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Author Topic:   What is supernatural?
lfen
Member (Idle past 4677 days)
Posts: 2189
From: Oregon
Joined: 06-24-2004


Message 31 of 138 (135555)
08-20-2004 4:01 AM
Reply to: Message 30 by jt
08-20-2004 1:21 AM


What does 'ego' mean? Does that mean an individual's consciousness?
What do you mean that it is imaginary? Are you saying that we are imagining that we have consciousness?
Oh, no, by "ego" I don't mean consciousness, rather consciousness is fundamental and it mistakenly identifies itself with an "idea" of who we are. The "identity" seems to be a separate body, a separate entity. This notion of who we are is what I am referring to as "ego". I'll return to this towards the end of this post.
Appeal to authority. Or rather, appeal to poet. Either way it is a fallacy.
I am not using logic here but as you surmise poetic expression. I cite the Bard to illustrate by the evocativeness of his expression. But I have shifted approaches in this post.
Are you saying that we are imagining the world? And that the supernatural is a figment of that imaginary construct?
Yes, some significant amount of the world is something we imagine and I'm not sure we can always identify what is imagination and what we have experienced.
Korzybski with his field of General Semantics said, " the map is not the territory". Think about science, about electromagnetic radiation, sound, atoms, and molecules. A photon enters our eye and is absorded by a molecule in a nerve cell thus altering the shape of the molecule resulting in changes along it's length that result at the end of a release of a neurotransmitter. A whole bunch of photons and we see the familiar world. Do we see that world as it is? No, we see it as our organism constructs it.
What do we know of ourself? Memory can have inaccurracy. Our feelings change. We think we are such and such and yet sometimes we feel and do things that don't seem to be ourself, what we think we are is something that is thought.
I am very poorly expressing a philosophical point of view that I am still struggling with.
I am saying that we imagine the supernatural as well as the natural yes. Physicists don't know what gravity is. We know the phenomena of gravity works and using math we can predict a bunch of stuff, design buildings, rockets, etc. We use gravity and we experience it with our bodies without knowing what it is, only that it is.
I'm not offering a final or absolute truth here, just brainstorming into the possibilities of imagination.
I tend to identify this with eastern nondual thought and yet Shakespeare expesses it so well. Consciousness knows things and then thinks it is those things, but can IT be that which is an object to IT?
Can IT be the body or feelings or opinions or knowledge that IT is aware of? The illusion is that consciousness takes itself to be the objects it's aware of. That is the "stuff that dreams are made on" this identity. Shakespeare saw that theater offered an analogy to the world. As actors brought characters to life on the stage, so consciousness brings characters to life in the world.
I don't know what mind, imagination, or consciousness is and yet I think that is probably what I am.
But if the supernatural were an aspect of imagination it could be present for us in our world without interfering with phenomena like gravity. So it seems it would satisfy in some sense your desire that there be a supernatural and crashfrog's desire to preserve the integrity of the "physical" universe.
When I started to think about it I realize that I scarcely know what imagination is. It seems powerful and significant but hard for me to know where it begins or leaves off.
lfen

This message is a reply to:
 Message 30 by jt, posted 08-20-2004 1:21 AM jt has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 35 by jt, posted 08-20-2004 2:22 PM lfen has replied

  
crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1466 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 32 of 138 (135671)
08-20-2004 12:47 PM
Reply to: Message 28 by jt
08-19-2004 11:10 PM


If God is omnipotent, he can do anything he wants, whenever he wants, in the same way you can do whatever you want in your imagination.
Ah, but we have free will, do we not?
Nobody has free will in my imagination but me.
We're not just figments of God's imagination; we're people with free will, capable of doing what God doesn't want us to do.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 28 by jt, posted 08-19-2004 11:10 PM jt has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 36 by jt, posted 08-20-2004 2:27 PM crashfrog has replied
 Message 37 by lfen, posted 08-20-2004 3:07 PM crashfrog has not replied
 Message 48 by Cold Foreign Object, posted 08-21-2004 1:58 PM crashfrog has replied

  
crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1466 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 33 of 138 (135672)
08-20-2004 12:49 PM
Reply to: Message 29 by lfen
08-20-2004 12:08 AM


