What is something you admire or appreciate?

[stranger]

I appreciate this. Much like the Native American "today is a good day to die." A sentiment I share in great degree.

Me too. It speaks of throwing caution to the wind and risking all.

This was also a theme in one of my favorite movies, "Flatliners", from 1990. In it a group of friends sought to explore what laid beyond death, but soon got more than they bargained for. It had a happy ending, but our protagonists had to go through some rather rocky experiences to finally get there.

 

[stranger]

Greatest respect for both you and her

Ditto for me. Unusually spry for a woman of her age. A mother love can never be underestimated: "She loves me like a rock" -- Paul Simon.

 

[RJM]

Certainly seems so. I know what (not who) I was before I was born. Abandoning superstitions opens doors to new knowledge. Again, the question arises as to what is physical and what is not. Is energy physical?

Energy? I believe so, it is one of the best-studied aspects in modern physics.

Is information physical? It can be stored by physical means - writing, or representation of binary digits in electronics - and some of the properties of stored information can be interpreted in terms of thermodynamics (entropy), but is information "in and of itself" physical?

One cannot prove anything about the non-material with science, quite obviously
i.e. science is the observations of the physical, material universe

The thing is that all our wonderful scientific instruments -- and wonderful they truly are -- are really just extensions of our five natural senses: of sight and hearing and so on.

But there's no reason to assume the universe should be limited to what our physical human senses can detect. In spite of our wonderful telescopes and microscopes and space craft etc, we are unable to see beyond nature/space and time.

What is Energy. What is Spirit? Is it timeless and not dependent on space and distance? Do thoughts of love and hate have their own power? Are there potentially infinite senses, beyond those nature has provided us with? It would be a bit arrogant to assume that human beings possess the full range of perception, or that the universe is limited to nature/time and space?

We live in a room of nature, limited by time and space. Perhaps there are infinite other rooms/dimensions. My Father's house has many mansions. But do we sometimes perceive strange echoes from somewhere outside our room, from the greater house of Spirit/energy that contains and surrounds and permeates our dimension of nature?

Energy is not limited to physical form. Why should consciousness have to be? Why should astral and ethereal non-physical dimensions not exist? Why should a planet not be considered a living entity? Etc ...

It's not ALL just woo?

 

[Thomas]

My mom's 90th birthday this week...

Congrats and big hugz

 

[muhammad_isa]

..there's no reason to assume the universe should be limited to what our that human senses can detect. In spite of our wonderful telescopes and microscopes and space craft etc, we are unable to see beyond nature/space and time.

Exactly...
On the one hand, I hear people claiming that mankind is "nothing special", and have accidentally evolved,
and on the other hand they claim that the physical universe is all that exists, and all other concept derives from it.

As Spock and Data would say "that's highly illogical" .. but then human beings often are

 

[Aupmanyav]

It's not ALL just woo?

Are you sure? Too many holes in that theory. Even a stone is a living entity, has the elements that constitute us.
My mother was 98 when she died five months ago. We restricted her movements for the fear that if she fell she would break her pelvic bones. Tests showed her bones did not have much calcium left.

 

[RJM]

@Aupmanyav
Respects to your mother.

The Earth and Sun one day will exhaust their energy and die? Death comes for all that lives in nature. But energy is timeless, and not limited by nature place or form?

Eternity implies infinite in time. But there is no timespace reference for energy/spirit. It cannot be pinned down to any natural measurement, because the capability of measurement breaks down with the uncertainty principle, or at singularity or Planck length, etc? Many limits.

It's not unreasonable to conjecture that the natural, material timespace part of the universe we inhabit and are able to perceive, is just a tiny fraction of what the whole universe really is. Imo

 

[RJM]

Can the flea know the dog it's on? Credit for effort, bad marks for assumption?

 

[Aupmanyav]

True. So what the scriptures say gets bad marks because of assumptions. Science says 'We have reached here, we are working on it'.

 

[RJM]

True. So what the scriptures say gets bad marks because of assumptions. Science says 'We have reached here, we are working on it'.

Ah well, I meant the assumption that 'God' does not exist. As I said: it is obviously quite correct not to conduct science on the assumption that God does exist -- but science has now swung too far in the opposite direction, with most popular 'media' science figures now vocally atheist. This not a valid assumption, imo.

It merely means that science cannot go beyond the boundaries of timespace material nature. It does not mean nothing exists outside those boundaries. It is not an assumption science is qualified to make?

 

[Cino]

It merely means that science cannot go beyond the boundaries of timespace material nature. It does not mean nothing exists outside those boundaries. It is not an assumption science is qualified to make?

Actually, science does explore subjective experience. Psychology, for example, has the entire toolbox of the natural sciences at its disposal, and some sub fields of psychology are looking at the contents of the psyche, which is as non-physical, non-temporalas it gets in my opinion. Granted, the bulk of this research takes place in the border areas of either behavioral psychology or neuropsychology, but it is still no longer within the strict box you mention.

 

[Aupmanyav]

It merely means that science cannot go beyond the boundaries of timespace material nature. It does not mean nothing exists outside those boundaries.

Quantum Mechanics goes beyond the boundaries of timespace, even relativity.

 

[RJM]

Quantum Mechanics goes beyond the boundaries of timespace, even relativity.

Quantum mechanics happens in time and space. Random virtual vacuum fluctuations do not happen from 'nothingness' as some media scientists like to say, for sensation. They happen within the timespace fabric. Timespace ends at a singularity, when both time and mass become infinite. Science cannot go beyond that. Particles have position and momentum; the uncertainity principle limits accurate measurement of a particle to either position or momentum. Science cannot go beyond that. The standard model is in timespace?

 

[Aupmanyav]

Science cannot go beyond that.

I do not know where science would not be able to go in the latter part of this century (after I am no more) and after that.
I am no prophet.

 

[RJM]

I do not know where science would not be able to go in the latter part of this century (after I am no more) and after that.
I am no prophet.

Nevertheless it would be unscientific to make an assumption that science will ever be able to rule out God? Science deciphers the code. It does not identify the origin of the programme, imo

 

[Aupmanyav]

For me, God is ruled out by absence of evidence in the last 5000 years in spite of his supposed dispatch of so many prophets, son, messengers, manifestations and mahdis; the presence of evil, etc. I do not need science to prove that.

 

[RJM]

the presence of evil, etc

Why does God let babies die = there is no God?

I have a microwave, where ancient people had to bang rocks to make fire = there is no God?

 

[Ahanu]

For me, God is ruled out by absence of evidence in the last 5000 years in spite of his supposed dispatch of so many prophets, son, messengers, manifestations and mahdis; the presence of evil, etc. I do not need science to prove that.

Oh, so God would be proved with the absence of evil. No death. No suffering. What would such a world realistically look like? A fairytale, I'd say. It denies the existence of transitional evil to bring about a greater good, for example.

 

[Aupmanyav]

Why does God let babies die = there is no God?
I have a microwave, where ancient people had to bang rocks to make fire = there is no God?

The first is good. The second does not relate.

 

[Aupmanyav]

Oh, so God would be proved with the absence of evil. No death. No suffering. What would such a world realistically look like? A fairytale, I'd say. It denies the existence of transitional evil to bring about a greater good, for example.

Yeah, I see no reason why your Allah or God did not make the world like one in fairy tale. Does anyone have any proof of the 'greater good'? Why not 'greater good' even in the first instant?

 

[Ahanu]

Does anyone have any proof of the 'greater good'?

Sure. Haven't you ever been to a dentist?

Why not 'greater good' even in the first instant?

Perhaps it wouldn't be the best of all possible worlds?