BS: Matter and Spirit

Subject: BS: Mater and Spirit
From: Pied Piper
Date: 10 Aug 04 - 08:05 AM

Now the Mudcat mystics would have us believe that the universe consists of two different types of things mater and for want of a definable word "Spirit".
Now if these two things interact at all scales then when we experiment on mater what we discover is not just the properties of mater but the properties of the mater-spirit complex and therefore the discoveries of Physics are correct and apply to the universe.
If however this spirit stuff only interacts with matter that has a mind buy what mechanism does it effect mind and mind affect spirit.

In short would the universe be any different if we discard the concept of spirit entirely.

And please give some evidence that is at least in principal testable.

PP

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: *daylia*
Date: 10 Aug 04 - 09:23 AM

In short would the universe be any different if we discard the concept of spirit entirely.

Pied Piper, I don't think the universe is in any way subject to human concepts, "spiritual" or otherwise.

I don't know of any empirically sound method of testing that hypothesis, though.

daylia

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: Janie
Date: 10 Aug 04 - 09:29 AM

I pray to the 'mater spirits every year that my 'maters are sweet and juicy and don't get blossom end rot:>)

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: SINSULL
Date: 10 Aug 04 - 09:54 AM

Mater-spirit complex...is that anything like the Oedipus Complex? When did motherhood become so important on Mudcat? I'm confused.

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: CarolC
Date: 10 Aug 04 - 12:41 PM

I'm not sure quite what you are asking there, Pied Piper, but some of us don't see "matter" and "spirit" as being separate at all. To us, it's just the perception of matter and spirit that seems to have separateness. And, as we know, perception is relative and not always testable.

(In other words, to some of us, matter is also "spirit", just in a different form than the more ethereal aspects of spirit. So for some of us, everythig is "spirit", matter included.)

We are the music makers. We
are the dreamers of the dreams.

--Arthur O'Shaughnessy

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: Amos
Date: 10 Aug 04 - 12:52 PM

IF you will command your arm to rise up int he air and observe it to do so, you will see the mechanism you are looking for by which SPirit interacts with Matter. Intention is a spiritual attribute, not a material one. Understanding is another. Appreciation is a capability of Spirit, not of matter. Perception (as distinguished from chain reactions of energy and chemicals) is also ultimately resident as acapability in Spirit, not in Matter. Most important of allt he ability to decide what shall be is an ability inherent in Spirit and not found in matter.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: TheBigPinkLad
Date: 10 Aug 04 - 12:59 PM

The meaning of spirit exactly matches the number of sentient beings in the universe. Minus 42.

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Aug 04 - 01:19 PM

who gives a fuck? it just is.

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: Little Hawk
Date: 10 Aug 04 - 01:52 PM

Matter and spirit are not separate. Matter is an aspect of spirit and exists within spirit. You could say that it is spirit slowed down some. When you lower the vibrational rate, things become denser and more solid. They then become perceivable to the physical senses.

The reason you don't have machines that can yield empirical data about spirit is that the machines are not sensitive enough to detect that data...or the people monitoring the machines are not sensitive enough to be aware of what they are actually observing yet...mainly because they're working within a limited set of mental assumptions.

They have the potential to tap into spirit, but not the intention of doing so...and they receive exactly what they are ready to receive and no more.

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: Amos
Date: 10 Aug 04 - 01:56 PM

Guest:

What just is may just be, but this question is one of the great unresolved issues in human knowledge; if you had any education in your own intellectual antecedents, you wouldn't need to ask a mindless, barbarian question like the one you posted upthread.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: GUEST,Clint Keller
Date: 10 Aug 04 - 02:30 PM

Time for Wm Blake again:

"We have no Body distinct from Soul, for that called Body is a portion of Soul discern'd by the five Senses."

If you discard the concept of spirit, then

We have no Soul distinct from Body, for that called soul is a portion of Body undiscern'd by the five Senses.

Which comes to the same thing; that they're aspects of each other.