And Crash has just insisted we live in the real world.
Well, you're right. I shouldn't have insisted.
For all I know, I live in the Matrix. The point, though, is that the world I live is is indistinguishable from a "real" world, and quite distinguishable from the world of someone else's imagination.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 29 by lfen, posted 08-20-2004 12:08 AM lfen has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 34 by lfen, posted 08-20-2004 1:26 PM crashfrog has not replied

  
lfen
Member (Idle past 4677 days)
Posts: 2189
From: Oregon
Joined: 06-24-2004


Message 34 of 138 (135683)
08-20-2004 1:26 PM
Reply to: Message 33 by crashfrog
08-20-2004 12:49 PM


I think we live in two worlds and we may be a lot more familiar with the world we construct in our imagination than the real world.
The brain's imaginative function can impact the immune system and I think that is often the source of miraculous faith healing.
The phenomena of gravity, falling, how things are arranged on the earth I'll call the real world. But much of our human interactions, behaviours, affliations have strong imaginary components. Conflicts are often because two individuals or groups have differently imagined a situation. And I think we don't know what we "are, but only what we imagine ourselves to "be".
lfen

This message is a reply to:
 Message 33 by crashfrog, posted 08-20-2004 12:49 PM crashfrog has not replied

  
jt
Member (Idle past 5596 days)
Posts: 239
From: Upper Portion, Left Coast, United States
Joined: 04-26-2004


Message 35 of 138 (135699)
08-20-2004 2:22 PM
Reply to: Message 31 by lfen
08-20-2004 4:01 AM


I cite the Bard to illustrate by the evocativeness of his expression.
By "appeal to poet," I was just joking. I understood what you were doing. Sorry for appearing to be excesively pedantic.
I am saying that we imagine the supernatural as well as the natural yes.
Are you just saying that our perception of reality is filtered by the abilities of our senses/mind, or are you meaning more than that?
Shakespeare saw that theater offered an analogy to the world. As actors brought characters to life on the stage, so consciousness brings characters to life in the world.
What if IT was a soul? In that case, spirit would bring people to life in the same way actors do to characters.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 31 by lfen, posted 08-20-2004 4:01 AM lfen has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 38 by lfen, posted 08-20-2004 3:12 PM jt has replied

  
jt
Member (Idle past 5596 days)
Posts: 239
From: Upper Portion, Left Coast, United States
Joined: 04-26-2004


Message 36 of 138 (135700)
08-20-2004 2:27 PM
Reply to: Message 32 by crashfrog
08-20-2004 12:47 PM


Nobody has free will in my imagination but me.
Ah, so it isn't a perfect analogy in respect to God. But it is just an analogy, not the real thing. If God is omnipotent, he just has to will something to be done, and it is. There is no fundamental difference between him daydreaming (if he does) or commanding something to happen; there are no laws regarding either.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 32 by crashfrog, posted 08-20-2004 12:47 PM crashfrog has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 42 by crashfrog, posted 08-20-2004 6:53 PM jt has not replied

  
lfen
Member (Idle past 4677 days)
Posts: 2189
From: Oregon
Joined: 06-24-2004


Message 37 of 138 (135705)
08-20-2004 3:07 PM
Reply to: Message 32 by crashfrog
08-20-2004 12:47 PM


Nobody has free will in my imagination but me
Crash, do you have free will in your imagination?
"Imagine this butterfly, exactly as it is, but ugly instead of beautiful."
Ludwig Wittgenstein
I sometimes awaken and recall a dream that it so unlike what I might do or feel in my waking life. The question of who we are is not trivial. The conscious deliberate ego is only part of the total organism and has limited control. Are we the deliberate ego? the body/brain? consciousness?
lfen

