near death experiences

[bvdd]

"Ahh, but is the fact that a given "spiritual truth" is not defined across cultural lines a function of said culture's (or cultures') "bastardization" of that truth to fit its own purposes? In other words, just because we can find no "unifying religion"...doesn't mean that ultimately there is none. All that means is that each culture perhaps has twisted a given "truth" to fit its own needs...possibly? Assuming there was some message given to humankind to begin with from on high..."

 

 

This pretty much sums up the conclusion I've come to after 20 years

of brain thrashing. It seems logical to me that if you OBJECTIVELY stand far enough back and look at the 'message', (let's say from the man Jesus

for example .. and assuming he wasn't insane) you come to 2 choices: either there is a specific "preferred" overall truth, that is the CORRECT

one because the others are FALSE ... or that there is one all inclusive reality that our finite mind's are just now learning to grasp. If the latter is accurate, then it's probable that so far man's emotional insecurity has caused him to separate and choose a favorite that his primative nature can use to fight any opposing idea; something man is a lot more comfortable doing instead of taking personal responsibility.

[axiamusic]

hey Master Z,

 

Thanks for your in-depth response!

 

By your reasoning i.e. If a system is complex enough it can have feelings, then my Pentium 3 PC might be feeling as I type this mail. I guess it's possible but I don't think my PC is conscious! If you agree that it isn't, then at what point in speed/complexity will a system attain consciousness?

 

What I was basically trying to say in my previous post is that I don't believe that consciousness arises through complexity. Performing billions of calculations every second does not a conscious being make. It merely makes a bloody fast computer. I believe we are more than that.

 

Thanks, Chris

[Calfee Jones]

Originally posted by Chip McDonald:

No, but it *does* mean there isn't an *all powerful* deity, or at least a sane one in human terms. Now *that* scares me: is there a "God" of the Christian Bible, inconsistencies and all, that chose to let the Chinese remain in the dark, that makes Moses attempt to kill his own child, that has all sorts of contradictory things related to it - etc.? That's a scary thought. A God who, just because you don't utter the proper words and so forth - will make you burn in hell? I don't think so...

 

You may have an incomplete understanding of the Christian God. The Bible also quotes him as saying "You will seek me and find me, when you search for me with all your heart." It didn't happen to mention what culture or country the seeker is in...

[Tedster]

And, BTW...it was Abraham (not Moses) that was asked to kill his son Isaac...

 

God said "Abraham, kill me a son!"

Abe said "Man, you must be puttin' me on!"

God said "No!" and Abe said "What?"

God said you can do what you want Abe, but..

Next time you see me comin' man, you better run!

Abe said "Where you want this killing done?"

God said "Out on Highway 61"....

 

And, Abraham was prevented from killing Isaac at the last second.

[Tedster]

Originally posted by Julian standen:

I contend we are merely arrogant animals, no more.. And that also goes for the guy that can draw a horse. Fucking horse! what's wrong with a house?

http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/mad.gif

Jules

 

 

Welll...I could draw a house, too...or two horses fucking, if you wish...maybe a horse fucking a house...

 

"See the horse? The horse is horny. See the horny horse fucking the house? Go, horny horse, go!"

 

It was a joke, Jules.

 

http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/mad.gif

[Tedster]

How 'bout a statue instead???

 

http://www.gilanyiart.com/images/p_br_matinghorses.jpg

[Pro Jules]

I can ONLY draw a house!

http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/smile.gif

That was MY point!

 

And now you retaliate WITH, WITH, WITH....... SCULPTURE!!!

 

http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/mad.gifhttp://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/mad.gifhttp://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/mad.gif

 

http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/smile.gif

 

http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/eek.gif

 

music art wildlife sex, life & death, philosophy, shit, Craigs forum's GOT IT ALL!

[Pro Jules]

DP

 

This message has been edited by Julian standen on 07-21-2001 at 10:26 AM

[Chip McDonald]

Originally posted by Lee Flier:

Well, I don't have a problem grasping the idea that an all-powerful deity would appear differently to different cultures (and to different individuals too) and/or give them different sets of instructions.

