(01-11-2010, 06:34 PM)Bring4th_Monica Wrote: [ -> ]But since you mentioned 'gut instincts' they don't even acknowledge any validity to gut instincts at all. For example, I have some past life memories. It's pretty obvious to me that they're past life memories. The simplest explanation is that my subjective observation (that these memories are just as real as memories of this life) is the correct one, imo.
Correctness is a rational measure
Your past life interpretations combined with the observations you mention leads to an understanding that serves to explain the observations. In sofar it fits is what we usually call correctness. In reality we have no way of knowing how well a theory fits what we do not observe.
If the goal is to be right all the time then yes you need to discard all the unknowns as false and stick only to the knowns. However, it's not a pragmatic approach since you'll essentially no longer be able to make sense of the unknowns you can only go into denial about them.. They don't exist...
If the goal is to be pragmatic it's been proven time and time again that any working hypothesis is likely to be better than none at all. "No understanding" will never lead to good outcomes. While a "flawed understanding" will lead to good outcomes a lot of the time.
Relating to your past lives. You don't know if you've lived a past life.. In my opinion when your djin descended through the densities into this earth it picked up experiences and impressions and from it formed a psychological/physical entity that it then proceeded to call self. The memories are consistent and often even agree with reality if we could check them. However... Are they really yours or are they someone elses who is one with you? There is a third alternative offcourse: that we're just making it up.
I'm not saying I'm right offcourse, I'm just showing that your interpretation works, mine works, and so there's two pragmatic approaches which deal adequately with the observations without either of them being a guarantee to truth. There's a third approach that simply denies it's existence without any real evidence to support itself but based on the premise that if you can't prove something to be true it must be false. Black and white, right or wrong.
Quote:But I'm told that my experiences count for nothing...
This is true in science. Because in science we agreed that only shared experience holds any value at all. For science. For the goals of science.. And with the limitations of science in mind. The next time someone tells you this, you could ask them for what domains this holds true. If they claim only science, then you can ask them why it would hold true for your inner thoughts then. If they claim all. Then ask them how many scientific decisions they have made today. What did they eat? Who do they love? Why are they wearing red? Some of those choices are very important and not made on rationality at all.. In fact, the vast majority of our choices and understanding is non rational. Rationality is like the layer of paint on wood. People only look rational on the surface.
You know I love science, I think it's a very useful tool when it's limits are known. In short science makes claims about reality that are verifiable. It cannot support experience that is unverifiable. And it cannot deny experience that is unverifiable. However, on the experiences that are unverifiable it can say nothing. It cannot say that they do not exist except for some rare cases. And in these cases the other systems of understanding (philosophy, experience, intuition, faith) often give you a more pragmatic handle on the situation.
Quote:that I'm foolish for accepting what seems obvious to me, and I should, instead, not believe they're past life memories until it's been proven that they're past life memories! When i counter with, "Well what else could they be?" I'm told they could be genetic memory, etc.
Ask what the difference would be... And if genetic memory actually means that you store memories in DNA. Then ask if this is proven.
Quote:Never mind that they can't explain why I would have only a few, consistent memories, and they happen to correlate with certain issues in my life...never mind that it's never been proven that we even have genetic memories (at least not to this degree) either...never mind that there is a ton of evidence suggesting that many children (and adults via regression) do indeed remember past lives. They seem to have traded one religion for another. They are not neutral but biased in favor of cynicism to the point of ignoring the obvious.
I'm not sure what the motivation is. That's my goal to discover. There's a perfectly logical reason for their skepticism even when this skepticism doesn't answer to science. One of the claims on ufo's is that there's no evidence. But this statement itself is simply preposterous.. There is ground traces, radar recordings, face to face encounters. Photographs and movies of flying objects, not just lights but solid ships that were simultaneously witnessed by multiple separated groups of people and is documented both by independent groups and by government.
It makes no sense whatsoever to claim there is no evidence. I'm perfectly fine with people interpreting evidence in different ways. I don't believe it's prudent however to ever ignore evidence.
At any rate, there must be a motivation. Perhaps it is the fear to be wrong. Science does represent the closest thing to absolute certainty we have... However ONLY when it makes a measurable claim.
Quote: (01-11-2010, 09:40 AM)Ali Quadir Wrote: [ -> ]People tend to get stuck on the idea that God must be a complex phenomenon to create a complex creation. However, in my opinion this does not follow.. God is the absolute simplest thing in reality which is why you get all the paradoxes when you try to describe it. From it all other things emerge. But all those things are not part of it's original complexity.
That's a novel idea! Nassim Haramein said something to that effect...that the physics that explains the UniVerse isn't complex...if it's true, it'll be simple.
I believe the idea is very old
I certainly did not invent it.
Quote: (01-11-2010, 09:40 AM)Ali Quadir Wrote: [ -> ]A sheet of paper is a very simple thing. A sheet of paper filled with formulas is a complex thing. Yet the filled sheet is a potential that emerges from the empty sheet.
But a sheet of paper and the data written on that sheet of paper are 2 separate and distinct things...
Not according to the materialistic world view. There one is simply a specific configuration of the other. Information as a physical entity as opposed to a non physical metric still holds a difficult position in science.
You're right. But many people do not see the difference. The physical laws are supposed to be the same for a filled and for an empty sheet of paper, information has no effects.
While obviously it does. Otherwise you could not read a paper and follow the directions on it.
Quote:having nothing to do with each other. The formulas could just as easily have been typed into a computer. The paper is tangible and the formulas intangible. They have no association except proximity, and even then, not really, because where do the formulas reside? In someone's mind, or in a computer's memory...the paper is just a storage device. I don't see the formulas as springing forth from the paper...they sprang forth from the mind.
You're referring to the principle of emergence. Like I said earlier, God is the absolute simplest principle. Everything else is an emergent property. On the whole the rational skeptics don't recognize emergent properties as real entities in reality, they mainly consider them side effects. Just like consciousness is an unnecessary side effect.
Quote: (01-11-2010, 09:40 AM)Ali Quadir Wrote: [ -> ]This instance I was sharper than usual.
Which instance are you referring to?
The situation where some friendly folks were heckling me for trying to redefine science while all I was doing was quoting from a first year university textbook.
Repeatability versus
Reproducibility.
Quote:Oh, yes, I've definitely encountered that! Religious evengelism traded for anti-religion evangelism...funny how they don't see that they're doing the same thing!
Just goes to show that we are most annoyed by people who are just like us.
Btw, I never could stand you Monica..
Your boy is he interested in the all in one idea on an emotional level? The principle of organisms as described in Kymatics the movie Ayadew posted is very good. All we'd need to do is add some scientific sources to it. And I think that's doable. But if he's emotionally not interested then it'll be hard to convince him. When I had my rational phase, I dismissed all things non rational, but I was emotionally interested in them. I read books on the paranormal while at the same time dismissing them and not being able to put the book down. You can hide irrational enthusiasm but you can't make it go away.