This message is a reply to:
 Message 32 by crashfrog, posted 08-20-2004 12:47 PM crashfrog has not replied

  
lfen
Member (Idle past 4677 days)
Posts: 2189
From: Oregon
Joined: 06-24-2004


Message 38 of 138 (135706)
08-20-2004 3:12 PM
Reply to: Message 35 by jt
08-20-2004 2:22 PM


I'm saying more than that. We actually create a lot of the reality we experience. We use sense input but we don't just filter it we add to it.
What do you mean by spirt? Is that a synonym for God, for consciousness, or are you introducing another concept here and if so do we need it?
We got God, consciousness, supernatural, imagination and illusion. Do we need spirit?
lfen

This message is a reply to:
 Message 35 by jt, posted 08-20-2004 2:22 PM jt has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 39 by jt, posted 08-20-2004 3:46 PM lfen has replied

  
jt
Member (Idle past 5596 days)
Posts: 239
From: Upper Portion, Left Coast, United States
Joined: 04-26-2004


Message 39 of 138 (135711)
08-20-2004 3:46 PM
Reply to: Message 38 by lfen
08-20-2004 3:12 PM


We actually create a lot of the reality we experience. We use sense input but we don't just filter it we add to it.
I think I understand you. You are saying that it is almost like we create our matrix?
What do you mean by spirt? Is that a synonym for God, for consciousness, or are you introducing another concept here and if so do we need it?
I believe "soul" is the cause of consciousness, but not consciousness itself. I mean the christian concept of a conscious, spirititual being integral to each person - a soul. I do not understand what "spiritual" is, or how it can be combined with the natural, though. But that is more a problem of my imaginatory capabilities than with the concept.
We got God, consciousness, supernatural, imagination and illusion. Do we need spirit?
I believe that consciousness is something God gives to souls, which are coupled to humans. I do not believe that consciousness is itself a fundamental property of the universe - I believe it is a fundamental part of God, who is responsable for the universe.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 38 by lfen, posted 08-20-2004 3:12 PM lfen has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 40 by lfen, posted 08-20-2004 4:05 PM jt has replied

  
lfen
Member (Idle past 4677 days)
Posts: 2189
From: Oregon
Joined: 06-24-2004


Message 40 of 138 (135717)
08-20-2004 4:05 PM
Reply to: Message 39 by jt
08-20-2004 3:46 PM


I think I understand you. You are saying that it is almost like we create our matrix?
I don't KNOOOOOOO! I've never SEEN the matrix! It amuses me to tell people that God killed my tv and set me free. I guess I'm kind of a closet deist? Well, anyway my tv died, and I love not having that distracting noise around and it does feel freer.
I've less and less interest in fiction and hardly read or watch it anymore.
I believe that consciousness is something God gives to souls, which are coupled to humans.
Humans, souls, consciousness sounds like you have a trinitarian view of people?
I do not believe that consciousness is itself a fundamental property of the universe - I believe it is a fundamental part of God, who is responsable for the universe.
Consciousness a fundamental part of God and then if we are conscious does it follow we are a fundamental part of God? You are getting very close to the nondual viewpoint here. Just to let ya know.
lfen

This message is a reply to:
 Message 39 by jt, posted 08-20-2004 3:46 PM jt has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 41 by jt, posted 08-20-2004 5:26 PM lfen has replied

  
jt
Member (Idle past 5596 days)
Posts: 239
From: Upper Portion, Left Coast, United States
Joined: 04-26-2004


Message 41 of 138 (135749)
08-20-2004 5:26 PM
Reply to: Message 40 by lfen
08-20-2004 4:05 PM


