Your adherence to your viewpoints clouds your judgement, you are not at all open to have said viewpoint refuted, so you will elude anything that potentially can do that. I had to ask you to even notice my arguments. And now you still do not deal with them, but use rethorics to evade them.
I have already said several times I am open to having my views refuted, you just have not done it yet. You requested to have everyone of your points engaged, and I did that, not missing a single point. Then when you responded to my points you did not engage with many of the points I made. I then requested you to engage them and pointed them out. You still did not engage with them. I once again repeated them and you still have not engaged them.
You are not a honest and sincere debator so I am going end this debate here.
I will add the vast majority of your post is rhetoric. You are saying that my strong adherence to my position in this debate clouds of my judgement is purely idiotic and shows you don’t know what a debate is. A debate is made up of opposing viewpoints. If you do not adhere to your own position then you’ve the lost the debate even before it has started.
I have already made it clear what my position is: It is idealism.
You’ve made it clear what your position is: It is Agnosticism.
You are arguing for your position I am arguing for mine.
You are doing a damn poor job of arguing for your position though as I see little more than rheotric than solid arguments. I can’t believe one of your arguments is that I am too passionate about my own position
You are doing a damn poor job of arguing for your position though as I see little more than rheotric than solid arguments. I can’t believe one of your arguments is that I am too passionate about my own position :D[/QUOTE]
your response to my origins of yoga thread wasnt much above poor yourself. As you know yoga was word of mouth for a long time, so tracing back to definitive dates, people, and ownership is impossible so you steam engine response was non relative even if we use simple logic and reason. surya brother, to me this is getting really old, cpountless pages of huge replies on this board. I do wish you the best but also wish you would just drop it. your always right and we should bow before you and call you the Guru of all. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUMMMMMMMMMMMMMM surya deva, we are not worthy please show us the way.
[quote]Your adherence to your viewpoints clouds your judgement, you are not at all open to have said viewpoint refuted, so you will elude anything that potentially can do that. I had to ask you to even notice my arguments. And now you still do not deal with them, but use rethorics to evade them.
I have already said several times I am open to having my views refuted, you just have not done it yet.[/quote]but I have already said several times that you don’t deal with my arguments, so if saying stuff several times makes it right, I must be right then, right? :lol:
You requested to have everyone of your points engaged, and I did that, not missing a single point.
You did not engange my points, you typed some letters in that had little to nothing to do with my points. I showed you how in the three posts you ignore.
Then when you responded to my points you did not engage with many of the points I made.
But I engaged many of the points you made, you did not engage my engagements and now play rethoric games.
I then requested you to engage them and pointed them out.
How come you pointed out the points I did not engage instead of dealing with the points I did engage?
You still did not engage with them. I once again repeated them and you still have not engaged them.
But I have still engaged lots of your points and you still have not engaged my engagements. :lol:
You are not a honest and sincere debator so I am going end this debate here.
No, I am an honest and sincere debator, but you are not an honest and sincere debator so I have ended this debate already before you.
I will add the vast majority of your post is rhetoric.
No, the vast majority of your posts is rethoric.
You are saying that my strong adherence to my position in this debate clouds of my judgement is purely idiotic and shows you don’t know what a debate is.
No, everybody, particularly those doing Yoga, know(s) that adherence clouds ones judgement. To call that purely idiotic shows that you are totally weak and inferior to mighty me, who you cannot stand up against.
A debate is made up of opposing viewpoints. If you do not adhere to your own position then you’ve the lost the debate even before it has started.
If we all adhere to our standpoints like our lifes depended on it, then we’re obviously not interested in anybody elses viewpoints and only interested in enforcing our own. Then debate becomes pointless, as it will turn into a matter of rethoric skillz and how much time we are willing to spend typing in letters.
I have already made it clear what my position is: It is idealism.
You’ve made it clear what your position is: It is Agnosticism.
You are arguing for your position I am arguing for mine.
And I deal with your arguments, while you don’t deal with mine. So it makes no sense for me to tell you about my position or to deal with more and more and more of your arguments.
You are doing a damn poor job of arguing for your position though as I see little more than rheotric than solid arguments.
No you are doing a damn poor job of arguing for your position because I see no more than rethorics and no solid arguments!
I can’t believe one of your arguments is that I am too passionate about my own position
So you don’t understand that passion for a position can cloud one’s judgement? Bad for you.
You’re having a severe case of power-trip. Get better, or it will eat you up from inside.
[QUOTE=Brother Neil;34385]where is the yawn smiley?[/QUOTE]
Yes, where is it
Quetzalcoatl,
Again you have not responded to the points I asked you to respond to.
I will repost them.
You are commiting the fallacy of naive realism now. That is the fallacy that the world exactly is as it appears to our senses. Such as by assuming that the supernova is out there millions of light years away. The fact you only know of any object called a supernova is only AFTER sense perception has been constructed after recieiving sensory signals from the objects out there.
It is clear that impressions are received but it is not clear what the nature of the object is from which we are reciving the signals.
We know today that what our senses show us is not what the actual thing is. As you said yourself the signals received from a supernova 4 million light years away is an event which happened 4 million light years ago but it seems to us it is happening now. The senses show us a static and flat earth with a sun orbiting it and stars adorning our skies. The truth is the earth is a spinning sphere hurtling through space at approx 70,000 mph in orbit around the sun 91 million miles away. The senses show us as a solid and physical world, but the truth is is completely random and chaotic information waves with no space or time properties. So clearly what our senses show us is unreliable.
The truth is whatever our senses show us are just effects and senses do not show us the actual causes of things.
Quote:
If you say that the experience is neurons firing in the brain then you commit a logical error because to say x is y, y has to be identical to x. However neurons firing in the brain is not identical to an experience.
Let us suppose for arguments sake that I am the brain. Then who is the one that is aware of the brain? Why is it that we access the brain and manipulate it just as we can manipulate a chair or a table?
Quote:
It is a logical impossibility. If a cause is determining an effect the effect cannot know the cause. If I design a virtual world and populate it with characters the characters will never be able to know of the real world which produces them because the real world is the cause and they are the effects. It is impossible for them to ever know of the real world.The fact that we can know the brain therefore means it cannot be the cause of our awareness but is just another object of our awareness. This is logically watertight.
Quote:
Let us look at some logic. Do things materialise out of thin air fully formed? No, they do not. They evolve into being first from a potential state then into minute quanta of energy, then into quarks, then subatomic particles, then atoms, then molecules then gasses, then liquids, then solids. Nothing contradicts this logic. Then why should mind which you say yourself is pure information and meaning come after solid? Does it not make logical sense that it would precede all solid, liquid, gas, molecules, atoms, subatomic particles, quarks, quanta of energy?
It makes absolutely logical sense that a non-physical and virtual thing like mind would come before matter and not after it. This is also logically watertight.
Quote:
The preerequisite condition that gives us any access to any world at all whether it be waking or dream is consciousness. At a certain level of consciousness we are in waking and at another level we are in dream. The world of perception changes exactly depending on what our level of consciousness is. That if you take psychoactive substances they simutaneously alter your level of conscousness and your external reference of reality. You will no longer see reality as others are seeing it.
Quote:
It isn’t. Your consciousness is accessing a physical body. Don’t you say “my body” if you were your body why would you say “my body” You also say “my mind” if you were your mind why would say “my mind”? So you are consciousness accessing both mind and body. Now if you say you can also say “my consciousness” then I reply that you can never see or know your own consciousness. You can see or know thoughts, sensations, personalities, memories but not consciousness.
If mind is inside the body, why haven’t we found it? We have explored ever nook and corner of the body and the brain, dissected it and sliced it to oblivion and still found no mind, let alone consciousness.