It's useful to have two words--body, soul or matter, spirit --for purposes of discussion, but it's a verbal convenience. As some great man said, the world is not formed on the plan of the English language.

You can separate a poem into the words & the meaning, or a computer into hardware and software, but it's only a convenience of language.

clint

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: mack/misophist
Date: 10 Aug 04 - 02:32 PM

Pied Piper has been reading the wrong philosophers. The Medieval Scholastic philosophers said that existance was only one of many qualities a thing might have. This line of thought settles all. Spirit is merely a force that lacks the quality of existence!

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: Little Hawk
Date: 10 Aug 04 - 02:43 PM

Well, now, there's a different take on the matter.

I agree with Blake. Spirit is that which cannot be detected by the five physical senses. There are a whole lot of things those senses cannot detect. Body is, as he said, an aspect of spirit, and it can be detected by the five physical senses. Other physical things are also aspects of spirit that are detectable by the five senses.

Spirit is not only the source of physicality, it is the source of intelligence, thought, emotion, desire, energy, and all perceivable existence. It is also the source from which spring ideas...like the idea of "non-existence". It is quite easy for an embodied soul to come up with the idea that there is no soul, for example, but only the body. The five senses of the body will support that notion, because they can look no farther than physical phenomena.

A worm can also say to itself with absolute conviction: "There is nothing greater than being a worm. I am the ultimate form of life."

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: CarolC
Date: 10 Aug 04 - 03:13 PM

For some people, spirit is detectable by one or more of the five senses. But it's more of an inner manifestation of the five senses in many respects. Except for the sensation like a small (but very annoying) feeling of an electrical charge that I experience in the middle of my back when I get overloaded with spiritual energy. Also the dizziness and nausea I can experience when that happens, and the subsequent vomiting if the source of the energy isn't removed. That is definitely something I detect with one or more of my five physical senses.

BTW, the physical side effects that I experience when I get energy overload is absolutely replicable. However, if someone who doesn't accept the possibility that I can experience spiritual energy as a physical sense would happen to be the one doing the tests on me, there is a good chance that he or she would interpret a psychological cause for my experience.

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: *daylia*
Date: 10 Aug 04 - 03:19 PM

Ah .... the Power of the Spoken Worm. I just KNEW it would come to this!

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: Wolfgang
Date: 10 Aug 04 - 04:41 PM

What is mind? Never matter. What is matter? Never mind.

This is one of those moments where I am in complete agreement with what Carol writes:
some of us don't see "matter" and "spirit" as being separate at all. To us, it's just the perception of matter and spirit that seems to have separateness.

I couldn't have said it better: It is only our perception that makes us think there is a spirit different from the action of matter.

'Spirit' is a good word (as an abbreviation for more complex things) for daily communication but for scientific purposes it has no meaningful role.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: Pied Piper
Date: 11 Aug 04 - 07:29 AM

I would engage you in a battle of wits Amos but my conscience will not allow me to fight an un-armed man.

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: CarolC
Date: 11 Aug 04 - 10:56 AM

You only think you're in agreement with me, Wolfgang.

;-)

Actually, Wolfgang, can you name for me even one scientific process that doesn't involve, at some point in the process, the perceptions of the scientist who is engaged in the process?

Where I think you and I would disagree would be that even what you would probably consider to be non-living matter, I still would regard as "spirit".

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 Aug 04 - 02:11 PM

The actual meaning of spirit is simple. Spirit is life energy. You can see this by analyzing words like "spirited" or "team spirit" or "fighting spirit". Spirited means enlivened or lively. Team spirit is the energetic motivation that drives the team...gives it life. Fighting spirit is the energy that makes one a good fighter.

Spirit, therefore, means the active or the potential energy that drives and sustains life. Although that energy itself may be invisible, its effects are totally obvious. A body containing spirit is a body containing life. That life is the energy which imbues the otherwise inert body with consciousness, emotion, desire, memory, ideals, humour, motivation, drive, and everything else that one needs in order to be alive.

