slowing its rhythm.)

The chakras are centers of the subtle body, that have exactly corresponding expressions in the physical body (nerve ganglia and hormone centers).

I have never seen any listing of those correspondences that had any more evidence behind them than your statement about the heart. The fact that we can pair two things together into convenient lists does not mean they really have anything to do with each other.

The chakras in turn correspond to similar patterns in larger physical systems, and in the larger world soul. As above, so below; as within, so without.

Now you're speaking in terms of association, and so have moved into the realm described by my own theory of magic.

I disagree with your statements here. But if science can embrace what you have suggested in other posts you made above, looking at its objects as more alive and free, then perhaps folks like me don't have to refer to spirit or soul. Or we might, but we can understand there is no essential difference in the meanings of those words.

Oh, there would still be a difference. The soul includes the concept of a personality that is separate from the body, that survives the death of the body, and that can travel completely apart from the body and engage in cognition, emotion, imagination, and perception without the brain being involved at all. It is that, and not such things as being "alive and free," that make the soul a very unlikely hypothesis. Matter and energy are themselves "free" (that is, indeterminate in their behavior), and at least have the potential to be alive, as evidenced by the fact that they sometimes are. (That is, living organisms certainly do exist.) But there is no evidence at all of cognition, etc. without the brain, and much evidence against this.

It still doesn't matter. Matter doesn't exist; that's a demonstrable fact.

Bah, no it's not. Let's take this up for a minute. There are two ways to think of "matter." One: matter is that which we experience through the senses as something we can touch, see, taste, smell, and hear. Two: matter is an objective reality that exists independent of the perception of it. Please don't confuse the two. We can call these the "matter of experience" and the "matter of philosophy," respectively.

To demonstrate that the matter of experience exists could not be simpler: open your eyes and look around. Take a deep breath. Listen. Touch something. Eat or drink something. Anything you see, smell, hear, feel, or taste is matter. (AGAIN -- because I know you'll jump to do this -- DON'T CONFUSE THE MATTER OF EXPERIENCE WITH THE MATTER OF PHILOSOPHY.) Right now we're talking about the matter of experience. To insist "No, that's not matter" is to jump over into philosophy inappropriately. The matter of experience IS real, you KNOW that, and to suggest otherwise is simply crazy.

It is impossible, on the other hand, to demonstrate either that the matter of philosophy exists or that it does not. The matter of philosophy is an idea about the matter of experience; the matter of experience remains itself whether that philosophical idea is true or false, and in fact all of the laws of nature as discovered by science remain unchanged whether we suppose that the matter of philosophy is real or not, because science deals only with the matter of experience. The matter of philosophy is an add-on to science, changing nothing.

When I refer to the laws of nature, therefore, I am referring to regularities that science has discovered about the observable behavior of the matter of experience, nothing more, nothing less.

You are hung up on it, to the extent that you think there are actual entities or things.

You are unnecessarily introducing complex levels of philosophy into something that is really very simple.

But you believe in logic

So do you. I know this, because you use it. As always, what one does is a better guide to one's beliefs than what one says one believes.

I would agree with what you have stated here.

Thank you. Along with what you agreed to earlier, this means that you believe there are parts of reality which obey the laws of nature and other parts that do not. And that is what it is to be a dualist. You really should acknowledge this to yourself, Eric.

you can't really understand my point of view within the terms of your point of view; they are different.

It isn't true that I can't understand it. What is true is that I can't agree with it. There's a difference.

Originally Posted by princeofcats67

PS: Everything is Everything

Everything participates in everything else, but everything is not everything.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

No. But let me translate for you: biology affirmatively rejects vitalism, a non-material soul, and many of the concepts from theosophy and Hermetic thought, as without foundation. It's not that biology claims that its models are complete, but that it refuses to consider ideas that you are fond of but for which there is no evidence.

Which is why we need soul experiments.

But nobody ever wants to try to rig them up.

Mostly because they involve weirdness and/or death.

[QUOTE=Brian Rush;3959653) Dreams are basically #1, but with the addition of psi, so that the dreamer may also acquire true information and solve problems in dreams.[/QUOTE]

Dreams don't involve any sort of "astral projection." So, my position is closer to Brian's 3. Even though I have absolutely no idea what psi is.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

No. But let me translate for you: biology affirmatively rejects vitalism, a non-material soul, and many of the concepts from theosophy and Hermetic thought, as without foundation. It's not that biology claims that its models are complete, but that it refuses to consider ideas that you are fond of but for which there is no evidence.

No evidence within their objective, mechanistic empirical approach, apparently; though there are some who claim such evidence. There's plenty of other kinds of "evidence"; it's the methods of biology that are inadequate; it is incapable of comprehending life, and seeks to understand it with death. Whether I am fond of theosophy and Hermetic thought is irrelevant.

Let's get away for a moment from phenomena that you and I know are real, but that biologists often can't perceive and have doubts about, and take up something that (I will argue) is of a similar nature that everyone knows is real: dreams.

OK, but I don't know what you mean that biology has "doubts about dreams." They study dreams in their terms too, or at least materialist psychologists do.

Dreams are of a similar nature to the "astral plane" of Hermetic thought. They appear to be sensory experience, but they are not; the senses are not actually involved. Now, I believe there are three different models that may be conceived about dreams.

Similarly, all of the phenomena that you explain in these New Agey ways can be explained without resorting to them, and it's better to do so because otherwise we end up with a clumsy, cumbersome, hodge-podge picture of the world we live in.

On the other hand, what I think is hodgepodge is your model. You sometimes admit here consciousness and freedom, but you also claim that models of life that omit these things are valid. Then you say the only difference is one of viewpoint. You can't really have it both ways. You can't explain consciousness and free will as unconscious and mechanical, just by changing hats. I certainly agree with the idea that the outer view of things is a different perspective on the same thing viewed from within. But that means it's the same thing, not the same thing explained in two contradictory ways.

Almost. We are one with the world we know, AND separate. The difference is one of perspective, and both perspectives are valid, each for its own purpose.

It is never valid, for any purpose, to say we are separate from the world; that is simply false. I'd rather see the world as it is, not from the perspective of what benefits my "purpose." The purpose of conventional Western science is technological, or at least to see it in ways that are easily grasped by a rationalist or technology-oriented mind and culture, and/or which result in technological applications.

Sorry, Eric, but that's nonsense, and there is absolutely no evidence for it except for the coincidental location of the chakra at about the same place as the heart. (In fact, I would say that the popular conception of the heart as the center of emotion comes entirely from experience of the heart chakra. The heart itself has no function whatever in emotion except to respond to it on some occasions by increasing or slowing its rhythm.)

I'm sorry you're sorry, Brian, but there's lots of evidence for it. That's why people who feel unfulfilled and discouraged get heart attacks. Courage, cour, core, the heart and center of us. It is really the heart that is the center of our soul. But of course biology can't find "evidence" for it as an empirically-verifiable visible entity because it is not equipped to do that. But we observe the connection in quite verifiable ways, as in the above very-common situation. The heart is not exactly an emotional center; most hermeticists would not say that; emotion is more 2nd or 3rd chakra. Heart is the authentic self, the place of our "heart's desire" which means the core of our motivation. It is a place of inner innocence, the point of balance among our various faculties, and compassion or connection with others. This is certainly available to verify within your own experience, though such ideas won't show up on an electro-cardiagram.