Like I responded to each of your points(arguments) with counter arguments. Please do the same with each of the points above. Then I will respond back to your counter-arguments, including the counter arguments of the relatively weaker points you addressed.(Note the word relatively this time )
I think it is clear from your consistent refusal to engage these arguments is because you have no refutation for them. Then by default you have conceded this debate to me.
In order to show my sincerity, honesty, openess and eagerness to debate with you and respond to every one of your points I have decided I will actually respond to the points you made despite you still not responding to the preceding points. I hope then you will respond to those old points and the new points I am making in this post.
So I am not arguing for realism and my point is, that if the nature of existence is a fundamental consciousness, it is not ours, and we have (to have) a consciousness within that fundamental consciousness. And therefore, indeed there are things outside our consciousness within that fundamental consciousness, so it is valid to speak of an outside world. For example is your consciousness outside mine. They might both exist within a fundamental consciousness, but yours is outside of mine and mine is outside of yours. And the famous cup is outside of them both. Or, if you want me to be ultra-exact, it appears to be that way.
Which, and that's where I might agree, does not make your or my or that fundamental consciousness or the nature of existence more real in terms of your realism (with which I am not so familiar, though, to actually state that I agree without doubt).
I think you have to make it clear if you are arguing for realism or not because your saying inconsistent things here. If you you are saying that if it was true that all of reality was indeed one fundamental consciousness but within that fundamental consciousness there existed our own individual consciousness and a world which we referenced in which cups existed etc, then it would mean everything was within the fundamental consciousness. So everything would be made of out that fundamental consciousness.
This is idealism. If you concede this to me then you concede the whole debate to me. As my position is idealism. If you are not arguing for realism what are you arguing for?
Can you do that? And can you prove you can do that if you can do that? No? Well then: It's hearsay.
I'm not a man of faith, so whatever The Great Patanjali says is of no relevance for me, as long as I cannot double-check it myself. And I can't double-check these things, so it's
It if it true that everything is made out of fundamental consciousness than it means that at that level everything can be controlled by the fundamental consciousness. Now I concede to you that Patanjali's authority on this matter does not prove any of these abilities. It is perfectly valid for you to reject evidence from authority. However, I will point out there are many things you accept from authority. You accept the earth is not flat but a sphere in space orbitting the sun yet you've never been out into space and seen this. You probably accept the Earth is very old going back millions of years but you have been on this for Earth for more than 40 years how could you know that. You probably accept the existence of atoms, electrons but you've never seen one yourself.
You accept because the authority is reliable. Likewise, Patanjali's reliability is second to none in Yoga. The yogis over thousands of years have confirmed what he has said. He has given an exact and systematic description of Yoga with theory and method. There is a lot of peer-agreement amongst yogis on what he has said. So of the things hes said have been confirmed by modern scientific research into Yoga.
If you are going to accept testimony from some and not from others you are guilty of inconsistency.
am aware of that. Yogis and other people can control some of their bodily processes that modern science actually considers/considered as involuntary. I even know of some rare (and to my knowledge questionable) cases, where individuals were allegedly able to control stuff outside their body, like the needle of a compass. At least, it could not be shown why the needle moved, which does not yet mean, it was really done by their mind. But there is no study to prove beyond a reason of doubt that people can fly or become invisible or travel through time, so after all there is no proof for your statement that we can do all these things and it all remains a belief, hearsay, faith, religion, and all sorts of things, but: Science and logic.
We are constantly controlling our body with the mind. Right now with your conscious mind you can control the rhythm of your breath, you can control your motor organs. You can control the flow of blood to different parts of your body by merely giving the intention(think of your toe and you feel a sensation in your toe) Your unconscious mind is controlling many things like language articulation, pattern recognition, movement. Now we know for a fact that yogis can control even bodily processes like body heat regulation, digestion, heartbeat, food and thrist drives, brain wave activity, all of the muscles in the body.
Finally we have placebo effects and psychosomatic diseases where entire deseases can be created or uncreated based completely on ones mental states:
This is clear evidence that the mind interacts with matter and can manipulate it. Now where do we draw the line of how much it can manipulate and on what basis do we draw that line? As matter is not just what you can see at the molecular level it is also exists at the quantum level and can exhibit quantum effects. As has been already discussed at the quantum level everything is interconnected so there is no real distance between you and me. If mind can manipulate matter, then it can also create action-at-distance.
Whatever it is possible for matter to do then can also be done through mind. If it is possivle for matter to levitate then mind can make it levitate. If it possible for matter to teleport then mind can make it teleport.
We also must ask if the Yogis are not lying about mind manipulating involuntary bodily processes why would they be lying about the other powers mind has? Such as telepathy, telekinesis, teleportation, levitation etc
The fact is that mind cannot be given any limitations because it is not something that an object in space and time. It is outside of space and time so it is not limited by it. If you say it is in your body then we should be able to find in the body. The fact that we cannot and now have even proven it is non-local means that it is not limited to matter at all and exists outside of it and has power over it.
So you say there is no reason to believe that things in our waking consciousness are anymore real or physical than the things in our dreams. Right? I did not misunderstand you, did I?
But then I gave you such reason: We can manipulate the things in our dreams and our fantasy. And we cannot do that with the things in our awake perception. So we do have that reason to believe these things are more real than those we only imagine. That is a valid argument, and while I do not know so much about QM, I know a whole lot about arguments.
I have just proven already above that we can manipulate things in the waking too. The only difference is magnitude. The conscious mind can only manipulate some thing(motor organs, breath) the unconscious mind can manipulate many more things. So this clearly shows us that the magnitude of manipulation depends on how deep your state of consciousness is. (This supports my point that the ground of reality is consciousness and at the level of pure consciousness we have full mastery over it)
Then theoretically we can manipulate matter to any extent and any level depending on how powerful our states of consciousness are. Is there evidence of humans who can do this? Yes. The existence of psychics is documented in every culture, every tradition and every time period. Yoga literature is full of stories of them. Patanjali gives an entire chapter on precise instructions to develop psychic powers. Can you give me one good reason why we should reject all this evidence?
As I said, I do not know much about QM, but I know that it is the mechanics of quantums, and quantums are those very tiny thingies. Like an electron. And I also know that the laws of QM as they describe quantums do not apply 1:1 to large clusters of quantums, like for example a cup.
So whatever is possible with one quantum, like beaming a photon or tunneling it beyond the speed of light, does not prove that the same thing is possible with objects that are created of billions * billions * billions * billions of quantums.
This is an odd argument. If the world is made out of atomic elements, which in turn are made out of subatomic particles, which in turn are made out of quantum things(basically big things are made out of small things) then the rules of the quantum would apply to the big things as well. It would be absurd to say that the big things will be governed by different laws and the small things by an entirely opposite set of laws.
It is obviously logical if you do something on the small level you are going to affect things on the big level. The reason this fallacy was born was because physics could not reconcile quantum mechanics(small things) with relativity(big things) so they used two different kind of physics and descriptions. Prior to the wavefuntion collapse(decoherence) they used quantum mechanics and Schrodinger wave mathematics and after that they used relativity. However, today due to the development in quantum mechanics we can use quantum mechanics for larger objects as well and have been able to quantamize larger objects. So no, not only can we teleport photons, we can also teleport much larger objects.
So you cannot take the theories or experimental results of QM and simply project the behaviour of an electron or a photon onto a human body - besides that I must doubt you have that understanding of complex numbers and linear functionals to actutally speak from a standpoint of comprehension, do you?
Therefore: Human
flying,
teleportation,
walking through walls,
going forwards and backwards in time
is not all known to be possible in quantum mechanics today. Not at all.
