The effect of thoughts and needs on reality

[Laird]

Wow, Kelly, I should have gone with my instincts rather than sharing myself with you. It just goes to show what alcohol will do to a guy's self-control...

Edit: to curious onlookers: be cautious in sharing anything personal with Kelly. She asks a lot of intimate questions so that it seems at first that she wants to be helpful. Unfortunately her idea of help is to make assumptions and then to attack you with them.

[Kelly Jones]

Laird,

Are you offended that your deepest desire is publicly known to females here on this board? I think most already know. I disclosed nothing.

Don't to try to convince people you're interested in metaphysics, merely to get them to sleep with you. Unfortunately, it actually works this way with women. They are attracted to the merest appearance of thought in men, because they lack even that.

Such is the way of the world.

Using alcohol to lose inhibitions is not a good choice. Maybe you should give it up.

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[Kelly Jones]

Everyone on this board knows I'm interested in truth and wisdom. I am that monk with the calabash full of poison, Laird, who loves nothing more than to splash it around.

Open your eyes. Behold the flipside of your idea of love. Doesn't go far, does it?

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[BMcGilly07]

Don't to try to convince people you're interested in metaphysics, merely to get them to sleep with you. Unfortunately, it actually works this way with women. They are attracted to the merest appearance of thought in men, because they lack even that.

That's how I stole my first "love." I waxed poetic over the fields of metaphysics and knocked her off of her feet.

Looking back, it would have been better for the both of us had I gone "caveman" on her and put a club to the back of her head.

But just sharing thoughts with women for the purposes of ending up in the sack, is just like putting a club to her head, as she can't comprehend any thoughts not meticulously chewed before being regurgitated for her. Once stunned with thought, like a wild animal she can be "tamed" if you hand feed her via intimately sharing your judgments on the universe with her.

[Laird]

Are you offended that your deepest desire is publicly known to females here on this board?

Kelly, I am not ashamed to admit that I am both sexually and romantically attracted to women. Nor am I ashamed to admit to a certain confusion in this area that has led me despite opportunities to never falling into a relationship.

What offends me is your lack of boundaries and your willy-nilly assumptions. It seems though that I have as much of a lesson to learn about boundaries as you do.

[sschaula]

Kelly, I am not one of the people who thinks you're interested in truth and wisdom. You're definitely not worthy of being called a monk. So "everyone" is definitely untrue. I consider you to be a fake and a copycat.

Laird may be a beginner at philosophy, but I see tons of potential in him. He just needs to learn the basics. What it means to think.

I don't see the point in taunting him with "you're not even a beginner", or the like. That sort of thing is done too often here. It's like a rite of passage which serves no decent purpose. It cultivates herdlike mentality, by making the person being taunted want to meet the imposed demands and challenges which, in truth, don't exist. It makes them into a clone, who just repeats the same thing done to them and doesn't progress in thought. The forum members just end up bickering amongst themselves about how stupid eachother are (I'm included in this) and no one gets anywhere in discussion...everything just devolves into this mindlessness.

[BMcGilly07]

Laird,

If I had to guess, you feel rejected by Kelly. From what I've read in her post she didn't divulge anything sensitive to my mind, maybe you would fare better if you just cut the whole ugly head off at the root.

[Laird]

If I had to guess, you feel rejected by Kelly. From what I've read in her post she didn't divulge anything sensitive to my mind, maybe you would fare better if you just cut the whole ugly head off at the root.

Bryan, thanks for your objectivity. I'm not sure if rejected is quite the right word but something like it - my expectations weren't met. I'll try to take your advice.

Scott, thanks for your balanced support.

[Kelly Jones]

I don't see the point in taunting him with "you're not even a beginner", or the like. That sort of thing is done too often here. It's like a rite of passage which serves no decent purpose. It cultivates herdlike mentality, by making the person being taunted want to meet the imposed demands and challenges which, in truth, don't exist. It makes them into a clone, who just repeats the same thing done to them and doesn't progress in thought. The forum members just end up bickering amongst themselves about how stupid eachother are (I'm included in this) and no one gets anywhere in discussion...everything just devolves into this mindlessness.

If a person accepts some idea from someone else, without thinking it through carefully, then there is something wrong with their mind.

A strong thinker can walk in someone else's footsteps and take their advice without becoming a disciple.

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Here are wise words on what it means to be a friend:

Of The Friend

taken from Thus Spake Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche



"One is always one too many around me" - thus speaks the hermit. "Always once one - in the long run that makes two!" I and Me are always too earnestly in conversation with one another: how could it be endured, if there were not a friend?