The best video on the chakras by the best author on the subject, again: http://youtu.be/yoEw92dMXrE

I have never seen any listing of those correspondences that had any more evidence behind them than your statement about the heart. The fact that we can pair two things together into convenient lists does not mean they really have anything to do with each other....
Now you're speaking in terms of association, and so have moved into the realm described by my own theory of magic.

All related I am sure. It's not just a matter of lists, but of the locations in the body, and similar functions on different levels.

Oh, there would still be a difference. The soul includes the concept of a personality that is separate from the body, that survives the death of the body, and that can travel completely apart from the body and engage in cognition, emotion, imagination, and perception without the brain being involved at all. It is that, and not such things as being "alive and free," that make the soul a very unlikely hypothesis. Matter and energy are themselves "free" (that is, indeterminate in their behavior), and at least have the potential to be alive, as evidenced by the fact that they sometimes are. (That is, living organisms certainly do exist.) But there is no evidence at all of cognition, etc. without the brain, and much evidence against this.

The word soul could refer to ourselves beyond the body, but it need not refer to that, if you don't have knowledge of such. It is just as valid to use the word to refer to what is free and alive. That is what the soul is, essentially. Whether it survives death or not is a separate question. It is not dead, that's the point. And I "feel glad" about that.

There is plenty of evidence of cognition without the brain. But you prefer to argue against evidence (as you did in regard to the closed color circle) by simply saying they are false because something else is happening, without any evidence that it happens, or even any ability to imagine what this is. This is simply evading and avoiding the facts. The simple explanation for phenomena of cognition without the brain, is cognition without the brain.

Bah, no it's not. Let's take this up for a minute. There are two ways to think of "matter." One: matter is that which we experience through the senses as something we can touch, see, taste, smell, and hear. Two: matter is an objective reality that exists independent of the perception of it. Please don't confuse the two. We can call these the "matter of experience" and the "matter of philosophy," respectively.

To demonstrate that the matter of experience exists could not be simpler: open your eyes and look around. Take a deep breath. Listen. Touch something. Eat or drink something. Anything you see, smell, hear, feel, or taste is matter. (AGAIN -- because I know you'll jump to do this -- DON'T CONFUSE THE MATTER OF EXPERIENCE WITH THE MATTER OF PHILOSOPHY.) Right now we're talking about the matter of experience. To insist "No, that's not matter" is to jump over into philosophy inappropriately. The matter of experience IS real, you KNOW that, and to suggest otherwise is simply crazy.

It is impossible, on the other hand, to demonstrate either that the matter of philosophy exists or that it does not. The matter of philosophy is an idea about the matter of experience; the matter of experience remains itself whether that philosophical idea is true or false, and in fact all of the laws of nature as discovered by science remain unchanged whether we suppose that the matter of philosophy is real or not, because science deals only with the matter of experience. The matter of philosophy is an add-on to science, changing nothing.

When I refer to the laws of nature, therefore, I am referring to regularities that science has discovered about the observable behavior of the matter of experience, nothing more, nothing less.

The whole point of philosophy is to correct our misperceptions, including those we conclude based on our sense experience. Sorry, you can't separate matters of experience and matters of philosophy. That is balderdash. Experience is the basis for philosophy. If you conclude that matter exists based on your sense experience, then you need to do some philosophy. It is you who is crazy, and you need some philosophical therapy. A common affliction in western society. Philosophy helps us correct things that science has added on, invalidly, and without examination. Philosophy examines and disproves these false assumptions, such as the idea that sense experience provides "evidence" of "matter." There is no "matter," since noone has experienced any such thing. We experience feelings or sensations that always have this or that form. I think what you refer to is basically the experience of what the hermeticists call the earth element, solidity or density, relative to our own body. A state of matter, to use the physicist's phrase only; not matter per se. Spirit is the 5th element, the most subtle state of this prime "matter;" of what there is, IOW.

Philosophy is the bottom line, the ground of all other knowledge. Metaphysics is the study of reality as it is. Your scientific discoveries of regularities concern about 1% of experience; other modes of knowledge deal with the other 99% of experience. Roughly speaking.

But it seems to me even science today is clear on this. Matter is a form of energy. It is a condensed form of energy IOW. Now, what is "energy"? "Capacity to do work?" Whose work? Science does not know what energy is. It just uses the concept without examining it.

So do you. I know this, because you use it. As always, what one does is a better guide to one's beliefs than what one says one believes.

Logic is, as I said, a tool of communication: consistency of statement. So I use it. But the reality is beyond the language. Language and logic are very superificial. To get to reality, you need to look deeper. That is what I am writing about, not logical games.

you believe there are parts of reality which obey the laws of nature and other parts that do not. And that is what it is to be a dualist. You really should acknowledge this to yourself, Eric.

Dualism is the notion there are two substances, mind and matter; not what you claim it is. It is not dualism to understand that our puny rationalist empirical minds can't understand certain things. It is not dualism to claim there are different ways of knowing the same reality besides empirical, rationalist science. You are the one who wears two hats. You are the dualist. Admit it to yourself, Brian.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

No evidence within their objective, mechanistic empirical approach, apparently

You keep using this excuse. It won't fly. No evidence at all. If you think there is some, present it.

OK, but I don't know what you mean that biology has "doubts about dreams." They study dreams in their terms too, or at least materialist psychologists do.

Right, dreams are more a subject for psychology than for biology. My bad on that, even though the two sciences are closely related.

Again, though, the phenomenon must be understood separately from any ideas about it. Of course psychologists don't doubt the existence of dreams; how could they? But they do doubt very much that the soul leaves the body and travels on the astral plane while we sleep. The New Age model for the phenomenon is rejected, although the phenomenon itself is not.

On the other hand, what I think is hodgepodge is your model. You sometimes admit here consciousness and freedom, but you also claim that models of life that omit these things are valid.

There are no models of life that omit these things.

You can't explain consciousness and free will as unconscious and mechanical

I have never explained consciousness as unconscious, but there is no problem with explaining free will mechanically, as long as one does so without determinism. (Whether "mechanically" must include determinism or not is something I haven't gotten a consistent answer from you on. If it must, then I do not explain free will mechanically; if it need not, then I can do so.)

I certainly agree with the idea that the outer view of things is a different perspective on the same thing viewed from within. But that means it's the same thing, not the same thing explained in two contradictory ways.

You're not making a lot of sense here, Eric. It is the same thing from two different perspectives. Why can't it be explained in two contradictory ways?

I'd rather see the world as it is, not from the perspective of what benefits my "purpose."

Untrue. That is a completely false statement about what you do. You replace the real world with ideas suitable for your purpose all the time.

I'm sorry you're sorry, Brian, but there's lots of evidence for it. That's why people who feel unfulfilled and discouraged get heart attacks.

Wrong, that's not why.

Courage, cour, core, the heart and center of us.

Linguistic confusion.

It is really the heart that is the center of our soul.

Meaningless statement. The heart is a blood pump and there is no such thing as "the center of our soul."

The word soul could refer to ourselves beyond the body, but it need not refer to that

It either does or it doesn't. If it does, you mean one thing by the word, and if it doesn't, you mean something else. This or that, not both, not formless goo.

It is just as valid to use the word to refer to what is free and alive.

It is valid to use it for whatever you want. What isn't valid is to switch back and forth between two definitions or argue that because one meaning of the word is real, so must the other.

That is what the soul is, essentially. Whether it survives death or not is a separate question.

If you are talking about something that survives death, you are talking about something else altogether that must have characteristics that are not encompassed by "free and alive." So no, it's not a separate question. If you are just talking about "free and alive," the soul could be the brain. If you are talking about something that survives death, it can't.