I don't KNOOOOOOO! I've never SEEN the matrix!
Here is a brief history/summary of the matrix:
Robots took over the world and subdued all humans. Through a direct tap into the brains of the humans, the robots fed a simulation of a world like ours today. The humans thought they were living in the world of today, but the real world was a massive robot city. Everything they thought about the world was an illusion.
Humans, souls, consciousness sounds like you have a trinitarian view of people?
My view is of a duality - human and soul. I believe that consciousness is a property of souls, not an entity on its own.
Consciousness a fundamental part of God and then if we are conscious does it follow we are a fundamental part of God?
I should have said "fundamental property of God. I do not believe that consciousness is some sort of entity, I believe it is a property.
Using metaphysics terminology, I view consciousness as a universal, not an object.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 40 by lfen, posted 08-20-2004 4:05 PM lfen has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 43 by lfen, posted 08-20-2004 6:57 PM jt has not replied

  
crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1466 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 42 of 138 (135767)
08-20-2004 6:53 PM
Reply to: Message 36 by jt
08-20-2004 2:27 PM


There is no fundamental difference between him daydreaming (if he does) or commanding something to happen; there are no laws regarding either.
There must be, though, if we're to have free will.
I think we're getting a little off-topic.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 36 by jt, posted 08-20-2004 2:27 PM jt has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 44 by lfen, posted 08-20-2004 7:17 PM crashfrog has replied

  
lfen
Member (Idle past 4677 days)
Posts: 2189
From: Oregon
Joined: 06-24-2004


Message 43 of 138 (135769)
08-20-2004 6:57 PM
Reply to: Message 41 by jt
08-20-2004 5:26 PM


My view is of a duality - human and soul. I believe that consciousness is a property of souls, not an entity on its own.
Okay, so what is human and what is soul how do they differ?
I should have said "fundamental property of God. I do not believe that consciousness is some sort of entity, I believe it is a property.
Ok, property instead of part. Does it then follow that if consciousness is a fundamental property of God and souls have consciousness are souls a fundamental property of God?
lfen

This message is a reply to:
 Message 41 by jt, posted 08-20-2004 5:26 PM jt has not replied

  
lfen
Member (Idle past 4677 days)
Posts: 2189
From: Oregon
Joined: 06-24-2004


Message 44 of 138 (135774)
08-20-2004 7:17 PM
Reply to: Message 42 by crashfrog
08-20-2004 6:53 PM


There is no fundamental difference between him daydreaming (if he does) or commanding something to happen; there are no laws regarding either.
There must be, though, if we're to have free will.
I think we're getting a little off-topic.
crash,
I think we are on topic but then I'm the one who introduced this line of speculation. I'm suggesting there might be a way for science to account for the supernatural if what is supernatural is an agency operating through the human imagination. I admitted that definition would most likely not be acceptable to tradtional religious conceptions of supernatural and I'm exploring this as we go.
The traditional idea about supernatural is something that effects the world out there. And if that is the case I think there is little to add to your OP. As consciousness is the most blatant mystery left to science, it has barely been addressed, I am thinking that if there is a manifestation of something supernatural that consciousness is the place that it could occur without breaking scientific laws.
It's an arcane exploration but I will defend it on the grounds of otherwise there is little to add to your opening argument and this line of inquiry might open up some heretofore unglimpsed possibilities.
And must we have free will? I'm thinking we might be conditioned organisms.
Just my opinion and it's your topic.
lfen

This message is a reply to:
 Message 42 by crashfrog, posted 08-20-2004 6:53 PM crashfrog has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 45 by crashfrog, posted 08-20-2004 7:27 PM lfen has replied

  
crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1466 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 45 of 138 (135776)
08-20-2004 7:27 PM
Reply to: Message 44 by lfen
08-20-2004 7:17 PM


And must we have free will?
I don't know that it's possible to know.
Certainly, at this time, people continue to act in ways that others can't predict; that's an appearance of free will, anyway. But ultimately we only get to make a particular choice once. It's impossible to "go back" and see if we would have chosen differently if all conditions had been the same.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 44 by lfen, posted 08-20-2004 7:17 PM lfen has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 46 by lfen, posted 08-20-2004 8:01 PM crashfrog has replied

  
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