 

I don't have a problem with "something" presenting itself and having cultures screw it up, but the problem is that most deities want themselves to be percieved simultaneously as "all powerful" while also wanting their worshippers to not get their message messed up. I find that a curious contradiction.

 

Of course, if one presumes religions arise from "interesting cultural intervention", then things change. Aliens, or (as I think is just as likely) the spontaneous arrival of a person in a situation that they're solely aware of in a manner that they realize they can use a position to change history.

 

I think of mysticism as being like a wide-angle lens or an aerial view, while logic is like the zoom lens or like walking instead of flying.

 

Interesting and clever epistemology, most science appears as having mysterious qualities at first. Very interesting. One my consider the notion of "reverse engineering" mysticism to find the target truth; there has to be a transitional point where the truth becomes strained into fiction, and there's probably a human dynamic that can be applied to that in a relatively predictable manner.

 

The gods must be crazy....

 

------------------

New and Improved Music Soon: http://www.mp3.com/chipmcdonald

[Master Zap]

I disagreee.

 

Complexity does make conciousness but we are talkign V E R Y complex. Your Pentium is about good enough to simulate a handful of neurons in a brain with trillions.

 

We are all software run by the brain - a very nifty computer. No need for any mystic mumbo-jumbo here.

 

/Z

[Uh Clem]

Jules is on to it - we are just a vain class of self-aggrandized animals. We think we are special or have souls because...why?...we have advanced language or the king missle or something? Perhaps we are just too inept to comprehend or understand all the other animals on the planet. http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/eek.gif

 

Has anyone in "near death" seen their late pet waiting on the other side? Perhaps cowering in the shadow of T-Rex? "Lassie, Lassie - what is it girl?" "Arf, arf, Timmy - no don't go into the light, don't go into the light - the dinosaurs are here too and they are pissed and wielding guitars!" Bang-a-gong.

 

This message has been edited by stevepow on 07-22-2001 at 12:26 PM

[axiamusic]

Hi again Master Z,

 

Well, I disagree with you. So I guess the argument stops here. You find no difficulty in understanding consciousness through complex physical reactions. Fine.

 

For me, it is a massive quantum leap in assumption that consciousness and feelings can arise purely from the physical, and unfortunately we will only know for sure, one way or the other, when we're dead!

 

I'm not sure if I want to be right, 'cause the next life might have even more pain in it than this one!!

 

Anyway, let's live this life best we can, be good to each other, and try and make some great music, right?

 

Best Wishes, Chris

[Uh Clem]

Here's one for Chip...

 

How Much Does God Know?

 

Everything

raises morning mists of questions,

clouds of dry ice carelessly

idling above the universe

just packed for mailing,

the most delicious you ever tasted

or your money back.

 

Omniscience. You know,

you cant be sure you know it all

until youre sure youve thought

of everything there is to know.

 

Test:

This seconds kisses,

kissed round the world,

from Bali to Bangor,

and every couple in between.

 

If you know everything, you know

exactly what that love saliva weighs.

 

Are there really sleepless screens

that track the planets passion?

By lover location, lover language,

lover thoughts headed somewhere else?

Are charts like this a part of God?

And the answer is

 

Unknowable.

The pumping ratios

of true love kiss spit weight

to false love kiss spit weight

rush up and down (or dont) unknown

to us, their tireless creators,

busy generators of patterns known,

for all we know,

to none.

 

I am thinking of a number.

God only knows

if by some miracle it is the difference

between our round-the-world kiss-ins weight

and the ancient weight

of a mouth-to-mouth mass moment

during that second Babylon

was the Big Apple.

 

T. Shepard Soules

 

This message has been edited by stevepow on 07-22-2001 at 12:19 PM

[Lee Flier]

Originally posted by Chip McDonald:

I don't have a problem with "something" presenting itself and having cultures screw it up, but the problem is that most deities want themselves to be percieved simultaneously as "all powerful" while also wanting their worshippers to not get their message messed up. I find that a curious contradiction.

 

I don't. I equate it somewhat to being a parent. You know that you know more than your kid does, and that there are certain of your values that you want to impart to your kid which you know will make him or her happy in life, but at the same time if you're a good parent you don't want to just beat it into the kid - you want the kid to find "the answers" on his own or at least believe that he did. You want him to OWN the message, to WANT to do what is right and understand WHY he is doing it, not just follow it because it's what you MADE him do.