There is plenty of evidence of cognition without the brain.

Then present it. So far you have presented none, and I have seen none.

The whole point of philosophy is to correct our misperceptions, including those we conclude based on our sense experience. Sorry, you can't separate matters of experience and matters of philosophy. That is balderdash. Experience is the basis for philosophy. If you conclude that matter exists based on your sense experience, then you need to do some philosophy.

Utterly wrong. When I say that the matter of experience exists, I mean: We see. We touch. We taste. We smell. We hear. That's what I mean and that's ALL I mean. To doubt that the matter of experiece exists is to doubt that the experience of sensation occurs, and only a crazy person doubts that. The matter of philosophy is an idea derived from the matter of experience; the matter of experience exists and is what it is regardles of whether the matter of philosophy exists or doesn't.

You said earlier that you feel you are too much in your head. You are right about that. This is a perfect example. You see. You hear. You touch. You taste. You smell. You know that. You know the matter of experience is real, or you are crazy. End of story.

But it seems to me even science today is clear on this. Matter is a form of energy. It is a condensed form of energy IOW. Now, what is "energy"? "Capacity to do work?" Whose work? Science does not know what energy is. It just uses the concept without examining it.

Now we are moving beyong the matter of experience itself to a set of ideas about how it functions.

The definition of "work" in physics is clear, and the question "who's work?" is meaningless if that's what we are talking about.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work_%28physics%29

Read that, please. Learn something. Then come back.

Logic is, as I said, a tool of communication: consistency of statement. So I use it.

And then you try to get around using it whenever it's inconvenient. As I said, this indicates a lack of intellectual integrity.

Dualism is the notion there are two substances, mind and matter; not what you claim it is.

A conveniently narrow definition that lets you avoid applying a label to yourself that you don't like.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

Again, though, the phenomenon must be understood separately from any ideas about it. Of course psychologists don't doubt the existence of dreams; how could they? But they do doubt very much that the soul leaves the body and travels on the astral plane while we sleep. The New Age model for the phenomenon is rejected, although the phenomenon itself is not.

I wouldn't reject peoples' accounts of their experience. I have no reason to impose a different description or explanation on what they report.

There are no models of life that omit these things.

No doubt at all; biology models life as if it were dead. No free will or consciousness is present in their models.

I have never explained consciousness as unconscious, but there is no problem with explaining free will mechanically, as long as one does so without determinism. (Whether "mechanically" must include determinism or not is something I haven't gotten a consistent answer from you on. If it must, then I do not explain free will mechanically; if it need not, then I can do so.)

You explain conscious states of mind as unconscious, and any free will explained mechanically cannot be free. Mechanically must include determinism yes. But I would say that "random" indeterminism is a condition from which free will can arise, and through evolution the amount of freedom within organisms grows. That's what evolution is all about; evolution of freedom and consciousness within living beings through time.

It is the same thing from two different perspectives. Why can't it be explained in two contradictory ways?

Because it's not the same thing then.

Wrong, that's not why.

That's why, according to those who have reported on the subject.

Linguistic confusion.

No, many thinkers and authors use etymology to illustrate the relatedness of ideas. Words trace the history of our experience.

Meaningless statement. The heart is a blood pump and there is no such thing as "the center of our soul."

Our center or core is something we experience. If you don't tune in to your experience, then you don't know.

It either does or it doesn't. If it does, you mean one thing by the word, and if it doesn't, you mean something else. This or that, not both, not formless goo.

Says you!

It is valid to use it for whatever you want. What isn't valid is to switch back and forth between two definitions or argue that because one meaning of the word is real, so must the other.

I think they are separate questions, but I am interested in both subjects. I don't think I switch back and forth. I am saying the soul is more than what biologists study, i.e. life as if it were dead. I am not primarily talking about life after death.

If you are talking about something that survives death, you are talking about something else altogether that must have characteristics that are not encompassed by "free and alive." So no, it's not a separate question. If you are just talking about "free and alive," the soul could be the brain. If you are talking about something that survives death, it can't.

The soul, whether it survives death or not, cannot be reduced to the brain. It is that reduction that biologists apply to the study of the living soul. I claim it is invalid to do so. For one thing, the soul suffuses the entire body. For another, it is self-moving and free, not mechanical or determined. The brain studied as if it were dead, is not the soul. If you want to revise how most biology is pursued, and study the brain as indeterminate and free, and say that's equal to the soul, provided the soul is also in the entire body and not just the brain, I have no problem agreeing with you. I will still disagree with you and say the soul might survive death, and that this is a real experience, since I am a spiritualist. But that is a separate discussion. There are many in the camp who say the soul exists as the freedom and consciousness of the living body, but don't say the soul survives the death of the body. Are you among them?

Then present it. So far you have presented none, and I have seen none.

I presented two good pieces of evidence from the WIE article. You dismissed the evidence with your own invalid argument, not with counter evidence.

Utterly wrong. When I say that the matter of experience exists, I mean: We see. We touch. We taste. We smell. We hear. That's what I mean and that's ALL I mean. To doubt that the matter of experience exists is to doubt that the experience of sensation occurs, and only a crazy person doubts that. The matter of philosophy is an idea derived from the matter of experience; the matter of experience exists and is what it is regardles of whether the matter of philosophy exists or doesn't.

You said earlier that you feel you are too much in your head. You are right about that. This is a perfect example. You see. You hear. You touch. You taste. You smell. You know that. You know the matter of experience is real, or you are crazy. End of story.

Then you are talking about sensation, period. Not matter. I am aware that I have sensations. Where does that leave us?

Now we are moving beyond the matter of experience itself to a set of ideas about how it functions.

Physics is clear on this point; matter is energy. Energy in physics is not "how experience functions." Show me a text or article that says that.

The definition of "work" in physics is clear, and the question "who's work?" is meaningless if that's what we are talking about.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work_%28physics%29

Read that, please. Learn something. Then come back.

Did you go to the video I posted about the chakras? Learn something and come back.

Defining energy as "work" just refers energy back to its effects on other objects that are really condensed energy (their effect on rigid objects). BUt what energy is remains elusive.

A conveniently narrow definition that lets you avoid applying a label to yourself that you don't like.

Not unlike yours.

All right, let's back up a bit. I want to go back to the difference between the matter of experience and the matter of philosophy, because I truly believe that to be key to this disagreement. I then want to introduce another idea that just occurred to me recently.

The matter of experience is the world we encounter via the senses. Everyone believes in it, and it is what most people mean when they speak of matter. Only philosophers deal with the matter of philosophy; for most people, the matter of experience is the only matter they know or think about; whether it really exists independently of perception is just not a question that even occurs to the average person.

Everyone believes in the matter of experience. Everyone believes that it is of significance and has a nature and behavior that can't be arbitrarily changed. If anyone believed differently, he would step out in front of a speeding car, because the car is not real and neither is his body; or he would absent-mindedly step off the roof of a tall building; or he would not eat or drink because his hunger and thirst are not real.

To say that this is "only sensation, not matter" is incorrect. This is the source of all ideas about matter. This is what, in ordinary discourse as opposed to abstract and abstruse philosophy, the word "matter" means. There is not merely the occurrence of sensation, but a world perceived via the senses, and that world is undeniably real -- that is to say, it has significance, it is important, it must be dealt with and accommodated. And everyone believes this. You believe it, I believe it, even the Buddha believed it. In regard to the matter of experience, everyone is a materialist (or at least a supernaturalist -- a materialist who also believes in a supernatural add-on).