It is not impossible in quantum mechanics for a human to teleport, levitate or walk through a wall. We are now poised to develop technologies that could do just that and we are making massive progress in these areas. Many physicists are confident we will have these technologies soon. Such as the very respected Machiu Kaku.
This is not a fact but a theory. You do not know this as a fact. Do you?
But you’re right, I do not know this as a fact. Maybe you know what is going on in my mind. Do you? No?! See. And what about the people around you, do you know what’s going on in their mind? No?! See. And have you ever known what was going on in anybody’s mind? No? And has anybody ever known what was going on in your mind? No?! See.
You should get my point. But you don’t wanna.
No, I do not know what is going on in your mind because I don’t have the capacity to connect to the mental plane(Although I did once have an incident of spontaneous telepathy where I heard somebody elses thoughts. It only ever happened once, never been able to repeat it) However my argument is that minds cannot be floating in a vacuum, they have to be somewhere. If they are not in the physical plane, then they must have their own plane of reality. In which case all minds are entangled with one another in that plane.
Now this is exactly what all the scientific research is showing us. Jung called it the “collective unconsciousness” and neurobiology have been able to show the mind is non-local(not in space and time) Then extensive studies in OBE and NDES have confirmed there is such thing as a mental plane.
How else can you explain when people have the same dream? How else can you explain that everybody reports the same consistent properties of the dream world? If something is public knowledge it is by definition objective.
All the things you know, man, it’s overwhelming.
You see, this part of our “discussion” is about differences between that waking reality and dreams and fantasies and visualisations. In case you forgot. You say there is no difference. Then I point at such differences: I can manipulate in one realm and I cannot in others. And here, about my discrete mind, I point at the fact, that if you and me were together in a room, and we had to describe what’s standing on the table, we would both say: A cup. We share that reality. And if we had to describe what the other is visualizing in their head, we wouldn’t be able to.
No, I cannot see what you are visualizing in your head because I am not psychic. A psychic might be able to and there are scientific studies showing this. However, as far as dreams are concerned, there has been inter-subjective agreement of interacting in the same dream world. Then people have been able to come back to waking and confirm it.
No, the obvious differences are qualitative. I can close my eyes and visualize anything doing anything. But I cannot change a dust particle of reality with my mind. That is a qualitative difference. And that is even still a major difference if it would be possible to do such changes, because obviously certain circumstances and abilities are necessary to do that - which, don’t get me wrong, I do not deny to be possible.
I have already shown you can change more than a spec of dust reality with your mind. Your mind has the power to completely reverse an entire disease like cancer. You can change the temperature of your body, change your brain waves, change your heartbeat and many more things. You obviously can manipulate and control matter.
No, it’s not, in the world of waking there are laws of space and time.
No, it is also true of the world of waking at the quantum level. There is no space and time at the quantum levels particles can be in two places at the same time, they can communicate with each other instantly across galaxies.
Show me please.
99% of your arguments rest upon “many scientific studies”. The very validity of any study is already questionable, isn’t it. Mind affects matter: Prove it to me! Some experiment said it happened? Has the experiment been reproduced by others? Is it accepted by the scientific world? Or is it just a study that provides a result you like?
There are loads and loads of scientific studies collated over a century of research into mind and matter interactions. I will mention some of these later in another post.
Now that mathematician, I googled and I guess you mean Srinivasa Ramanujan, right? First off I’d like to know how you know that he actually came up with anything in a dream. Were you there, in said dream? Have you other proof? No, you want to believe that. Let’s believe it: The guy was obviously a naturally gifted mathematical genious. And that ingenious mathematician came up with equations in his dream? Holy lord, how would that be incredible? It’s the stuff his mind is occupied with. So it’s no surprise said mind is occupied with mathematics in a non-conscious state as well. And in that state creates “new” ideas as well. There is some legend about how the structure of Benzene was first discovered in a dream too, with six monkeys. Same with the Devil’s Trill Sonata. No big deal.
Well the proof is the author himself Ramanujan who said that he received all the equations from the goddess in his dreams. He only had knowledge of mathematics from a school text book. His book contained no demonstrations, no proofs, it simply contained the equations and nothing more. So one thing is very clearly unambigious here and that is one can receive complete knowledge in a dream. How does that work? Your explanation that this is the brain processing information does not work. As you admit yourself that dreams are chaotic, subjective and random. You cannot come up with complete working knowledge through random thinking. You can only come up with complete working knowledge through deliberate and organized thinking or receiving it from somewhere where it has already been organized.
This means either two things or both in dream we are capable of deliberate and organized thinking which means we have full objective access in the world of dream or the world of dream is an objective world where we can interact with others and receive knowledge.
Several studies in Near Death Experiences have shown how people have come back from those experiences with new knowledge, new discoveries.
Really, your arguments make no sense at all. To me, this is a desperate attempt to enforce your position. The dreamworld is created by the mind, based on information that was delivered to the mind via the body’s sensors, so it is coming from that “outside world”. The information is then rearranged by the mind, based on personality, emotions, desires, fears, etc. And if someone comes up with something that turns out to be “new” knowledge, it is being created just the same way the mind creates “new” knowledge when it is awake, by conclusion or inspiration, by having an idea that is - wich is random chance - true
This only explains the subjective phenomenon in the dream world not the objective phenomeon. It does not explain how one obtain new knowledge, it does not explain why the dream world has such consistent intersubjective agreement, it does not explain NDE’s and OBES. It does not explain why people can remember the same dream. It does not explain why some blind people have reported seeing in colour in dreams/NDE’s.
I have once again responded to each and everyone of your points, not missing any out. I really hope you can do the same.
I think you have to make it clear if you are arguing for realism or not
I thought I had, but let me crystal clear then: No, I am not arguing for realism. Not.
because your saying inconsistent things here.
What is inconsistent?
If you you are saying that if it was true that all of reality was indeed one fundamental consciousness but within that fundamental consciousness there existed our own individual consciousness and a world which we referenced in which cups existed etc, then it would mean everything was within the fundamental consciousness. So everything would be made of out that fundamental consciousness.
This is idealism. If you concede this to me then you concede the whole debate to me. As my position is idealism. If you are not arguing for realism what are you arguing for?
It is a misconception that I would be, like you, arguing for something. I discuss questions, and therefore evaluate your arguments and if I see any, bring up arguments to confute them. You can call that, if you need a label, agnostic, but I’m as well not saying it would be impossible to know this or that. Personally - and I said that before - I actually only say: I don’t know. So if you need some mainframe for our discussion you can see it like you were trying to convince me of your position without me having one of my own. So you present me your arguments and I critisize them. During evaluation I will come up with arguments that stand against yours. You then have to deal with these, because you will want to annihilate them, so there is nothing left standing against your position.
But neither am I in favor for realism, nor in favor for materialism, nor in favor vor idealism, nor in favor for deism. Or any -ism.
About my statement:
So I am not arguing for realism and my point is, that if the nature of existence is a fundamental consciousness, it is not ours, and we have (to have) a consciousness within that fundamental consciousness. And therefore, indeed there are things outside our consciousness within that fundamental consciousness, so it is valid to speak of an outside world. For example is your consciousness outside mine. They might both exist within a fundamental consciousness, but yours is outside of mine and mine is outside of yours. And the famous cup is outside of them both. Or, if you want me to be ultra-exact, it appears to be that way.
Which, and that’s where I might agree, does not make your or my or that fundamental consciousness or the nature of existence more real in terms of your realism (with which I am not so familiar, though, to actually state that I agree without doubt).