 

So the only real way to do that is to provide clues and examples of what you want him to do while still giving him the free will to do things differently, including screwing things up for himself sometimes. You don't WANT him to screw up, and you have the "power" to prevent him from screwing up, but at the same time you know that you have to let him. It's a rare human who has the patience and fortitude to do this, but I think God can pull it off. http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/smile.gif

 

The problem is that mysticism and faith are usually different from organized religions, a lot of which were formed in order to replace humans' inherent mystical yearnings with something that would make them do the bidding of the very human powers that be. It behooved them to paint a picture of God as more the bully or the the abusive parent, who says "do this because I said so!" because there is no way anyone would do what they asked if they thought about it in any logical way and/or if they were scared shitless.

 

Interesting and clever epistemology, most science appears as having mysterious qualities at first. Very interesting. One my consider the notion of "reverse engineering" mysticism to find the target truth; there has to be a transitional point where the truth becomes strained into fiction, and there's probably a human dynamic that can be applied to that in a relatively predictable manner.

 

Yeah. There's an anthropologist by the name of Marvin Harris who's devoted much of his career to such "reverse engineering" and has written several books about it - that is, attempting to explain the origins and truths behind what many of us see as silly customs and superstition. It's fascinating stuff.

 

Personally though, I find it more useful to develop my own intuitive powers than to borrow from anybody else's, which gives me a very useful perspective in terms of figuring out what's really the good and relevant course of action. Then I can "zoom in" from there and use logic to figure out the details. Funny how this correlates to the thread I started a while back about whether songwriting was more inspiration or discipline. Most people said the first seed of an idea is inspiration, and then the job of finishing the song and working out the arrangement is discipline. Works for me.

 

--Lee

 

 

 

This message has been edited by Lee Flier on 07-22-2001 at 01:18 PM

[Lee Flier]

Originally posted by stevepow:

Jules is on to it - we are just a vain class of self-aggrandized animals. We think we are special or have souls because...why?...we have advanced language or the king missle or something? Perhaps we are just too inept to comprehend or understand all the other animals on the planet. http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/eek.gif

 

Again you're confusing simple mysticism with organized religion. I don't, personally, believe we are the only animals who have souls. I believe everything has soul and life, even things that most people of our culture consider to be "inanimate". That philosophy is called animism, and it used to be the de facto world "religion" until "civilization" came along and man really started thinking his shit didn't stink.

 

A lot of people reject mystical thought entirely simply because they've been exposed to too many bad examples of it. Like, they don't want to accept someone else's literal description of God (which is a good thing IMO) so they simply say the whole concept of God must be a made-up thing . That is unfortunate.

 

--Lee

[Uh Clem]

Lee says:

Again you're confusing simple mysticism with organized religion.

 

No I'm not - or I don't mean to be. When did I bring up organized religion? Hmm - well thanks - I would have, no doubt, stumbled on to it eventually.

 

I may be dumping them all in the same bucket in my half-serious tongue-in-cheek comments - but hey, this thread never was really about well construced rational discussions anyway was it http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/wink.gif. It is so hard to get that stuff right - Look what happened to Chris when he tried it http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/eek.gif shot down like a balloon full of gas.

 

I think organized religion is about control - it was created before govenments had the power to control people.

 

I think myticism is, well, the dictionary (yeah I know, the evil microsoft one) covers it pretty well for me:

 

1. RELIGION belief in intuitive spiritual revelation: the belief that personal communication or union with the divine is achieved through intuition, faith, ecstasy, or sudden insight rather than through rational thought

2. RELIGION spiritual system: a system of religious belief or practice that people follow to achieve personal communication or union with the divine

3. confused and vague ideas: vague or unsubstantiated thought or speculation about something

 

Encarta® World English Dictionary © & (P) 1999 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Developed for Microsoft by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.

 

I just know that many things that once were explained through definition #3, are now rather matter of fact well understood concepts. I think the trend will continue as science de-mystifies more or our universe - slowly but surely - until our 15 minutes on Mother Nature's fame clock is up.