So, Wolfgang, for you to deny the existence of spirit is for you to deny your very own conscious existence AS a living being...but that's not why you're denying it. You're denying it simply because your understanding of the word itself is inadequate...and, in your case, mythical. When you hear the word "spirit", you imagine a childish myth of some kind which you label as "spirit". If you were to enlarge your definition of "spirit" you would have no trouble finding evidence of its existence in every living thing and every atomic structure.

It's like the electricity that powers a machine...or the energy that binds atoms together. Just because you don't have a clear idea of where it's coming from, you pretend it isn't there at all. It's effects are everywhere visible...unless you choose to be blind to them.

You're like a radio that says..."There is no electricity in me, and there is no station sending a broadcast through me, there is just me...a collection of wires and circuits in a cabinet. What you see is what you get. If you can't touch it, it's not real."

Well, my friend, that radio is totally inert and useless without the electricity and the broadcast to give it life. And so would you be without the spirit of life moving in and through you.

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: TheBigPinkLad
Date: 11 Aug 04 - 02:59 PM

Nah. What you're giving us is YOUR take on what spirit is. Team spirit is motivation. People are motivated by, for instance, reminding them that they belong to a tribe and that winning is glorious. Hearing that kind of pep talk starts a physical response--the body produces adrenaline to cope with the imminent physical challenge. Better the pep-talk, more pumped the athlete. Etc.

If spirit existed in a physical sense (no pun intended) you could buy it in a jar and rub it on like ointment.

Actually, Wolfgang, can you name for me even one scientific process that doesn't involve, at some point in the process, the perceptions of the scientist who is engaged in the process?

This is simply wrong. The whole point of scientific process is to examine without prejudice. Sure. tons of people have twisted results to meet perceptions, but they fool only themselves as science will always find them out.

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: Amos
Date: 11 Aug 04 - 03:27 PM

would engage you in a battle of wits Amos but my conscience will not allow me to fight an un-armed man.

IT would be the unarmed versus the half-armed at best. I think I remember using this quip in some equally juvenile context back in grade school, P.P. It reveals, perhaps, why you pose the question the way you did. It seems clear that you are not really raising the questions, or interested in appreciating the possible answers.

BPL, you are referring to an entriely different definition than the one usually used in "Spirit versus Matter."

A

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: TheBigPinkLad
Date: 11 Aug 04 - 03:34 PM

I'm referring to the one Little Hawk posted just above my response. I bypassed the one suggested by CarolC because, well, it has a built in not-allowed-to-question-it clause. How many definitions are there ;o)

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 Aug 04 - 03:59 PM

I said myself that spirit is (among other things) motivation, BPL. Motivation is non-physical. Yet it exists. You know it does. You are motivated to debate this matter with me. Do you know why? And can you explain where that motivation came from or exactly what it is?

I'll tell you what it is: it's your unique consciousness (which is an organized form of intelligent energy) aiming itself at a particular objective, which is to enhance its own sense of identity and rightness. All of that is the work of unseen energy, temporarily housed in and expressing in and through your physical body. I call that unseen energy "spirit".

And, yes, of course it is my own take on what spirit is. Naturally. Would you rather I took someone else's word for it (like the Pope or the bishop)?

Many physical responses in the body are triggered by mental and emotional stimulation. The release of the adrenalin, etc, is an aftereffect of that, and assists the body in formulating an appropriate response. The non-physical moves first as energy, and the physical responds...which is exactly what happens with the radio, by the way or with any electrically operated device. Your body is a huge circuit board, and its actions are orchestrated by non-physical sources which then express in physical actions and results. To imagine that the body is responsible for it all is as foolish as to imagine that the radio is the source of the program.

Without your consciousness your body is an inert hunk of meat. Your consciousness is not physical and it IS spirit. And it's very, very real and powerful. Without it you would not exist as a living being.

Your consciousness is deeply loyal to what it already believes, and if it wants to believe that there is no spirit, well then, it will believe so and will argue strenuously using all the powers at its command. And they are considerable.

"The whole point of scientific process is to examine without prejudice."