In this case, I am doing just that, evaluating your position. You say, everything is conscousness. That’s your base for all sorts of things. I examine that base, and I say, that if (<- “if”) everything is consciousness, a - as you say it - “fundamental consciousness”, then (<- if -> then) we, who are existing within that fundamental consciousness of yours, have consciousnesses (yours, mine, Brother Neil’s, lotusgirls’, etc.) that are not that fundamental consciousness. So for example my consciousness is not identical to the fundamental consciousness. It must be a consciousness within the fundamental consciousness and seperate from other things within said fundamental consciousness. So that other consciousnesses are outside ours, and other things, like the cup, the elephant, and recently introduced: The supernova exist outside our consciousnesses.
And therefore, for example, it would be valid to speak of an outside world. Outside of our consciousnesses. Which - your position - exist within some “fundamental consciousness”. Other things result from that too, for example that if we were possible to expand our consciousness into that fundamental one, we would, so to speak, disappear as individuals and therefore again be unable to do those manipulations we might dream of when we are individuals.
Understood?
[quote]Can you do that? And can you prove you can do that if you can do that? No? Well then: It’s hearsay.
I’m not a man of faith, so whatever The Great Patanjali says is of no relevance for me, as long as I cannot double-check it myself. And I can’t double-check these things, so it’s
It if it true that everything is made out of fundamental consciousness than it means that at that level everything can be controlled by the fundamental consciousness.[/quote]I agree (with “if it is true, then”), just that I disagree (“if it is true”) that we are/have that fundamental consciousness ourselves. We are not. And therefore we cannot control all the stuff that is made out of the fundamental consciousness.
I am not, though, saying I would believe or assume or even know that everything is indeed consciousness. You do. I only question that.
Now I concede to you that Patanjali’s authority on this matter does not prove any of these abilities. It is perfectly valid for you to reject evidence from authority.
How would I dare to reject evidence from authority. I reject both that what Patanjali says is “evidence” and that Patanjali is “authority”.
However, I will point out there are many things you accept from authority.
Of course. That’s why I have to slice this up and make it clear, that I do not reject evidence from authority, but reject Patanjali being an authority. That’s a major difference.
You accept the earth is not flat but a sphere in space orbitting the sun yet you’ve never been out into space and seen this. You probably accept the Earth is very old going back millions of years but you have been on this for Earth for more than 40 years how could you know that. You probably accept the existence of atoms, electrons but you’ve never seen one yourself.
That is all true.
You accept because the authority is reliable.
No, I do not accept anything because an authority says so. I accept these things because their explanations are comprehensible, they are stated by hundreds of thousands of people of all kind of philosophical, ethnical and religious background, they are being proven in experiments, that everybody can reproduce.
On the other hand is there no single person on earth who claims, yet can prove to be able to become invisible. Or do you know of one? Which would by far not be enough. The best thing would be if I could be there when they become invisible, though I’d still have my doubts then. But an ancient scripture is far far away from being evidence in my world of logic.
Likewise, Patanjali’s reliability is second to none in Yoga. The yogis over thousands of years have confirmed what he has said. He has given an exact and systematic description of Yoga with theory and method. There is a lot of peer-agreement amongst yogis on what he has said. So of the things hes said have been confirmed by modern scientific research into Yoga.
I am not a Yogi, I do not embrace Yoga as my “path” and Patanjali is not my authority. I embrace no path. And the abilities we discuss have not been confirmed by modern scientific research in Yoga.
If you are going to accept testimony from some and not from others you are guilty of inconsistency.
I am not going to accept just any testimony from some. I will always “calculate” a probabilitiy of the validity of the testimony. For example if you told me you were a 25-year-old man living in the UK, I would accept that. But if you told me that you are a 250-year-old man who can fly and become invisible, I would not.
[quote]am aware of that. Yogis and other people can control some of their bodily processes that modern science actually considers/considered as involuntary. I even know of some rare (and to my knowledge questionable) cases, where individuals were allegedly able to control stuff outside their body, like the needle of a compass. At least, it could not be shown why the needle moved, which does not yet mean, it was really done by their mind. But there is no study to prove beyond a reason of doubt that people can fly or become invisible or travel through time, so after all there is no proof for your statement that we can do all these things and it all remains a belief, hearsay, faith, religion, and all sorts of things, but: Science and logic.
We are constantly controlling our body with the mind. Right now with your conscious mind you can control the rhythm of your breath, you can control your motor organs. You can control the flow of blood to different parts of your body by merely giving the intention(think of your toe and you feel a sensation in your toe) Your unconscious mind is controlling many things like language articulation, pattern recognition, movement. Now we know for a fact that yogis can control even bodily processes like body heat regulation, digestion, heartbeat, food and thrist drives, brain wave activity, all of the muscles in the body.
Finally we have placebo effects and psychosomatic diseases where entire deseases can be created or uncreated based completely on ones mental states:
This is clear evidence that the mind interacts with matter and can manipulate it.[/quote]Of course can the mind control the body, but only the body that it resides in. So it lies close that the mind is directly connected to the body and manipulates it directly, just like you can manipulate a cup with your hand or with a stick in your hand.
Now where do we draw the line of how much it can manipulate and on what basis do we draw that line?
One thing can only manipulate another thing when there is a connection between the two things, that is suitable to allow manipulation. That does not have to be a connection made out of matter, it can as well be energy, maybe even only information. And since my mind (and I assume your mind as well) is only connected to your brain, it can only manipulate the brain, which in return sends out signals to cause reactions in other parts of the body, for example movements of limbs or self-healing processes.
As matter is not just what you can see at the molecular level it is also exists at the quantum level and can exhibit quantum effects. As has been already discussed at the quantum level everything is interconnected so there is no real distance between you and me. If mind can manipulate matter, then it can also create action-at-distance.
As I said I am no expert, but I have dealt with fundamental sciences on a popular level when I was around 20. Like on a "Brief history of Time"-level (I just looked at that book in my shelf just next to me). I don't remember it all, but isn't it so that this connection between quantums only involves two particles? Or at least a finite number of particles, so not any particle is connected with any other? Also - afaik - is there no actual manipulation going on, the particles only behave in a similar way, and that is because they were created together..? I should look it up myself, hold on a sec...
When particles decay into other particles, these decays must obey the various conservation laws. As a result, pairs of particles can be generated that are required to be in certain quantum states. For ease of understanding, consider the situation where a pair of these particles are created, have a two state spin and one must be spin up and the other must be spin down. As described in the introduction, these two particles can now be called entangled since you can not fully describe one particle without mentioning the other. This type of entangled pair where the particles always have opposite spin is known as the spin anti-correlated case. The case where the spins are always the same is known as spin correlated.
Now that entangled particles have been created, quantum mechanics also holds that an observable, for example spin, is indeterminate until a measurement is made of that observable. At that instant, all of the possible values that the observable might have had "collapse" to the value that is measured. Consider, for now, just one of these created particles. In the singlet state of two spin, it is equally likely that this particle will be observed to be spin-up or spin-down. Meaning if you were to measure the spin of many like particles, the measurement will result in an unpredictable series of measurements that will tend to a 50% probability of the spin being up or down. However, the results are quite different if you examine both of the entangled particles in this experiment. When each of the particles in the entangled pair is measured in the same way, the results of their spin measurement will be correlated. Measuring one member of the pair tells you what the spin of the other member is without actually measuring its spin.
The controversy surrounding this topic comes in once you consider the ramifications of this result. Normally under the Copenhagen interpretation, the state a particle occupies is determined the moment the state is measured. However, in an entangled pair when the first particle is measured, the state of the other is known at the same time without measurement, regardless of the separation of the two particles. This knowledge of the second particle's state is at the heart of the debate. If the distance between particles is large enough, information or influence might be traveling faster than the speed of light which violates the principle of special relativity. One experiment that is in agreement with the effect of entanglement "traveling faster than light" was performed in 2008. the experiment found the "speed" of quantum entanglement has a minimum lower bound of 10,000 times the speed of light. [5]However, because the method involves uncontrollable observation rather than controllable changing of state, no actual information is transmitted in this process. Therefore, the speed of light remains the communication speed limit.