 

But I'm no "science is all good" fanatic - things like nuclear physics have had dubious benefits at best. But if we create our own Sodom and Gomorrah, at least, for an instant, we'll know what really went down.

 

There is so much we don't know and we are like kids playing with loaded guns when all we understand is a water pistol.

 

From the "Things to do while making tape backups" Series

 

This message has been edited by stevepow on 07-22-2001 at 01:29 PM

[Tedster]

>>>We are all software run by the brain - a very nifty computer. No need for any mystic mumbo-jumbo here.

 

A nearly-infinitely complex machine with no design engineer. Amazing!

[Master Zap]

No, no designer. Evolution.

 

Coz otherwise, if we get into a designer, we get to "who designed the designer" and we are back to square 1. Occams razor tells us to slice away the designer.

 

But the end result is still "This is your life, make the best out of it". So lets make music instead, hmmm? http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/smile.gif

 

/Z

 

This message has been edited by Master Zap on 07-22-2001 at 03:59 PM

[Bobro]

Originally posted by Master Zap:

No, no designer. Evolution.

 

Coz otherwise, if we get into a designer, we get to "who designed the designer" and we are back to square 1. Occams razor tells us to slice away the designer.

 

But the end result is still "This is your life, make the best out of it". So lets make music instead, hmmm? http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/smile.gif

 

/Z

 

 

http://www.kosmolith.com/images/occam.gif

 

 

Yip, Occam's Razor, courtesy of William of Ockham (top-40 remix of an Aristotle quote actually)- are you sure you want to trust this guy's take on how to use a razor?

 

http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/smile.gif

 

 

When I was 19, Orthodox Easter occured on my birthday and I went to watch the angels dancing in the sun at dawn. The consequent intermittant blind spot in my left eye increases in size and frequency as I get older, but I wouldn't trade it for anything.

 

At any rate, you characters are great, I love you all- though perhaps not in the Tedhorsian sense.

 

-CB

 

 

 

 

This message has been edited by Bobro on 07-22-2001 at 05:34 PM

[Rod S]

There's been way too may good pts made so it would take me forever to talk about all of them; instead I'll talk about some of my experiences.

 

(1) Serious asthma problems as a kid. Having been rushed to the hospital a few times as a kid unconscious. Don't remember a great deal about it.

 

(2) Having a gun pointed at my head during a car robbery while another guy had a gun on my girlfriend, and from his looks you could see he was ready to drag her to a corner to rape her. 30 minutes later after a lot of talking we came out clean (OK, they took the car, but that's what insurance is for)

 

(3) Shots fired at my car during another car robbery. My mom almost ended up in the hospital after she saw what the car looked like.

 

(4) Run over by a car while biking. No helmet. Woke up in the hospital. Somebody saw it happen and took me to the hospital. Nobody got the SOB's plate number though.

 

(5) As a Sophmore in college got rushed to the hospital after drinking way too much. Some girl helped me and called an ambulance. Never found out who she was. My friends described her to me and we actually went around campus looking for her. I was never able to thank her whoever she was. Can't remember what my B.A.C was, but I remember it was enough to kill me.

 

(5) Car accident. Woke up with the car flipped upside down. All sorts of thoughts went through my head the 20-30 minutes I was unconcious. No light at the end of the tunnel though.

 

(6)Slipping from the edge of a cliff during a recent hiking/climbing trip. Think the beginning of Mission Impossible 2. Not quite that much of a drop (about 60 feet) but I would have landed on rocks. It took me 2 hours to get my courage back to even move.

 

There's gonna be a reason I'll still alive. I'll figure it out eventually.

[-]

Originally posted by Julian standen:

And now you retaliate WITH, WITH, WITH....... SCULPTURE!!!

 

...

 

music art wildlife sex, life & death, philosophy, shit, Craigs forum's GOT IT ALL!

 

ROTFLMAO!!!!!!!! Tedster and Julian -- your posts gave me the biggest laugh I had all day. http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/biggrin.gifhttp://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/biggrin.gifhttp://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/biggrin.gifhttp://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/biggrin.gif

 

And where the heck did you find that sculpture -- on eBay or something?!?!?!? Too funny!