Uh-huh. But find me a human being without prejudice... :-)

The culture you grew up in passed its prejudices on to you automatically, and if you are like most people you don't even know you have them. What is plainly obvious to a person from one culture may be completely unseen or denied by a person from another culture.

How do you KNOW that your culture has it all right? You don't. Most human cultures in the history of the World have believed in spirit. Most great philosophers have believed in spirit. Many great scientists have believed in spirit. Every North American Indian believed in spirit (before the whites came). Maybe they knew something you don't.

I know what most people who object to the word "spirit" think of when they hear the word. They think of a Sunday School level religious idea, a completely childish notion gotten from some rote religious teaching in some Christian church. That's not it. That's a primitive reference to it. That's barely scratching the surface.

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: CarolC
Date: 11 Aug 04 - 04:04 PM

If spirit existed in a physical sense (no pun intended) you could buy it in a jar and rub it on like ointment.

This makes no sense to me. Why should one have to buy something in a jar that is freely available, everywhere, all the time?

This is simply wrong. The whole point of scientific process is to examine without prejudice. Sure. tons of people have twisted results to meet perceptions, but they fool only themselves as science will always find them out.

Science is constantly correcting itself to accomodate new ways of understanding and percieving sense stimuli. Science is not static. As perceptions change, so does science.

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 Aug 04 - 04:11 PM

And there has never lived a scientist without prejudice! Read about the disagreements between Edison, Tesla, and Westinghouse for some fascinating examples of disputes in science due to preconceived prejudice of one type or another.

Scientists are subjective and fallible, despite their conscious desire to be objective. They are creatures of time and place and culture, just like other people, and they serve hidden agendas just like other people.

As Carol says, spirit is freely available everywhere at every time. This may be why materialists are completely uninterested in it! It can't be hoarded or controlled for marketing purposes.

Mind you, certain unscrupulous religions have tried to do that from time to time... :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: TheBigPinkLad
Date: 11 Aug 04 - 04:20 PM

Do you know why? And can you explain where that motivation came from or exactly what it is?

I thought that's what I just did. However ...
I'll tell you what it is: Thank goodness you're looking after me.

As perceptions change, so does science.

Only if the point of perception is validated.

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: CarolC
Date: 11 Aug 04 - 04:22 PM

Only if the point of perception is validated.

Quite right. But points of perception that have been validated one day are quite often discarded as invalid at some latter date, as more and/or new information is acquired.

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: TheBigPinkLad
Date: 11 Aug 04 - 04:25 PM

I agree, CarolC. (poetry thrown in free of charge)

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: CarolC
Date: 11 Aug 04 - 04:29 PM

Very cool, TBPL.

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 Aug 04 - 04:40 PM

You're accusing me of being pompous, aren't you, BPL? :-)

Well, they called Harry Lee Wigley pompous too, you know. They called William Shatner pompous. I figure I'm in good company.

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: TheBigPinkLad
Date: 11 Aug 04 - 04:47 PM

Not at all, LH. You do give me whiplash sometimes when I follow you from one thread to another: cranial callisthenics to National Nude Goat Week ... ouch! ;o)

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 Aug 04 - 04:54 PM

Yeah. I figure life is more enjoyable if one can bounce back and forth between the deeply serious and the downright silly.

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: Bill D
Date: 11 Aug 04 - 04:57 PM

" It is quite easy for an embodied soul to come up with the idea that there is no soul, for example, but only the body."

and contriwise, it is easy for a complex body like a brain with billions of synapses, to come up with the idea of soul...and many other ideas for which there is no referent in reality! Remember Phogiston? And Ether? and "universal mind"? and "dragons, unicorns, a benevolent dictator, and pixies!"

We (whatever you think we are) can imagine things, and manipulate a very rich language. And when we create a complex enough concept, we (many of 'us')soon begin to assume that anything that clear (even if it ISN'T clear) must be 'real'.....and then they equivocate on the meaning of 'real'.

I'm sorry, but although I recognize pictures of dragons, and can list a bunch of generalized characteristics of dragons, the 'reality' is limited to imagination.