Philosophy adds a layer of abstract thought to this immediate concrete reality. Idealists such as Plato speculate that the world we experience is only a shadow or product of archetypes occupying a different reality. Radical empiricists such as Hume point out that we cannot prove the existence of matter independent of the perception of it, that this is only an unfounded assumption on our part. It's also been pointed out that even if the material world does exist independently of observation, we have no way to know that what it is in itself resembles our experience of it. Materialists assume that matter does exist independent of our perception of it and that it does resemble what we experience, but if they think about it and are honest with themselves they will acknowledge that this is only an assumption; there is no way to prove it one way or the other. This sort of idea is the matter of philosophy: abstract thought about the ultimate meaning, significance, and nature of the matter of experience. With respect to the matter of philosophy, not everyone is a materialist. It's possible to doubt the existence of the matter of philosophy. It is not possible for any sane person to doubt the existence of the matter of experience: the world we live in, as revealed via the senses, whatever it may be in a deep philosophical sense.

Science involves itself only with the matter of experience, not the matter of philosophy. This is true even though most scientists are probably philosophical materialists to the extent they even bother to think about it. (The best, most insightful scientists generally do think about it and among them the prevalence of philosophical materialism is less universal.) But science itself is concerned only with the matter of experience. Scientific method can only approach that which can be observed and measured, and this is not possible for abstract ideas. Philosophical materialism is unnecessary for science and whether one believes it or not changes the findings and theories of science not in the least bit.

With regard to the matter of experience, in practice, there are only two possible positions: materialism and supernaturalism. Everyone believes the matter of experience is real. One may believe that the matter of experience, and the laws and patterns we perceive it to operate by, include everything in the universe -- this is materialism. Or one may believe that there are parts of reality which behave completely differently, and can violate the laws of nature. The first is what we may call "everyday materialism" (to distinguish it from philosophical materialism -- one may be an everyday materialist and at the same time a philosophical non-materialist -- Hume, I would say, was both of these). The second is supernaturalism.

Supernaturalism grew up in reaction to the growing power of science around the time of Newton or shortly thereafter. It was an attempt by those who believed in God, or who practiced magic, to preserve their beliefs in the face of a body of scientific theory that seemed to leave no room for them. Ancient, pre-scientific ideas did not include supernaturalism; the gods or God and natural law were all of a piece, and no hard and fast distinction between them was recognized. But in the early scientific era, those who wished to preserve the ancient practices and worship found it necessary to cordon off a part of reality and declare it off-limits to science. They could not simply declare science wrong, as it was too obviously right about many things.

As science has matured, however, it has become increasingly possible to model these ancient practices and worship without recourse to supernaturalism. Today's body of natural law is not the same as it was in Newton's time. Science has progressed and grown, and is very close to being able to accommodate magic -- and, by extension, the gods themselves -- within its compass. It's not quite there yet, but with a very little bit of speculation we can bridge the gap. This has been a project of mine for years, to bring magic into the modern world, to apply to it scientific method and scientific principles and improve upon the ancient ideas about it which I regard as very similar to ancient ideas about everything else. One reason I wish to do this is because I see a potential for magic to transform society in ways that are highly desirable, but it can only do this if it is allowed to grow, and history teaches us that the best instrument for allowing knowledge to grow is the method of science. And so I wish to develop a science of magic.

There is an important step towards doing this, and Eric, I believe that step is the real difference between your views and mine. That difference has nothing to do with materialism or even supernaturalism. It has to do, rather, with skepticism. When I read about or hear an idea from an ancient school of magic -- the akashik records, soul travel, "as above/so below," emanations, chakras, chi -- my immediate impulse is to question it, explore it, criticize it. What is the evidence for this? Is it the best way we can model these phenomena, or is there a better way? How does this fit in with other ideas explaining different but related phenomena? Can they all be put together into a universal theory of magic?

My sense is that you are far more reverent towards these old ideas and far less critical. And that is the real difference between your approach and mine. Everything else is incidental.

Ooh, a long composition to read!

I have one of my own before I read yours.

There are no mental states or feelings that are not experienced by an individualized soul. None detected by instruments can be verified without actually asking the person what (s)he thinks or feels. Mental states are not the whole identity of the soul or consciousness, just as any part of the body is not. But body parts and mental states are part of me. There are no mental states that do not exist in an individualized consciousness, a soul.

Humans are more individualized than dogs and rabbits, and they are more individualized than plants, and they are more individualized than bacteria, and they are both alive and more individualized than atoms and quanta. The universe expresses as individuals. But humans also have a greater awareness of the whole, the greater self, oneness with all. The two tendencies of consciousness go together. The more individualized a conscious being, the more (s)he is able to experience oneness and wholeness. Greater individuality = greater universality. That which is most intimate, is most universal.

The senses localize our awareness in our bodies, and we also have localized awareness in our individual energy bodies. We can also sense our interdependence at the same time. The world I sense is as much me, as my sensation. There is no awareness of a sensation, without something being sensed, something other than myself. We have no basis for assuming that something is "matter;" that is an idea we have added on to the experience. That something is just other beings besides myself. Many people experience things that are not a result of their sense experience. This is not an ancient idea I hold, but the report I get, and I have intimations of non-sensory awareness myself. Realities exist which the senses cannot detect. I have no basis for denying them or explaining them away, certainly not by attributing them to some kind of "matter" which is an idea for which there is no basis or foundation.

Our soul is not added on. Plato and Aristotle defined the soul adequately as self-movement, self-generation, the unmoved mover. Modern science, not being interested in the soul, has not given a better definition. What is added on though is the idea of separate identity. This idea of entity also came from Plato and Aristotle though, from the eternal Forms or Ideas as stable and distinct. That idea also needs to be revised, and I have proposed my own version of how to revise them in my masters philosophy paper, which I described earlier and linked to. We are individualized expressions of the divine, but not separate entities. We are connected and interdependent, one with all. From Plato and hermetic philosophy also comes the idea that the soul is a microcosm of the whole. This idea is now supported in modern approaches with the hologram and the fractile. Reality manifests in these ways the ancient principle of as above, so below.

I did not grow up with the ideas of soul, much less astrology or hermeticism. These are new ideas to me. Hermeticism is a much more recent acquisition than the others. I grew up as a materialist and an atheist. I rejected that upon experiencing my being as love and oneness, and I embraced Zen and existentialism. Only later did I accept the idea of individual souls, which those latter ideas do not contain. I was never a Christian who believed in an immortal soul subject to damnation or salvation after death. The soul became meaningful to me as an idea to express the fact that I am conscious, and that conceiving myself as a dead machine, as biology does, could not account for that. It also began to seem to me an affront to my dignity to be considered as such a thing, and an affront to others, at a time when reverence for life is very essential to our survival as a species. But I don't take a personal affront to those like Brian and Odin who still believe as I once did, because after all, I once did!

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

There are no mental states or feelings that are not experienced by an individualized soul. None detected by instruments can be verified without actually asking the person what (s)he thinks or feels.

I had to read your second sentence before I had any clue what you meant by your first one.

That is true, because we are trying to get some idea of subjective experience and how it correlates with brain function. Since the only way we can verify that subjective experience has occurred (and even this requires some unprovable assumptions) is to receive verbal reports, it's necessary to correlate those reports with directly-observed brain activity in order to connect the latter with thoughts, feelings, or perceptions.

Humans are more individualized than dogs and rabbits, and they are more individualized than plants, and they are more individualized than bacteria, and they are both alive and more individualized than atoms and quanta.