[Tedster]

Hahaha...I did a search on "horses mating"...and there was some artist (artistic pervert? http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/biggrin.gif ) that had a sculpture on the net. I did a cut and paste. Glad you had a larf!!!

 

Master Zap...

 

Sitting through a seminar on chaos theory at Florida State...it dawned on me. If a system is left to itself, it will tend to deteriorate toward disorder. A very simplified example comes off a cigarette...at first the smoke flow is laminar...the smoke column rises straight up. Then, after being acted upon by enough forces, it deteriorates into turbulent, chaotic flow.

 

Entropy is a measure of the disorder of a system. Scientists have agreed that the entropy of the universe is increasing.

 

Does this fit in to an evolutionary scheme, where order increases?

[Uh Clem]

Originally posted by Rod CA:

There's gonna be a reason I'll still alive. I'll figure it out eventually.

 

do you purr? always land on your feet? mark your territory? if you answered yes, then be careful - you have 3 left.

[Chip McDonald]

Originally posted by Calfee Jones:

You may have an incomplete understanding of the Christian God.

 

Does the Christian God not have the capability to make itself completely understandable?

 

The Bible also quotes him as saying "You will seek me and find me, when you search for me with all your heart." It didn't happen to mention what culture or country the seeker is in...

 

No, but for many Southern Baptist sects ridgid adherence to certain precepts vocally counts for everything.

 

 

 

------------------

New and Improved Music Soon: http://www.mp3.com/chipmcdonald

[Chip McDonald]

Originally posted by Tedster:

And, BTW...it was Abraham (not Moses) that was asked to kill his son Isaac...

 

10 pts.

 

------------------

New and Improved Music Soon: http://www.mp3.com/chipmcdonald

[Chip McDonald]

Originally posted by Lee Flier:

. You want him to OWN the message, to WANT to do what is right and understand WHY he is doing it, not just follow it because it's what you MADE him do.

 

I agree, which is why I find all of this vocal genuflecting to be silly. Southern Baptists would have you believe that God's Kingdom is comprised wholely of Verbal Accountants, people who didn't have any sort of pure intent about them but did manage to go to church and say the "right" things. I would hope this is not the nature of the Universe; in which case "God" shouldn't care about a person's stated belief system relative to a book as much as a person's moral intent.

 

WANT him to screw up, and you have the "power" to prevent him from screwing up, but at the same time you know that you have to let him.

 

I agree in that theory, but not relative to the notion that God would find fault with the process of screwing up when based on ambiguous(or in the case of many foreign cultures "non-existent") guidance.

 

Yeah. There's an anthropologist by the name of Marvin Harris who's devoted much of his career to such "reverse engineering" and has written several books about it - that is, attempting to explain the origins and truths behind what many of us see as silly customs and superstition. It's fascinating stuff.

 

Interesting, I'll have to remember that the next time I'm at the library. It seems the older I get, though, the less time for recreational reading...

 

------------------

New and Improved Music Soon: http://www.mp3.com/chipmcdonald

[Chip McDonald]

Originally posted by Rod CA:

There's been way too may good pts made so it would take me forever to talk about all of them; instead I'll talk about some of my experiences.

 

You sound like a statistical annomaly happening. You've been in a number of situations where you could have died - but didn't. I have a friend who, were he a cat, has used up all of his 9 lives and then some. *Impossible* situations. There are others...

 

It's interesting to consider "luck" as the action of statistical spread across the population. In the Greater Scheme of Things there are going to be "lucky" and "unlucky" people. Doesn't mean it's something one can count on, but when taking the chronological scale out of the events in one's life one can weigh things in either the "lucky" or "unlucky" category. It does mean that one should never rule out the statistical fluke as a real potential event I think.

 

Which leads back a quantum manner of looking at existence and post-perceptual tennuous phenomena impacting one's life... Of course, the last time I tried to avoid a black cat crossing my path it resulted in my car sliding over a curb, doing $4,000+ damages to my car.