So first off the particles do have to be created together (that's where the entanglement is created, for example via Spontaneous parametric down-conversion) and secondly no actual information is transmitted, but they only behave according to one another and thirdly will that behaviour be limited to certain characteristics, like the spin of a particle.
To assume that therefore I could morph a cup into an elephant with pure willpower is not a valid conclusion. Or are you talking about another phenomenon? If so, link me to an explanation, if not, you need to study a lot more.
I'd like to make a note here, as I will at least for today stop my reply: You make a whole lot of overhasty conclusions while your knowledge needs much improvement. It becomes more and more obvious, that you are ready to use any shred of rudimental evidence to corroborate your position, without examining it closely. You take, for example, all these effects from QM to back a viewpoint up, that you already had. You think that the mind is able to manipulate objects over a distance, then you hear about quantum entanglement and without studying it closely (and sincere), you joyfully add it to your list of evidence for your beliefs. Then you come to a forum and "discuss" it. Bam bam bam, you blow out dozens of theories most people never even heard of, it is, as I mentioned, overwhelming. Looking closer, what remains? Misunderstanding, in my perception. A deep desire to believe. Why? Do you want to fly? Dude, if we were supposed to fly, we'd just have wings. What do you want to manipulate? Do you want to be able to become invisible? What for? To me, this seems like a waste of time and I don't even see it being "yogic". I read through the Siddhi-part of the Sutras:
3.38 These experiences resulting from samyama are obstacles to samadhi, but appear to be attainments or powers to the outgoing or worldly mind.
(te samadhau upasargah vyutthane siddhayah)
[Note: In some renditions this is sutra 3.36 or 3.37]
Read the whole article of this excellent website (thanks again for linking me there, D.). It is as well interesting on the subject of non-attachement, which I had brought up earlier, to your amusement.
However, I spent at least an hour now to write this, research, use my dictionary, so that's it for today and I am not so sure I will continue. For me, this is a lot of work and actually it should be the work you do. Again: You need to study more if you want to discuss these things.
You accept the earth is not flat but a sphere in space orbitting the sun yet you’ve never been out into space and seen this. You probably accept the Earth is very old going back millions of years but you have been on this for Earth for more than 40 years how could you know that. You probably accept the existence of atoms, electrons but you’ve never seen one yourself.
That is all true.
Well similarly I accept the research of thousands of years of Yogis who have explored the mind very extensively and recorded their explorations with the same rigour as modern scientists have. Again for the same reason you accept modern scientists. They give detailed explanations and they can verified by peers. Modern explorations of of mind such as consciousness studies and transpersonal psychology are also corrobotating the Yoga research.
On the other hand is there no single person on earth who claims, yet can prove to be able to become invisible. Or do you know of one? Which would by far not be enough. The best thing would be if I could be there when they become invisible, though I’d still have my doubts then.
The fact is you accept many things that you have not had empirical proof of such as electrons, atoms, quarks. So I am sorry but I think you are using double standards here.
Electrons, atoms and quarks are as much theoretical entites as consciousness-fields and chakras in Yoga are. Even in Yoga the existence of these theoretical entites is done based on logical inferences.
Of course can the mind control the body, but only the body that it resides in. So it lies close that the mind is directly connected to the body and manipulates it directly, just like you can manipulate a cup with your hand or with a stick in your hand.
I have asked you several times already then prove where the mind is in the body. We have examined every nook and corner of the body, sliced and diced it to oblivion and have not found anybodies mind.
The evidence shows us the mind interacts with matter(body is matter) and matter is not an isolated thing because exists in complex interrelations with all matter, even being able to affect matter in the body can affect matter outside of the body.
As I said I am no expert, but I have dealt with fundamental sciences on a popular level when I was around 20. Like on a “Brief history of Time”-level (I just looked at that book in my shelf just next to me). I don’t remember it all, but isn’t it so that this connection between quantums only involves two particles? Or at least a finite number of particles, so not any particle is connected with any other? Also - afaik - is there no actual manipulation going on, the particles only behave in a similar way, and that is because they were created together…? I should look it up myself, hold on a sec…
No, you are mistaking current methods of creating quantum entanglement with non-locality. At the moment we have been able to entangle a few particles, a few sets of particles, but in theory we can entangle all particles. This is because the test of the Bell inequalities, a thought experiment devised by John Bell shows to test if locality or non-locality was true, which was later experimentally tested by Alain Aspect and it was discovered that non-locaity was true. This means the entire universe is actually not separated but interconnected. So nothing exists in isolation. If mind can affect matter anywhere it can affect matter everywhere else through the quantum channels.
We have now also been able to teleport photons without using entanglement as well. So theoretically we can teleport anything through the quantum channels.
One experiment that is in agreement with the effect of entanglement “traveling faster than light” was performed in 2008. the experiment found the “speed” of quantum entanglement has a minimum lower bound of 10,000 times the speed of light. [5]However, because the method involves uncontrollable observation rather than controllable changing of state, no actual information is transmitted in this process. Therefore, the speed of light remains the communication speed limit.
I think it is a bit lazy to quote from wikipedia. You should at least quote from a reliable science web site. Anybody can write anything on wikipedia.
It sounds like somebody has inserted the “However” section in later. There is information travelling but the information is travellling through quantum channels and because it is happening through the non-local quantum it does not violate the speed of light limit which only applies to the local world. Now several experiments have been done using quantum entanglement and it has been found that the entangled particle is instantly affected the moment one particle is altered and this is not taking place through any physical channel. This has long been proven by Aspects experiment.
You take, for example, all these effects from QM to back a viewpoint up, that you already had. You think that the mind is able to manipulate objects over a distance, then you hear about quantum entanglement and without studying it closely (and sincere), you joyfully add it to your list of evidence for your beliefs.
No wrong and sigh. Please desist from the rheotric because I am getting tired of it. I would rather you respond to the actual arguments than try to deconstruct my intentions. I have read several books on quantum physics because I did my dissertation on the subject. So no I have not just read an “idea” somewhere and thought it supported my beliefs. I have read extensively on it. In fact, you just admitted you have not read up much on it yourself, and you are citing wikipedia. I think it is very likely I have more knowledge in this area than yourself and have done far more reading than yourself.
I have noticed you still have not responded to my old points and you missed out many of the new points I made.
It seems very clear you expect me to respond to everyone of your points, but you yourself feel it is ok to ignore most of mine
and pick and choose which you want to respond to.
I have won this debate by default. I am not going to bother anymore, because it is a waste of my time, energy and effort.
You are not a sincere and honest debator.
And since my mind (and I assume your mind as well) is only connected to your brain, it can only manipulate the brain, which in return sends out signals to cause reactions in other parts of the body, for example movements of limbs or self-healing processes.
I thought you said you were agnostic?
You are telling me absolutely here that the mind is only connected to the brain. This is not a claim to not knowing, this is a claim to knowing absolutely.
So now you have contradicted your own position. Like I said prove that the mind is connected to the brain and is in the body. But you have failed over and over again to prove this. Therefore you are making statements from faith.
[quote][quote]You accept the earth is not flat but a sphere in space orbitting the sun yet you've never been out into space and seen this. You probably accept the Earth is very old going back millions of years but you have been on this for Earth for more than 40 years how could you know that. You probably accept the existence of atoms, electrons but you've never seen one yourself.