Here, I think some definitions are necessary. What do you mean by "individualized"?

The senses localize our awareness in our bodies, and we also have localized awareness in our individual energy bodies. We can also sense our interdependence at the same time. The world I sense is as much me, as my sensation. There is no awareness of a sensation, without something being sensed, something other than myself.

Subject to what dispute over whether there is any such thing as an "energy body," I think I understand what you are saying here.

We have no basis for assuming that something is "matter;" that is an idea we have added on to the experience.

Wrong. That's the main point of my prior post. What me MEAN by "matter" is the world which is experienced via the senses. The word connotes certain other characteristics, such as regularity and consistency, and perception only during waking hours. This is the "matter of experience" that I am referring to. That what we are experiencing has these characteristics isn't an assumption at all. It's an observation, and remains true whether we further assume that this matter of experience is real independently of perception or that it is not.

Many people experience things that are not a result of their sense experience.

Correct. There is also imagination, cognition, and emotion. Having recognized this, however, we leave unanswered the question of how to model these experiences.

Realities exist which the senses cannot detect.

That does not follow. In many cases, such as dreaming, an experience which is non-sensory in nature need not relate to any sort of "reality" at all, or else it can relate to the reality encompassed by the matter of experience through a different mode than normal waking consciousness. In all cases, we should be careful and skeptical about the ideas we use to explain non-sensory experience, without, of course, pretending that such experience does not happen.

Our soul is not added on. Plato and Aristotle defined the soul adequately as self-movement, self-generation, the unmoved mover.

Plato and Aristotle had something more than this in mind when they defined the soul that way. Without that something else in mind, something could fit the definition and be wholly different from what we usually think of as the soul. For example, the indeterminacy in particle movement is unmoved motion: it is not fully accounted for by causative factors. Is that indeterminacy, then, the soul? If so, then we arrive at an idea of the soul which is radically different from anything traditional, and which does not even encompass consciousness or thought.

No. If we are talking about something other than a non-material basis for mental activity and/or consciousness, then we are not referring to what is usually meant by the word "soul," and really we should choose a different word in the interest of avoiding confusion.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

Everyone believes in the matter of experience. Everyone believes that it is of significance and has a nature and behavior that can't be arbitrarily changed. If anyone believed differently, he would step out in front of a speeding car, because the car is not real and neither is his body; or he would absent-mindedly step off the roof of a tall building; or he would not eat or drink because his hunger and thirst are not real.

To say that this is "only sensation, not matter" is incorrect. This is the source of all ideas about matter. This is what, in ordinary discourse as opposed to abstract and abstruse philosophy, the word "matter" means.

The way I deal with this, is not to conceive what I sense as "matter," for which there is no basis of doing, but as "others from myself." There is also the sensation of my being a separate body, which a car would run over if I stepped in front of it. My body is not separate from me, but that does not entitle me to think I am my body. My body and the world are one, and when I look into my body, I don't see matter, I see a soul. The term "matter of experience" is not valid, but I understand that you use the term. I don't think you are wrong in what you refer to, that "matter" arises from our sensations, but the conclusions you draw from it below I can't go along with.

Science involves itself only with the matter of experience, not the matter of philosophy. This is true even though most scientists are probably philosophical materialists to the extent they even bother to think about it. (The best, most insightful scientists generally do think about it and among them the prevalence of philosophical materialism is less universal.) But science itself is concerned only with the matter of experience. Scientific method can only approach that which can be observed and measured, and this is not possible for abstract ideas. Philosophical materialism is unnecessary for science and whether one believes it or not changes the findings and theories of science not in the least bit.

I disagree with the notion, first of all, that "experience" is what is perceived through the senses. More sensitive people do not make that assumption, and they perceive things beyond the senses. Nor can we ever separate our philosophical knowledge from our experience. Our philosophy lies at the root of how we experience the world. The assumptions we make determine our experience. If we rectify our philosophy, how we sense the world changes. I agree about what science can approach, but this has to do with its method, not our "experience."

With regard to the matter of experience, in practice, there are only two possible positions: materialism and supernaturalism. Everyone believes the matter of experience is real. One may believe that the matter of experience, and the laws and patterns we perceive it to operate by, include everything in the universe -- this is materialism. Or one may believe that there are parts of reality which behave completely differently, and can violate the laws of nature. The first is what we may call "everyday materialism" (to distinguish it from philosophical materialism -- one may be an everyday materialist and at the same time a philosophical non-materialist -- Hume, I would say, was both of these). The second is supernaturalism.

To start from "everyday matter of experience" does not seem necessary to me. Why should we leave that unquestioned? And then conclude on that basis that there are 2 ways of experiencing the world, materialism and supernaturalism? That is to base your "two possible positions" on a very shaky foundation, which cannot support them.

We do not experience matter. We experience solidity. The state of solidity, or density. The ancients knew it as the 1st element. That completely explains what we experience through the senses. Physics knows it today as energy.

Supernaturalism grew up in reaction to the growing power of science around the time of Newton or shortly thereafter. It was an attempt by those who believed in God, or who practiced magic, to preserve their beliefs in the face of a body of scientific theory that seemed to leave no room for them. Ancient, pre-scientific ideas did not include supernaturalism; the gods or God and natural law were all of a piece, and no hard and fast distinction between them was recognized. But in the early scientific era, those who wished to preserve the ancient practices and worship found it necessary to cordon off a part of reality and declare it off-limits to science. They could not simply declare science wrong, as it was too obviously right about many things.

When you refer to ancient ideas, you evidently refer to pre-Judeo-Christian, since Jews and Christians were certainly supernaturalists, as the Bible clearly indicates. Other peoples had an organic view of the cosmos as alive; it was all of a piece because it included ideas which today you call supernatural. Jewish and Christian and Muslim worship did not result from cordoning off reality from science; it resulted from experiences people had and how they interpreted them.

I don't know if the modern supernaturalism you refer to exists or not. Who were these supernaturalists? Among the trends I know that DID happen after Galileo and Newton, were first of all dualism, the attempt to preserve the religious realm in the face of the apparent material realm science declared to exist. And then there were romantics and Swedenborgians, the latter a small group. Romantics did not develop a supernaturalist worldview very clearly, but they did celebrate those aspects of experience that go beyond reason. Goethe developed a view more in line with the ancient organic view. Meanwhile, the majority of western people remained Christian and kept the supernatural world view that had already existed in the Middle Ages. There was little or no change, and it had nothing to do with science, except that some Christians felt the need to attack science on occasion because it threatened their beliefs, or so they thought. This continues today.

As science has matured, however, it has become increasingly possible to model these ancient practices and worship without recourse to supernaturalism. Today's body of natural law is not the same as it was in Newton's time. Science has progressed and grown, and is very close to being able to accommodate magic -- and, by extension, the gods themselves -- within its compass. It's not quite there yet, but with a very little bit of speculation we can bridge the gap. This has been a project of mine for years, to bring magic into the modern world, to apply to it scientific method and scientific principles and improve upon the ancient ideas about it which I regard as very similar to ancient ideas about everything else. One reason I wish to do this is because I see a potential for magic to transform society in ways that are highly desirable, but it can only do this if it is allowed to grow, and history teaches us that the best instrument for allowing knowledge to grow is the method of science. And so I wish to develop a science of magic.