 

------------------

New and Improved Music Soon: http://www.mp3.com/chipmcdonald

[Chip McDonald]

Originally posted by Tedster:

it deteriorates into turbulent, chaotic flow.

 

... and is also very dependent on initial conditions. The complexity goes off the scale in non-predictable ways, but ways that *do* have order.

 

I have a personal theory that sociological behavior of humans in herds acts the same way, and that some people have a good intuitive ability to grasp potential directions this outcome can take in seemingly "over null" conditions/success rates. That theoretically there is a pattern that *could* be discernable that would come off as either precognition or "luck" given greater conscious computational power.

 

That intuitive ability combined with a good dose of intelligence and motivation yields "weird history interventionists". What seems like "magic", *OR* extreme fortuitous happenstance is really the outcome of the mind having grokked a relationship beyond most people's grasp. In this way you have potential tyrants and religious figures. If you read anything about failed - *but almost* successful - religious figures, it seems that a recurring theme is the act of basically "playing the cars" of history as it unfolds. They throw out an event connected to another related event, and it turns into "prophecy" - *sometimes*. Some of them are good at it, or at least seemed to get "hits" more often than they should - but for the most part it would seem most were incompetent at implementing any potential. However - it would appear some seem to be good at it, and have some reliance on it.

 

Predictive social engineering is probably responsible for a good many of the world's religions. That some people seem better at it than others makes me theorize that some people have an intuitive ability for it.

 

------------------

New and Improved Music Soon: http://www.mp3.com/chipmcdonald

[Rod S]

Originally posted by stevepow:

do you purr? always land on your feet? mark your territory? if you answered yes, then be careful - you have 3 left.

 

LMAO! Last time I checked, I still had skin instead of fur, and I do try to piss in a toilet. Actually, I omitted some of the other stories, so according to your theory, I'd probably be dead already http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/biggrin.gif I myself can hardly believe some of it.

 

Originally posted by Chip McDonald:

You sound like a statistical annomaly happening. You've been in a number of situations where you could have died - but didn't. I have a friend who, were he a cat, has used up all of his 9 lives and then some. *Impossible* situations. There are others...

 

It's interesting to consider "luck" as the action of statistical spread across the population. In the Greater Scheme of Things there are going to be "lucky" and "unlucky" people. Doesn't mean it's something one can count on, but when taking the chronological scale out of the events in one's life one can weigh things in either the "lucky" or "unlucky" category. It does mean that one should never rule out the statistical fluke as a real potential event I think.

 

Interesting points, Chip. I have never relied on luck, but I have neverthless been an extremely lucky person, whether it was in situtations like this or opportunities in life. As my girlfriend in college said (after I had learned what the term 'silver spoon' meant; I'm not american) "No, you're not a silver spoon. You have a silver spoon stuck up your ass". I'm definitely close to being a statistical fluke. She (my exgirlfriend), on the other hand, was completely on the other side of the scale. All this stuff was before she was 25 (You could argue she was to blame for some of it, but neverthless). And I wish I was lying about this stuff, but I'm not.

 

(1) Had a collapsed lung due to the (if I remember correctly) carbon monoxide poisioning when there was a problem with the ventilation system in the dorm.

(2) Was physically abused by a previous boyfriend, and even after getting a restraining order finally had to move out of town.

(3) Got closed to being date-raped about 3 more times.

(4) Had cancer. The medication made her turn into what would have been a gorgeous girl to someone most guys sneered at. Got through the cancer thankfully.

(5) Lost her fiancee in a car accident 6 months before the wedding (this was several years after we dated, of course). He got into an accident about 20 minutes after they had a fight over the phone (he had his cell phone with him). So not only did she have the guilt, but his family actually blamed her for it.

(6) Had ADD (is this right? Attention deficit disorder) really bad. I never believed this was that big of a deal till I met her.

 

This is the stuff I remember; I'm sure there was more. We still keep in touch, but I have to admit at one point I was scared of being around her. Life is fucking weird. Most of this stuff is obviously off topic to the near death experience topic. However, I think it illustrates your point about the lucky/unlucky distribution.

[Anderton]

I think luck is a wave phenomenon, and either you're synched to it, or not. Or maybe you're 30 degrees out of phase .