That is all true.[/quote]
Well similarly I accept the research of thousands of years of Yogis who have explored the mind very extensively and recorded their explorations with the same rigour as modern scientists have.[/quote]you're free to do so. And, can you fly? Become invisible? Read anyobdy's mind? No. And have you met someone who can? No. Do you know of someone who can? No.
Again for the same reason you accept modern scientists. They give detailed explanations and they can verified by peers. Modern explorations of of mind such as consciousness studies and transpersonal psychology are also corrobotating the Yoga research.
No no. It is not a verifyable fact that people can fly and all that. Not at all.
[quote]On the other hand is there no single person on earth who claims, yet can prove to be able to become invisible. Or do you know of one? Which would by far not be enough. The best thing would be if I could be there when they become invisible, though I'd still have my doubts then.
The fact is you accept many things that you have not had empirical proof of such as electrons, atoms, quarks. So I am sorry but I think you are using double standards here.[/quote]I have a funny question for you: Why would I? Why would I be using double standards? For what reason? I can't think of one, please help me out. All along this "discussion" you seem to assume that I would reject your theories for, I don't know, personal reasons. I don't. I don't reject the possibility of human flight. I don't reject any of the QM-theories. I simply do not accept any of it: Simply. I need a sound explanation that I can comprehend.
Please respond: Is that asked too much?
Electrons, atoms and quarks are as much theoretical entites as consciousness-fields and chakras in Yoga are. Even in Yoga the existence of these theoretical entites is done based on logical inferences.
I thought we were talking about the Siddhis. These should be very observable phenomena. Human flight would be very observable, a person would just take off. But they don't. I can't do it, I have never seen a person doing it, I have never heard of a person doing it. And you have not as well. Explain: Why not?
You're playing rethorical games. You say that if I believe in electrons I have to believe in human flight. Thereby you try to force me into a position to explain to you why I believe in electrons, but not in human flight. So though you wish to make a point and validate your position, all of a sudden I have to. A simple trick.
Electrons? It's common knowledge. We learned about them at school. It's an applied science, we have electricity everywhere. I am not going to reproduce anything I learned about electrons to explain to you why I accept their existence.
Human flight? That's hearsay, and if you want me to believe it's true, I do not have to make the effort to explain electrons to you: You have to explain human flight to me.
[quote]Of course can the mind control the body, but only the body that it resides in. So it lies close that the mind is directly connected to the body and manipulates it directly, just like you can manipulate a cup with your hand or with a stick in your hand.
I have asked you several times already then prove where the mind is in the body. We have examined every nook and corner of the body, sliced and diced it to oblivion and have not found anybodies mind.[/quote]I have to explain things to you? If I can't, you're right? No. Even besides that there is a whole lot of things that human kind did not yet find out, which does not mean, it cannot be found out.
However, I have already given you my theory of what the mind is: A function of the brain. The brain creates a mind with it's constellation of matter, just like a magnet creates a magnetic field with it's consteallation of matter. You can slice and dice a magnet to oblivion too and won't find, I don't know, a piece of magnetism or however you imagine a mind should "look like". Still, magnetism is bound to a magnet. And a mind to a brain. If you put a person into a magnetic resonance tomograph and have them think about different things, the mrt will show activity in different areas of the brain. This leads to the conclusion, that the mind is depending on the brain. If you remove parts of the brain, the person will lose aspects of their mind, like abilities or memories. That as well leads to the conclusion that the mind is depending on the brain.
What leads to the conclusion that the mind is not depending on the brain and not directly connected to the brain and therefore able to manipulate the brain, which makes it unlikely it can manipulate objects that it is not connected to?
The evidence shows us the mind interacts with matter(body is matter) and matter is not an isolated thing because exists in complex interrelations with all matter, even being able to affect matter in the body can affect matter outside of the body.
Of course can the mind control the body, but only the body that it resides in. So it lies close that the mind is directly connected to the body and manipulates it directly, just like you can manipulate a cup with your hand or with a stick in your hand.
[quote]As I said I am no expert, but I have dealt with fundamental sciences on a popular level when I was around 20. Like on a "Brief history of Time"-level (I just looked at that book in my shelf just next to me). I don't remember it all, but isn't it so that this connection between quantums only involves two particles? Or at least a finite number of particles, so not any particle is connected with any other? Also - afaik - is there no actual manipulation going on, the particles only behave in a similar way, and that is because they were created together..? I should look it up myself, hold on a sec...
No, you are mistaking current methods of creating quantum entanglement with non-locality.[/quote]No, I think that those methods of entanglement are required for non-locality. To observe non-locality, you have to entangle quantums first. They are not entangled by default. That is a relevant argument against your proposal that non-local manipulation of everything in the universe is possible with the mind.
At the moment we have been able to entangle a few particles, a few sets of particles, but in theory we can entangle all particles.
Please explain that theory.
This is because the test of the Bell inequalities, a thought experiment devised by John Bell shows to test if locality or non-locality was true, which was later experimentally tested by Alain Aspect and it was discovered that non-locaity was true.
On this Wikipedia-page it says that in those experiments pairs of entangled photons are produced first:
Scheme of a "two-channel" Bell test
The source S produces pairs of "photons", sent in opposite directions. Each photon encounters a two-channel polariser whose orientation can be set by the experimenter. Emerging signals from each channel are detected and coincidences counted by the coincidence monitor CM.
Setup for a "single-channel" Bell test
The source S produces pairs of "photons", sent in opposite directions. Each photon encounters a single channel (e.g. "pile of plates") polariser whose orientation can be set by the experimenter. Emerging signals are detected and coincidences counted by the coincidence monitor CM.
So unless this Wikipedia page is wrong, what I said is true.
This means the entire universe is actually not separated but interconnected. So nothing exists in isolation.
No, the experiment clearly shows that if you want to observe non-locality, you have to "produce pairs of" particles first. Create entanglement. This is also required for any quantum information device, like the quantum computer. So the connection of different quantums is not (proven to be) a natural state.
If mind can affect matter anywhere it can affect matter everywhere else through the quantum channels.
Can you please prove that?
We have now also been able to teleport photons without using entanglement as well. So theoretically we can teleport anything through the quantum channels.
On this Wikipedia-page it says:
The teleportation of humans, animals, inanimate objects, etc. has been depicted in many works of science fiction, but currently the teleportation of living or inanimate objects is considered to be beyond the capabilities of modern science.
And on this Wikipedia page it says:
Quantum teleportation, or entanglement-assisted teleportation, is a technique used to transfer quantum information from one quantum system to another. It does not transport the system itself, nor does it allow communication of information at superluminal (faster than light) speed. Neither does it concern rearranging the particles of a macroscopic object to copy the form of another object. Its distinguishing feature is that it can transmit the information present in a quantum superposition, useful for quantum communication and computation.
So quantum teleportation does not mean any piece of matter or energy is teleported.
[quote]One experiment that is in agreement with the effect of entanglement "traveling faster than light" was performed in 2008. the experiment found the "speed" of quantum entanglement has a minimum lower bound of 10,000 times the speed of light. [5]However, because the method involves uncontrollable observation rather than controllable changing of state, no actual information is transmitted in this process. Therefore, the speed of light remains the communication speed limit.
I think it is a bit lazy to quote from wikipedia. You should at least quote from a reliable science web site. Anybody can write anything on wikipedia.[/quote]If you tried to add your visionary ideas of human teleportation or human flight to any Wikipedia-article on quantum mechanics you'd find out that this is not true. However, there are surely sophisticated sources, but compared to someone who quotes nothing at all, quotes from Wikipedia are already very assiduous.
It sounds like somebody has inserted the "However" section in later. There is information travelling but the information is travellling through quantum channels and because it is happening through the non-local quantum it does not violate the speed of light limit which only applies to the local world. Now several experiments have been done using quantum entanglement and it has been found that the entangled particle is instantly affected the moment one particle is altered and this is not taking place through any physical channel. This has long been proven by Aspects experiment.