From within your world view, you are developing a theory which may be interesting and useful to people. I don't need to adopt it however. The only way to bridge the gap IMO is first admit that the soul exists, meaning first of all that we are conscious living beings, and so are animals and plants and even the inorganic world so-called. I do see potential there to bridge the gap, but only in new disciplines that bring science and spirituality together, not in one that subsumes the spiritual under the material. Your theory may help bridge the gap, and may include interesting findings, but it won't bridge the gap in itself until you discard your dependence on limited scientific assumptions and (apparently) naive everyday sense experience.

There is an important step towards doing this, and Eric, I believe that step is the real difference between your views and mine. That difference has nothing to do with materialism or even supernaturalism. It has to do, rather, with skepticism. When I read about or hear an idea from an ancient school of magic -- the akashik records, soul travel, "as above/so below," emanations, chakras, chi -- my immediate impulse is to question it, explore it, criticize it. What is the evidence for this? Is it the best way we can model these phenomena, or is there a better way? How does this fit in with other ideas explaining different but related phenomena? Can they all be put together into a universal theory of magic?

My sense is that you are far more reverent towards these old ideas and far less critical. And that is the real difference between your approach and mine. Everything else is incidental.

These "ancient" ideas you refer to, which have been updated and developed all along as science has also developed, and have never been dominant in society, and in fact almost completely ignored for 300 years until recent decades, are interesting and valid to me. Questioning them and revising them is valid and useful. Demanding that they be detected or understood by a modern scientific method that can't possibly deal with them, and which is based on flawed assumptions from the start, is not valid. It is also a question of not arbitrarily denying what I know, just because the prevalent ideology and method of knowledge of our time does not recognize it. I am more skeptical than you of what is being done and believed in modern times. The difference between us, is that I recognize a serious wrong turn has been taken in modern times, and we need to adopt a different course now. The disenchantment of the world is one term to describe this serious mistake that people have coined. Alienation is another term. Since the late 1960s I have been at heart a rebel against western civilization, including the ancient variety, although I have also doubled back to respect and revere it, but recognizing that it needs to be changed now, and not thought of as necessarily superior to other times and places. Meanwhile, I am also developing a universal theory of what you call magic, but free of the constraints which apply to yours.

I appreciate your attempts above to explain your ideas and your impressions of mine more carefully.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

we should be careful and skeptical about the ideas we use to explain non-sensory experience, without, of course, pretending that such experience does not happen.

Care is justified. Using spiritual terms for what people experience as spiritual, is the best way to describe them. Explaining them away is not to correctly describe them. If we say non-sensory experience, is really sensory, or is not real, or is "encompassed by the matter of experience," that is not to be open to what is being reported, but to try to explain them in terms of your own world view. To correctly describe these experiences, we should not assume a world view. That means sure, some of these experiences can be described as sensory; it depends on the experience.

Plato and Aristotle had something more than this in mind when they defined the soul that way. Without that something else in mind, something could fit the definition and be wholly different from what we usually think of as the soul. For example, the indeterminacy in particle movement is unmoved motion: it is not fully accounted for by causative factors. Is that indeterminacy, then, the soul? If so, then we arrive at an idea of the soul which is radically different from anything traditional, and which does not even encompass consciousness or thought.

No. If we are talking about something other than a non-material basis for mental activity and/or consciousness, then we are not referring to what is usually meant by the word "soul," and really we should choose a different word in the interest of avoiding confusion.

An idea of soul would have to BE consciousness and include thought, or it is not a soul.

I don't know if you have studied Plato and Aristotle or not; I have extensively of course, and Plato dealt with this issue quite clearly and extensively. It is quite remarkable how much his analysis still applies today. He distinguished the random or ananke from what is moved by the soul. He considered it irrational and part of "necessity". Indeterminacy is not quite unmoved motion; the particle so conceived does not generate anything and is not free, but still constrained, according to Plato, and I would agree. What I said before applies; it provides a condition from which a free self-moving soul developes through evolution. But might there be a small rudimentary element of actual self-motion in these particles? That is certainly possible to conceive. I am inclined to think so. If something moves however it will, that is not different in kind from a soul that does this in a more conscious and self-determined way. As we move up evolution from these particles, to living beings and up to humans, we see ever greater freedom and consciousness.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

The way I deal with this, is not to conceive what I sense as "matter,"

All that means is that you are unwilling to use that word for it. The way you think of it and act towards it remains the same. It remains true that you will not step out in front of a moving car, and you will not step off the roof of a tall building, and when you are hungry and thirsty you will eat and drink. You accept, in practice and in your actions, the reality of the world experienced through the senses, you recognize its regularities and you abide by its rules. That is what I mean by saying that you believe in the matter of experience, and if you are unwilling to use the term "matter" to describe it, that is purely a semantic difference signifying nothing of importance.

I disagree with the notion, first of all, that "experience" is [only] what is perceived through the senses.

That wasn't the assertion. The assertion was that we do experience things through the senses, not that we don't have any other sort of experience, and further that the experience of sensation defines for us a world in which we live and move, with rules that we do not and cannot violate. I am calling this world the matter of experience.

If we rectify our philosophy, how we sense the world changes.

No. The way we think of the world changes. How we sense it remains the same.

I agree about what science can approach, but this has to do with its method, not our "experience."

It has to do with both, of course.

To start from "everyday matter of experience" does not seem necessary to me.

Untrue. It does seem necessary to you, just as it does to everyone. You do it. You have to. Any denial that you do it is pure philosophizing divorced from the immediate reality of your life.

When you refer to ancient ideas, you evidently refer to pre-Judeo-Christian, since Jews and Christians were certainly supernaturalists, as the Bible clearly indicates.

No, it doesn't, and they weren't. But I think you are misunderstanding what I mean by the term. One can believe in things that a modern supernaturalist would call supernatural, without being oneself a supernaturalist. To be a supernaturalist, you have to insist that divine and/or magical phenomena are exceptions to the rule that everything obeys natural law. That was not how the ancient Hebrews thought of God or of miraculous events.

I don't know if the modern supernaturalism you refer to exists or not. Who were these supernaturalists? Among the trends I know that DID happen after Galileo and Newton, were first of all dualism, the attempt to preserve the religious realm in the face of the apparent material realm science declared to exist.

Exactly. And this ultimately gave rise to theosophy and to evolutions in Hermetic philosophy.

From within your world view, you are developing a theory which may be interesting and useful to people. I don't need to adopt it however.

My point is not that you see no need to adopt my theory. It's that you accept ancient and traditional ideas without serious question. You are, in my opinon, insufficiently critical.

Demanding that they be detected or understood by a modern scientific method that can't possibly deal with them, and which is based on flawed assumptions from the start, is not valid.

Again, you seem to be misunderstanding what I'm saying. I am not talking about scientists in other fields exploring magic and developing theories to account for it. I am, instead, talking about mages themselves adopting scientific method, which is perfectly applicable to magic, incorporating magical senses and perception. It is by no means true that scientific method cannot deal with these realities. And you are, still, of the opinion that science is based on assumptions which it is not based on.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

All that means is that you are unwilling to use that word for it. The way you think of it and act towards it remains the same. It remains true that you will not step out in front of a moving car, and you will not step off the roof of a tall building, and when you are hungry and thirsty you will eat and drink. You accept, in practice and in your actions, the reality of the world experienced through the senses, you recognize its regularities and you abide by its rules. That is what I mean by saying that you believe in the matter of experience, and if you are unwilling to use the term "matter" to describe it, that is purely a semantic difference signifying nothing of importance.

What we experience is solidity, the 1st element. We do not experience anything called matter. That is a 17th century invention. The ancients gave it the correct term, and that term is still used in modern physics and taught in high school physics class.