Without going to the trouble of typing all the details...which you can see coming anyway....it is similar with 'spirit','soul' and such notions....yes, we sorta mean something by the words, but we have manipulated the concept and the words until we think we are talking about something.........and when certain experiences occur, we patch the concepts we have stored onto the experiences and PRESTO!

Read some Ludwig Wittegenstein (or if you are really daring..*grin*, some C.S. Peirce), to see what can be done with language and the notions that arise from it.
The word 'soul' or even 'spirit' has uses, as Wolfgang notes...but it is well to be careful how you declaim that they refer to actual mechanisms that operate independently of 'us'.

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Aug 04 - 05:07 PM

Have you people ever hear of a funny thing called evolution? There is no soul, no spirit, no good, and no evil. There is only nature.

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: TheBigPinkLad
Date: 11 Aug 04 - 05:15 PM

You forgot November.

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: CarolC
Date: 11 Aug 04 - 06:20 PM

The word 'soul' or even 'spirit' has uses, as Wolfgang notes...but it is well to be careful how you declaim that they refer to actual mechanisms that operate independently of 'us'.

Or we independently of it

Just because you don't experience these things in a tangible sort of way doesn't mean that no one does. If one experiences something and another does not, does this mean that the experience is only imaginary? Does the existance of colors as a tangible physical phenomenon become questionable because a blind person can't percieve color? If you don't experience a thing, does this mean it doesn't exist in reality?

Going back to TBPL's comment about buying a jar of "spirit" and rubbing it on like an ointment...

It would be possible to buy a jar of air. Obviously you wouldn't be able to rub it on like an ointment. In fact, you wouldn't be able to determine whether or not the jar actually contained "air" just by looking. The only way to know if the jar contained air would be to observe effects that air has on other things, or to have an instrument or other means of detecting the presence of air.

It's no different with spiritual energy. The way you know it's there is to either observe its effects on things, or to have a sensory means of detecting its presence. If you don't have a means of detecting the presence of air, would you automatically determine that it doesn't exist? Perhaps you would. Conversely, if you lack the means of detecting the presence of spiritual energy, you might very well determine that it doesn't exist. But that wouldn't prove that it doesn't exist. It would only prove that you do not have the means to detect it.

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: Amos
Date: 11 Aug 04 - 06:21 PM

Guest,

Th'art lost, lassie....

A

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: Wolfgang
Date: 11 Aug 04 - 06:27 PM

You only think you're in agreement with me, Wolfgang. (Carol)

I never thought I was, What I posted was : I am in complete agreement with what Carol writes which is sometimes very different from being in agreement with you. I was only pointing to the fact that we are both, and LH too, monists and not dualists. It becomes extremely clear in LH's words: Matter and spirit are not separate. Matter is an aspect of spirit and exists within spirit. You could say that it is spirit slowed down some.

Amos for instance, I'd say, is a dualist, but I may be wrong.

What amuses me is the fervour with which Little Hawk attacks a monism similar to his own in many respects except that I hold that spirit is an aspect of matter and exists within matter and not vice versa. Your many examples are very close to the Aristotelian conception of Psyche, the vital energy that distinguishes life matter from dead matter. Yes, I agree, that's how we experience it and that's why we prefer to talk in these terms about it in normal life talks. But we should not mix up how we talk about something with how it is. After more than 2000 years talking about Psyche (life spirit or whatever) the time has come to think about it differently. To think about 'spirit' as a state of matter is in my eyes the more fruitful research approach.

And as for your examples. Little Hawk, with our use of the language, it is so easy to come up with other examples: When you'd see me crying you'd come up to me saying 'what's the matter?' One example as silly as the other. Don't confound your own experiences and how you explain it to yourself or others with what really is (or may be). There are alternative possible explanations. As mostly in these discussion, I find you close your mind/brain very early against all other explanations. Your use of 'deny' when arguing with me is a prime example. 'Deny' means I say 'no' to something which I know to be true. That's completely wrong. Do me the favour and accept that I have a truly different point of view (and am not in denial) from your own for which I can argue like you for your own.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: CarolC
Date: 11 Aug 04 - 06:29 PM

It was a joke, Wolfgang. Hence the winking smiley face just below.