You have to forgive me that I have more faith in Wikipedia than you, but if you can quote some sophisticated web site, I will consider it. Again: If I do not have to read too much.
[quote]You take, for example, all these effects from QM to back a viewpoint up, that you already had. You think that the mind is able to manipulate objects over a distance, then you hear about quantum entanglement and without studying it closely (and sincere), you joyfully add it to your list of evidence for your beliefs.
No wrong and sigh. Please desist from the rheotric because I am getting tired of it. I would rather you respond to the actual arguments than try to deconstruct my intentions. I have read several books on quantum physics because I did my dissertation on the subject. So no I have not just read an "idea" somewhere and thought it supported my beliefs. I have read extensively on it. In fact, you just admitted you have not read up much on it yourself, and you are citing wikipedia. I think it is very likely I have more knowledge in this area than yourself and have done far more reading than yourself. [/quote]But to me that is only hearsay and I have no doubt whatsoever that if you wrote a dissertation that was not rated as a total failure, it will have been of a much higher quality than the stuff you present here.
I have noticed you still have not responded to my old points and you missed out many of the new points I made.
Excellent observation.
It seems very clear you expect me to respond to everyone of your points,
No, I don't expect anything from you. I once asked you not to ignore most of my arguments and responses to your ideas.
but you yourself feel it is ok to ignore most of mine
and pick and choose which you want to respond to.
No, I don't pick anything, I start at the beginning. Then I notice that you do not make sense and my response is mostly occupied with researching what you're saying and finding out it is not so. Like above, with your experiments and teleportation. It is not as you say. Then I loose interest in wasting my time and stop responding. So I do not pick particular statements.
I have won this debate by default.
I am not going to bother anymore, because it is a waste of my time, energy and effort.
Oh my god you turned this all around and now it's you who quits and I have lost so you are the winner and strong and I am the loser and weak and u own me!!!!111!!1!1!
You are not a sincere and honest debator.
Yes I am. But unfortunately you believe to be someone you are not: A know-it-all who has figured out the very nature of existence from start to finnish. :lol:
Anything else?
I just noticed this now
[quote]And since my mind (and I assume your mind as well) is only connected to your brain, it can only manipulate the brain, which in return sends out signals to cause reactions in other parts of the body, for example movements of limbs or self-healing processes.
I thought you said you were agnostic?[/quote]No, you said that. I said:
It is a misconception that I would be, like you, arguing for something. I discuss questions, and therefore evaluate your arguments and if I see any, bring up arguments to confute them. You can call that, if you need a label, agnostic, but I'm as well not saying it would be impossible to know this or that.
Also,
Agnosticism is the view that the truth value of certain claims?especially claims about the existence or non-existence of any deity, but also other religious and metaphysical claims?is unknown or unknowable.
You are telling me absolutely here that the mind is only connected to the brain. This is not a claim to not knowing, this is a claim to knowing absolutely.
So now you have contradicted your own position. Like I said prove that the mind is connected to the brain and is in the body. But you have failed over and over again to prove this. Therefore you are making statements from faith.
Why so quibbling? Is the urge to win and dominate so strong? It's true, I do not know if my mind is only connected to (obviously) my brain. But just like my nose appears to be only connected to my face, it seems so. I had noted some reason to assume the connection of mind and brain above:
However, I have already given you my theory of what the mind is: A function of the brain. The brain creates a mind with it's constellation of matter, just like a magnet creates a magnetic field with it's consteallation of matter. You can slice and dice a magnet to oblivion too and won't find, I don't know, a piece of magnetism or however you imagine a mind should "look like". Still, magnetism is bound to a magnet. And a mind to a brain. If you put a person into a magnetic resonance tomograph and have them think about different things, the mrt will show activity in different areas of the brain. This leads to the conclusion, that the mind is depending on the brain. If you remove parts of the brain, the person will lose aspects of their mind, like abilities or memories. That as well leads to the conclusion that the mind is depending on the brain.
What leads to the conclusion that the mind is not depending on the brain and not directly connected to the brain and therefore able to manipulate the brain, which makes it unlikely it can manipulate objects that it is not connected to?
You're not really agnostic. You are materialist.
Since materialism means:
In philosophy, the theory of materialism holds that the only thing that exists is matter; that all things are composed of material and all phenomena (including consciousness) are the result of material interactions. In other words, matter is the only substance. As a theory, materialism is a form of physicalism and belongs to the class of monist ontology. As such, it is different from ontological theories based on dualism or pluralism. For singular explanations of the phenomenal reality, materialism would be in contrast to idealism, neutral monism and spiritualism.
it would not even be enough if I were absolutely sure that one's mind is only connected to one's brain to constitute me as one, as well as such viewpoint would not disqualify me being an agnostic. But actually I just did not express myself as exact as I could have.
Are we done now..? Have you finally won enough..? :lol:
I think you are clearly out of your depth here when it comes to knowledge of quantum mechanics, and you are relying exclusively on wikipedia on your knowledge on it, which clearly shows your ignorance in this subject.
So in this post I will just cover the basics.
First of all watch this tutorial to understand what non-locality is: Nonlocality Tutorial
It is proven now that non-locality is real and this means the entire universe exists interconnected(through quantum channels) and information travels faster than the speed of light.
Most working scientists hold fast to the concept of ‘realism’—a viewpoint according to which an external reality exists independent of observation. But quantum physics has shattered some of our cornerstone beliefs. According to Bell’s theorem, any theory that is based on the joint assumption of realism and locality (meaning that local events cannot be affected by actions in space-like separated regions) is at variance with certain quantum predictions. Experiments with entangled pairs of particles have amply confirmed these quantum predictions, thus rendering local realistic theories untenable. Maintaining realism as a fundamental concept would therefore necessitate the introduction of ‘spooky’ actions that defy locality. Here we show by both theory and experiment that a broad and rather reasonable class of such non-local realistic theories is incompatible with experimentally observable quantum correlations.
Alain Aspect is the physicist who performed the key experiment that established that if you want a real universe, it must be non-local (Einstein’s “spooky action at a distance”). Aspect comments on new work by his successor in conducting such experiments, Anton Zeilinger and his colleagues, who have now performed an experiment that suggests that “giving up the concept of locality is not sufficient to be consistent with quantum experiments, unless certain intuitive features of realism are abandoned.”
Be clear what is going on here. Quantum mechanics itself is not crying out for such experiments! Quantum mechanics is doing just fine, thank you, having performed flawlessly since inception. No, it is people whose cherished philosophical beliefs are being threatened that cry out for such experiments, exactly as Einstein used to do, and with exactly the same hope (we think in vain): that quantum mechanics can be refined to the point where it requires (or at least allows) belief in the independent reality of the natural world it describes.
Quantum mechanics makes no mention of reality (Figure 1). Indeed, quantum mechanics proclaims, “We have no need of that hypothesis.” Now we are beginning to see that quantum mechanics might actually exclude any possibility of mind-independent reality⎯and already does exclude any reality that resembles our usual concept of such (Aspect: “it implies renouncing the kind of realism I would have liked”). Non-local causality is a concept that had never played any role in physics, other than in rejection (“action-at-a-distance”), until Aspect showed in 1981 that the alternative would be the abandonment of the cherished belief in mind-independent reality; suddenly, spooky-action-at-a-distance became the lesser of two evils, in the minds of the materialists.
Now let us look at the most recent experiments in using non-locality:
The dream of teleporting atoms and molecules - and maybe even larger objects - has become a real possibility for the first time. The advance is thanks to physicists who have suggested a method that in theory could be used to "entangle" absolutely any kind of particle.