It is true that I have not developed the ability to levitate. I think it's possible though. I eat when I am hungry, unless I am on a fast. I take it though, that your theory of magic according to natural law is based on "how you think of it and act towards it." whatever "it" is. I don't see the connection you are making, or how these experiences can necessarily exclude others such as remote viewing or visits and communications with the Other Side. Why restrict yourself to the rules of eating and safety? You aren't even Generation X! You are a prophet. Why not think like one, as I do? (you don't need to make an elaborate reply to this question, in your usual style; I'm being humorous)

That wasn't the assertion. The assertion was that we do experience things through the senses, not that we don't have any other sort of experience, and further that the experience of sensation defines for us a world in which we live and move, with rules that we do not and cannot violate. I am calling this world the matter of experience.

There are no such rules; those are added on by science to our experience. Aspects of the world are solid, and behave in regular ways, and other aspects of the world are not solid at all, and are not predictable. It's all one world. What science can approach has only to do with its method and the assumptions and goals that make it up. It handles the solid and regular aspects of being well, and the less solid and less regular things, less well.

No. The way we think of the world changes. How we sense it remains the same.

Quite incorrect, as any philosophy student knows, especially any Eastern philosophy student.

Untrue. It does seem necessary to you, just as it does to everyone. You do it. You have to. Any denial that you do it is pure philosophizing divorced from the immediate reality of your life.

Naive common sense deludes us. Philosophy gives us the immediate reality of life.

No, it doesn't, and they weren't. But I think you are misunderstanding what I mean by the term. One can believe in things that a modern supernaturalist would call supernatural, without being oneself a supernaturalist. To be a supernaturalist, you have to insist that divine and/or magical phenomena are exceptions to the rule that everything obeys natural law. That was not how the ancient Hebrews thought of God or of miraculous events.

How did they think of them? The things they believed happened, are beyond natural law to explain, today or yesterday. Those who believe those events happened, believe today that they are supernatural in your terms. They have not changed their account of those events in any way. Perhaps you are saying they had no concept of "natural law" that "everything is supposed to obey." They didn't have Newton or Einstein to refer to. They certainly had the same sense experience and its regularities you refer to, and they were able to critique it. They believed that certain experiences they had demonstrated that their God is the Lord. If you don't want to call them supernatural, they were certainly outside normal experience.

Exactly. And this ultimately gave rise to theosophy and to evolutions in Hermetic philosophy.

There is no connection between dualism and these subjects. They arose in the 2nd century, from ancient roots, and developed further in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. After dualism they were mostly ignored. They were gradually rediscovered in the 19th century and 20th century by a few people, but such changes that occurred had nothing to do whatever with dualism.

My point is not that you see no need to adopt my theory. It's that you accept ancient and traditional ideas without serious question. You are, in my opinion, insufficiently critical.

I don't see how the same thing can't said about you. Materialism goes back to Democritus and Lucretius, and Plato already critiqued it. You can't critique your own sense experience, apparently. That is insufficiently critical. You accept the dogmas of modern science, apparently, especially the idea that there is such a thing as natural law that everything obeys, and that such law is the most fundamental thing there is. Scientific fundamentalism indeed.

Again, you seem to be misunderstanding what I'm saying. I am not talking about scientists in other fields exploring magic and developing theories to account for it. I am, instead, talking about mages themselves adopting scientific method, which is perfectly applicable to magic, incorporating magical senses and perception. It is by no means true that scientific method cannot deal with these realities. And you are, still, of the opinion that science is based on assumptions which it is not based on.

But magic cannot be understood using the methods of modern science, which is what you are talking about. You have expressed above the assumptions science is based on. Magic can perhaps be understood using A scientific method, but not THE empiricist, rationalist scientific method used by other modern sciences.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

What we experience is solidity, the 1st element. We do not experience anything called matter.

Again: What I mean is that you accept the reality of the world defined by sensation. What word you are or are not prepared to paste on it is irrelevant and means nothing. You do not walk out in front of a moving car, you do not step off the roof of a tall building, and when you are hungry and thirsty you eat and drink. That is what I'm talking about. And that is what most people mean when they speak of the material world; when that term was invented is unimportant, whether you are willing to use it is unimportant -- it is what it is and you believe in it, or you would behave very differently than you do, and almost certainly you would now be dead.

There are no such rules

Yes there are, and you follow them. Again: you do not step out in front of a moving car (that's a rule); you do not step off the roof of a tall building (that's a rule); when you are hungry and thirsty, you eat and drink (that's a rule). One can of course develop more sophisticated rules than these, but these will suffice to show that yes, there ARE rules, and moreover, you BELIEVE there are, as evidenced by your own actions in consistently following them.

Aspects of the world are solid, and behave in regular ways, and other aspects of the world are not solid at all, and are not predictable.

If aspects of the world behave in regular ways, then there are rules, because that's what "there are rules" MEANS.

I don't think you mean "solid" here. Is water solid? Not by the normal meaning of that word (except when frozen), but it certainly is predictable and has rules. Same with air -- definitely not solid, but predictable and bound by rules. Perhaps, though, you can specify what parts of reality are not predictable, not bound by rules.

Quite incorrect, as any philosophy student knows, especially any Eastern philosophy student.

As I am myself an Eastern philosophy student, obviously that is untrue.

How did they think of them?

As natural occurrences, God being part of nature, or vice-versa.

There is no connection between dualism and these subjects. They arose in the 2nd century, from ancient roots

Excuse me, but theosophy arose in the 19th-20th century, not the 2nd. I don't believe Hermetic thought arose in the 2nd century, either, although it is older than theosophy and originally was not dualistic or supernaturalist. It became so later on.

I don't see how the same thing can't said about you.

It can't because it isn't true about me.

But magic cannot be understood using the methods of modern science, which is what you are talking about. You have expressed above the assumptions science is based on. Magic can perhaps be understood using A scientific method, but not THE empiricist, rationalist scientific method used by other modern sciences.

I believe it can. I believe, in fact, that I have created a theory that successfully does just that.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

Again: What I mean is that you accept the reality of the world defined by sensation. What word you are or are not prepared to paste on it is irrelevant and means nothing. You do not walk out in front of a moving car, you do not step off the roof of a tall building, and when you are hungry and thirsty you eat and drink. That is what I'm talking about. And that is what most people mean when they speak of the material world; when that term was invented is unimportant, whether you are willing to use it is unimportant -- it is what it is and you believe in it, or you would behave very differently than you do, and almost certainly you would now be dead.

Again, as in my edit above, why do you restrict your notion of the world to these rules, or base a theory on them? I have already told you in many posts over the years that what we experience is density, that this is relative to our own bodies, and part of a continuum from dense to subtle. Knowing this does not make me jump in front of a car or stop eating.

And evidence indicates to me (though not to you, since you ignore the evidence) that indeed I would NOT be dead if I behaved differently than you say.

There is no possible link between observing the "rules" of the "reality of the world defined by sensation" and any scientific theory or supposed natural law. These things are observed by instinct. Most cats know how to get out of the way of oncoming cars before they get hit. They are athletic and can judge how far they can jump. They know how to eat when they are hungry. Is she therefore a materialist? Are you suggesting my cat can develop the theory of relativity?

there ARE rules, and moreover, you BELIEVE there are, as evidenced by your own actions in consistently following them.
(and from before)...the reality of the world experienced through the senses, you recognize its regularities and you abide by its rules. That is what I mean by saying that you believe in the matter of experience, and if you are unwilling to use the term "matter" to describe it, that is purely a semantic difference signifying nothing of importance.