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: Wolfgang
Date: 11 Aug 04 - 06:32 PM

If one experiences something and another does not, does this mean that the experience is only imaginary? /Carol)

Carol, you are completely on the wrong track as far as I am concerned. I have these experiences more or less as you have. The difference is that I give other interpretations to my experiences.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 Aug 04 - 06:43 PM

Yes, I understand your form of monism, Wolfgang, and you have explained it very well. You're looking from the opposite end at the same phenomenon I am looking at. Well, I guess one of us is looking through the wrong end of the telescope! :-) You think that spirit (life) arises out of matter, and I think it's exactly the other way around. It's a bit like the old humorous question: Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

Guest - Are you aware that all of the great Eastern spiritual and religious philosophies include the concept of evolution in a completely integral fashion in their ideas of spirituality? So do the more enlightened forms of Western spiritual philosophy. Physical evolution is driven and accompanied BY spiritual evolution. The one is a very good reflection or counterpart of the other. If you want to confound people by bringing up evolution vs. spirit/God, you will have to argue with some Christian fundamentalists about it, because they're almost the only people around here who will disagree with you on that one.

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: CarolC
Date: 11 Aug 04 - 06:52 PM

Wolfgang, you have also vomited when placed in too close proximity to a Genesa crystal for too long? Small world.

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: TheBigPinkLad
Date: 11 Aug 04 - 06:58 PM

Conversely, if you lack the means of detecting the presence of spiritual energy, you might very well determine that it doesn't exist. But that wouldn't prove that it doesn't exist. It would only prove that you do not have the means to detect it.

Of course one cannot prove something does not exist ... that chestnut is trolled out every time we visit these claims. I'm not sure how it advances an argument that spirit is somehow physically tangible.

I think we'll all agree there is such a thing as spirit. But some are saying it exists physically, as though you could accidentally sit in it or spill it on your pants or walk around a corner and get hit by a waft of it. I'm saying I believe it's a feeling that results from the brain's reaction to external stimulii.

What I find curious is why some people feel a scientific explanation is less acceptable than a magic one.

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 Aug 04 - 07:01 PM

It's just a question of which scientific explanation, that's all. I don't regard the better explanations of spirit I've seen as being magic ones. They make perfect sense to me.

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: Wolfgang
Date: 11 Aug 04 - 07:02 PM

Carol,

do you think my experiences of for instance love must exactly match yours so I know what you are talking about?

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: CarolC
Date: 11 Aug 04 - 07:04 PM

TBPL, I'm not trying to prove that my experience is more valid, or necessarily more real than yours. Just that it is different, and that you are not in any better position to invalidate mine than I am yours. I actually have no problem with the idea that you don't experience things or understand things the same way as me. But I also don't accept the idea that someone else's idea of reality is in any way more valid than mine.

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 Aug 04 - 07:06 PM

Except for Shatner, Carol! You must admit, upon serious reflection, that William Shatner's take on reality has something new to teach all of us.

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: CarolC
Date: 11 Aug 04 - 07:07 PM

I would be willing to bet, Wolfgang, that your experience of energy is not in any way similar to mine if you are using "love" as your for instance. Because I certainly wouldn't use that one myself.

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: CarolC
Date: 11 Aug 04 - 07:07 PM

Absolutely, LH!

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: TheBigPinkLad
Date: 11 Aug 04 - 07:19 PM

You and I are both humans with the same faculties. You claim to experience things in a way most people cannot. How can we non-experiencers accept our deficiency as real if you dismiss attempts to verify validity of your powers?

I say this to Little Hawk, Two Bears et al too. You brush off pleas for proof with the same expression of not caring if we believe you or not. But I share the journey of life with you and I have been led down so many garden paths, distracted at so many snake-oil stalls and exhausted by so many wild goose chases I cannot afford to waste any more time.

And why would you not want a scientific explanation of such phenomena?