Quantum entanglement is the bizarre property that allows two particles to behave as one, no matter how far apart they are. If you measure the state of one particle, you instantly determine the state of the other. This could one day allow us to teleport objects by transferring their properties instantly from one place to another.
Until now, physicists have only been able to entangle photons, electrons and atoms, using different methods in each case. For instance, atoms are entangled by forcing them to interact inside an optical trap, while photons are made to interact with a crystal.
"These schemes are very specific," says Sougato Bose of the University of Oxford. But Bose and Dipankar Home, of the Bose Institute in Calcutta, have now demonstrated a single mechanism that could be used to entangle any particles, even atoms or large molecules.
PhysOrg.com) -- Usually when physicists talk about quantum teleportation, they're referring to the transfer of quantum states from one particle to another without a physical link. Now, physicists have investigated a slightly different form of teleportation, in which they teleport a quantum field, or an entire beam of light, from one location to another. This kind of "strong" teleportation is required for some quantum information applications, and could lead to the teleportation of quantum images.
In summary: Non-locality is a fact.
[QUOTE=Surya Deva;34479]I think you are clearly out of your depth here when it comes to knowledge of quantum mechanics, and you are relying exclusively on wikipedia on your knowledge on it, which clearly shows your ignorance in this subject.[/QUOTE]
if you think you understand quantum theory, you don’t understand quantum theory.
There is no problem with quantum mechanics it is the best theory we have to explain the universe and it explains everything. The only reason there is any controversy at all is because it contradicts realism, and because of this physicists have been trying very hard to make quantum mechanics work with relativity, despite the fact that every experiment that has been done quantum mechanics disproves relativity and realism. The only people not accepting this are people who obsessively want to hold onto the old classical view of the world. They keep on crying out for more and more and more experiments because they can’t accept what quantum mechanics is proving.
Now having reviewed some of the basics of quantum mechanics we can proceed to the implications of it. Those implications are that there is no such thing as isolated matter separated from one another in space and time, but all matter that exists is just a web of relations and is entangled with everything else in space and time at once. Like a cosmic internet. As such what we call matter does not really exist, it is a wavefunction and is spread our across time and space. This means it is possible to connect to any point in time and space from any other point. Just as it is possible to connect to anywhere on the internet from any point. What is enabling this to happen are quantum channels that connect us to everything in the universe. They are already existing and all we do is exploit them using the technique entanglement(It is the not the only technique by the way, it’s just one of the best we have right now)
Therefore if mind can control matter at any one point, it can control matter at any other point in time and space. And we have already accepted that the mind can control matter in the body, therefore according to quantum mechanics, it can control matter anywhere else at any other point.
Scientists Levitate Tiny Balls Using Quantum Mechanics
Friday, January 09, 2009
Print ShareThisCHICAGO — U.S. scientists have found a way to levitate the very smallest objects using the strange forces of quantum mechanics, and said on Wednesday they might use it to help make tiny nanotechnology machines.
They said they had detected and measured a force that comes into play at the molecular level using certain combinations of molecules that repel one another.
The repulsion can be used to hold molecules aloft, in essence levitating them, creating virtually friction-free parts for tiny devices, the researchers said.
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Federico Capasso, an applied physicist at Harvard University in Massachusetts, whose study appears in the journal Nature, said he believed that detection of this force opened the possibility of a whole new class of tiny gadgets.
The team, including researchers at the National Institutes of Health, has not yet levitated an object, but Capasso said he now knows how to do it.
"This is an experiment we are sure will work," he said.
Levitation has been elevated from being pure science fiction to science fact, according to a study reported today by physicists.
Now, in another report that sounds like it comes out of the pages of a Harry Potter book, the University of St Andrews team has created an 'incredible levitation effects’ by engineering the force of nature which normally causes objects to stick together.
Professor Ulf Leonhardt and Dr Thomas Philbin, from the University of St Andrews in Scotland, have worked out a way of reversing this pheneomenon, known as the Casimir force, so that it repels instead of attracts.
Their discovery could ultimately lead to frictionless micro-machines with moving parts that levitate But they say that, in principle at least, the same effect could be used to levitate bigger objects too, even a person.
So a mysterious force is generated out of the quantum, which we have called the casimir force that we can then use to push an object upwards to cause it to levitate. Now we have already established mind can manipulate matter at least in the body, so it should be theoretically possible for mind to also generate this quantum force and cause the body to levitate.
Now isn’t very interesting the Siddhi of levitation in Yoga describes exactly the same process on how the yogi levitates and walks on water. It says the Yogi gains perfect control through the mind of an etheric force called Udana Vayu(the upwards force) which pushes the body of the yogi upwards.
In other words quantum mechanics completely supports what Yoga is saying and they give exactly the same description of how it is done.
Electrons? It’s common knowledge. We learned about them at school. It’s an applied science, we have electricity everywhere. I am not going to reproduce anything I learned about electrons to explain to you why I accept their existence.
I know it is common knowledge, but do you know that we have never ever seen an electron? Nor have have we ever seen an atom. I bet you still believe in the old Rutherfod model of the atom as a mini planetary system with a nucleus at the core being orbited by electrons. Do you know that model does not actually work and and is disproven by quantum mechanics, the first to point this out was the danish physicist Neil Bhor which showed that if the electrons were orbitting the nucleus they would have flown into the nucleus in a fraction of a second and atoms could not exist.
We have not seen atoms and electrons, they are completely theoretical entites and by definition metaphysical. We infer their existence based on the effects we see. Now why is this any different to Yogic theory? In Yoga we also infer the existence of metaphysical entities based on the effects we see. The entire theory of Yoga(Samkhya) is a metaphysics based on effects we can see and all tenets in Yoga are predicates of that metaphysics.
I will talk you through the basic logic that Yoga metaphysics is based on. It is based on the satyakarya vada(the effect is pre-existent in the cause in a potential state) The logic is that effect is not a random transformation, but is actually a transformation of its material cause. So for example the tree is a transformation of the material cause of the seed. We can see that all effects have material causes and all material causes have effects and this can ultimately be reduced to an ultimate material cause in which all that exists is potential. Therefore from this we conclude the existence of the Yogic metaphysical entity known as Prakriti the ultimate substratum of reality where all that exists in the universe exists in superpositioned in a potential state.
Now what else do we know about transformations from cause to effect? We know that the effect evolves from the cause gradually from a very minute and subtle form to very large and gross. We know from quantum mechanics that matter first begins in the non-local state where it is potential and superpositioned as pure information, then it gradually evolves from very minute and subtle quanta to very large and gross planets.
Now you are so adamant that mind comes after the brain but this completely contradicts what we know about the principles of transformation of cause and effect. You said yourself earlier on that mind was just pure information and meaning. Then why would something as subtle, minute and potential as pure information and meaning come after something as solid and tangible as the brain? In fact if we look at the continuum pure information exists at the level of the quantum and therefore either mind is identical with the level of the quantum or it precedes it. So mind has to precede the brain.
We now know for a fact and this has been empirically demonstrated that without the observer there is no physical reality. The phenomeon known as decoherence in QM is when the wavefunction is appears to collapse on observation. In other words QM is very adamant the mind is already existing even before there is a physical universe.
And this is also what Yoga says that the superpositioned state of ultimate matter(prakriti) appeared to collapse only when consciousness(purusha) simply observed it. It then started to form transform(cause to effect) and the first thing that came into existence was not any physical matter, but mind. Physical matter is right at the end of the scale.
There is nothing wrong with the logic. It is in fact very watertight and quantum mechanics back it up to the tee. Now why would you not accept this which is also based on infering from observable effects, and yet would readily accept atoms, electrons etc exist?