But since I know there are other aspects of life, and other things I need to learn in order to survive and live well, I am aware of those too, and my view of life encompasses those too, unlike yours that is restricted to these simple rules of physical safety.

If I can use any term to describe it, then I choose spirit, with all the rights and responsibilities pertaining thereto.
And among those spiritual beings I may encounter, are solid things that if going too fast in my direction may run me over (including things made and operated only by free and conscious humans), living things that might eat me, or that I might eat, and difficult people who hook me into never-ending arguments. Spiritual beings all, and if some seem more stable and predictable in their behavior than others, which allow us to invent natural laws that describe them as if they were dead, that's just because they are leftovers from the spiritual life they once were, or somewhere in the evolutionary process seeking to recover their life.

Meanwhile our physics now uses the term "energy" to describe this "matter of experience," ever since Einstein took Newton's equation of force = mass times velocity (iirc), and revised it to say energy = mass times the speed of light. But "energy" could only have come from the Being who generated, and still generates it, the only One who ever could generate it.

If aspects of the world behave in regular ways, then there are rules, because that's what "there are rules" MEANS.

Sure, rules, within certain limits, not absolute rules that can't be violated.

Perhaps, though, you can specify what parts of reality are not predictable, not bound by rules.

Everything else we have been talking about; living behavior, and experiences beyond the sensory realm. If there are rules for these phenomena, they are not those of physics.

As I am myself an Eastern philosophy student, obviously that is untrue.

You obviously flunked, if you don't know that your perception changes after certain experiences like satori.

As natural occurrences, God being part of nature, or vice-versa.

They made no such statement as "god is a part of nature" Where is that in the Bible? Chapter and verse please. God was the creator of the world, and acted upon the world from heaven.
When Galileo, Newton and Co. came along, they simply ignored them, or rejected their views on natural law as not in accord with Biblical and Christian teachings. The original source of the dualism that Descartes developed is certainly Christian, including the Christian philosophers, and to some extent the Greek ones before them.

Excuse me, but theosophy arose in the 19th-20th century, not the 2nd. I don't believe Hermetic thought arose in the 2nd century, either, although it is older than theosophy and originally was not dualistic or supernaturalist. It became so later on.

Yes according to history hermeticism arose in the 2nd century. That is a fact. It in no way became dualistic or supernaturalist, any more than it was originally. It made no changes in that respect at all. Who said so? What writers made that shift, and what did they say? Alchemy today remains what it was in the renaissance, and so does much of astrology. Their approach to reality has little relation to what Galileo, Newton or Einstein did later.

From the forward of An Abridgment of The Secret Doctrine, by H.P. Blavatsky (1888), a Quest Book, Theosophical Publishing House, 1966
"the author makes it clear that she is presenting no new revelation but rather a collection of fragments garnered from the scriptures of the great Asian and pre-Christian European religions." So to say theosophy is a new supernaturalist doctrine is your interpretation only, and is in no way based on theosophy.

If you want to say my views about evolution and reality, roughly a combination of those of Teilhard de Chardin, hermeticism and neo-platonism, and New Thought spiritualism, are dualist, or contradictory, it doesn't really matter. I am satisfied as of now it is the best way of describing the reality and the facts that I know.

It can't because it isn't true about me.

Yes it is, no it isn't arguments don't lead to anything.

There is no doubt that materialism is the most in need of critique in our society today. It is unexamined dogma in our academy and on public TV, in our common sense, and one of the dogmas assumed in our economy. It is a sad commentary on our society that we know how far we have come as animals and human beings to create a life where we can love, create, talk to each other about the world, appreciate the beauty around us, and build great things; and yet we are ready to swallow either an ideology that reduces it all to nothing, as if it didn't exist or was dead, as materialism does, or else attribute it to all to an explanation as superficial and inadequate as some Super Being from heaven just creating it all in one swell foop. And yet in America most people believe one or the other of these two crazy stories and extremely primitive and degrading worldviews. If we are to further develop as human beings and as a society, it is truly necessary to critique and overthrow these two reductive, extreme and unworthy dogmas, so that we can be more aware of and develop our true potential within us and around us instead of reducing our world to ever greater piles of rubble and garbage, and continue to be helplessly subject to our addictions.

I know your views are sophisticated and informed, yet still "not sufficiently critical" just as you consider mine to be.

I believe it can. I believe, in fact, that I have created a theory that successfully does just that.

I disagree with your belief. Why would you think I would change my mind, simply by you saying you believe you have created such a theory? What relevance is your belief?

Why not conceive a new "scientific method" that would actually apply to magic and spiritual matters? Like Crowley did, or like the creators of New Thought did?

Plato and Aristotle had something more than this in mind when they defined the soul that way. Without that something else in mind, something could fit the definition and be wholly different from what we usually think of as the soul. For example, the indeterminacy in particle movement is unmoved motion: it is not fully accounted for by causative factors. Is that indeterminacy, then, the soul? If so, then we arrive at an idea of the soul which is radically different from anything traditional, and which does not even encompass consciousness or thought.

No. If we are talking about something other than a non-material basis for mental activity and/or consciousness, then we are not referring to what is usually meant by the word "soul," and really we should choose a different word in the interest of avoiding confusion.

Let's look at this a bit more carefully. I will probably not stop using the word soul, and you will probably not stop using the word matter. We each think the other's word refers to nothing that exists. But you're right that the words should not be the issue.

The short answer to your question is, yes. It is clear that this was how both Plato and Bergson defined the soul. That indeterminacy is the soul, or life force, chi, whatever you call it. It is also clear that, in evolution, life has evolved toward ever more of that freedom. Life progresses, just as human society progresses. The increasing size and complexity of nervous systems in more complex creatures, is the outward sign of this increasing consciousness and intelligence through evolution. Particle unmoved motion is merely the starting point in this evolution.

Plato also thought that the higher part of his 3-part soul was immortal. Bergson had no such conception in his magnum opus, only saying at the end of his book that life may at some point conquer death. Traditional definitions of the soul are not relevant, especially religious definitions. The soul may or may not be conceived as able to survive death. For me it is only a matter of what the evidence and my own experience shows. But I don't impose undue standards on that evidence, such that the only view on it is to reject it as violating my world view. Whether biology makes room for the "unmoved mover" is the question, and whether such a mover is immortal or not is another issue, though an interesting one.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

Plato also thought that the higher part of his 3-part soul was immortal. Bergson had no such conception in his magnum opus, only saying at the end of his book that life may at some point conquer death. Traditional definitions of the soul are not relevant, especially religious definitions. The soul may or may not be conceived as able to survive death. For me it is only a matter of what the evidence and my own experience shows. But I don't impose undue standards on that evidence, such that the only view on it is to reject it as violating my world view. Whether biology makes room for the "unmoved mover" is the question, and whether such a mover is immortal or not is another issue, though an interesting one.

Not immortal, as much as uncreated.

I figure I'm immortal, I just have a *beginning*, but no end.

Well, I can plunge into the abyss if I so decide. Although that would be dumb. Like buying stocks in 2000. Just a really bad idea. Ask Mike Alexander about that kind of bad idea.

Not that I have any real interest in diving into the lower octaves of creation and having to deal with the Dark Masculine (Other Father?) and Dark Feminine (Other Mother?). I just loved Coraline, didn't you? Very informative movie.

God, on the other hand, is the uncreated creating non-local chaotic attractor at the center of the cosmos.

All things ultimately serve God.

They just can't help themselves, even if they try!

It's a feature of chaos.