For the hermits there are too many depths. That is why they long so much for a friend and for his heights. Our faith in others betrays wherein we would dearly like to have faith in ourselves. Our longing for a friend is our betrayer.

And often with our love we only want to leap over envy. And often we attack and make an enemy in order to conceal that we are vulnerable to attack. "At least be my enemy!" - thus speaks the true reverence, that does not venture to ask for friendship.

If you want a friend, you must also be willing to wage war for him: and to wage war, you must be capable of being an enemy. You should honour even the enemy in your friend. Can you go near to your friend without going over to him?

In your friend you should possess your best enemy. Your heart should feel closest to him when you oppose him. Do you wish to go naked before your friend? Is it in honour of your friend that you show yourself to him as you are? But he wishes you to the Devil for it!

He who makes no secret of himself excites anger in others: that is how much reason you have to fear nakedness! If you were gods you could then be ashamed of your clothes! You cannot adorn yourself too well for your friend: for you should be to him an arrow and a longing for the Superman.

Have you ever watched your friend asleep - to discover what he looked like? Yet your friend's face is something else beside. It is your own face, in a rough and imperfect mirror.

Have you ever watched your friend asleep? Were you not startled to see what he looked like? O my friend, man is something that must be overcome. The friend should be a master in conjecture and in keeping silence: you must not want to see everything. Your dream should tell you what your friend does when awake. May your pity be your conjecture: that you may first know if your friend wants pity.

Perhaps what he loves in you is the undimmed eye and the glance of eternity. Let your pity for your friend conceal itself under a hard shell; you should break a tooth biting upon it. Thus it will have a delicacy and a sweetness.

Are you pure air and solitude and bread and medicine to your friend? Many a one cannot deliver himself from his own chains and yet he is his friend's deliverer.

Are you a slave? If so, you cannot be a friend. Are you a tyrant? If so, you cannot have friends.

In woman, a slave and a tyrant have all too long been concealed. For that reason, woman is not yet capable of friendship: she knows only love. In a woman's love is injustice and blindness towards all that she does not love. And in the enlightened love of a woman, too, there is still the unexpected attack and lightning and night, along with the light.

Woman is not yet capable of friendship: women are still cats and birds. Or, at best, cows.

Woman is not yet capable of friendship. But tell me, you men, which of you is yet capable of friendship?

Oh your poverty, you men, and your avarice of soul! As much as you give to your friend I will give even to my enemy, and will not have grown poorer in doing so.

There is comradeship: may there be friendship!

Thus spake Zarathustra.

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[Kelly Jones]

I am not ashamed to admit that I am both sexually and romantically attracted to women.

You are not ashamed of this attraction. True or false?

You believe it is normal and sane part of life. True or false?

What offends me is your lack of boundaries and your willy-nilly assumptions. It seems though that I have as much of a lesson to learn about boundaries as you do.

Being offended or not is your call, Laird.

For the third or fourth time, if you wish to create some boundaries between yourself and others, then don't share your thoughts with them.

Think, would you? There's no point in discussing anything if you don't.

I mean, why are you on the Genius Forum?


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[Laird]

Dread, thanks for indulging me in my speculation.

Are you familiar with the classic mind-body problem? Your post poses similar difficulties and I'm not sure you've noticed.

I have just done a Wikipedia refresher course on the mind-body problem. Yes, my ideas have some similar problems however I can reconcile them using the argument that...

Laird: What if this aspect of reality can never be known to science?

dreadnought: This is either theology or magic you're talking about. On what basis can you assert it to be beyond science (i.e. empirical analysis) if is it causally connected to this world?

...quantum physics teaches that any quantum event occurs at a probability but that its actual occurrence cannot be predicted. So what if this "New Age realm" is the ultimate cause of quantum events, so that the overall probabilities are respected but so that the particular occurrence of related sets of individual quantum events are controlled such that macro-level reality is affected in the desired manner? By "related" I mean "pertaining to an 'individual' macro-level event, such as a conscious decision forged by certain neurotransmitters firing".

If this higher realm exists beyond science and beyond empirical observation then nothing coherent or meaningful can be stated or known about it.

It would be beyond science to the extent that overall quantum probabilities would be maintained without the necessity for obviously improbable events (the improbably "late" events in one region would be balanced by improbably "early" events in other regions). It might be possible to - observing a related group of quantum events - say that they seemed to be unusually synchronous in terms of the macro-level effect that they had, but that's really nothing more than noticing patterns of the sort that I suggested in my original post. So I suppose that it would be marginally amenable to scientific investigation after all.

Your only option is to provide an analytical basis for the logical necessity of this realm.

I can't prove its logical necessity, which is not to say that it definitely does not exist (I wouldn't put money on it though - this is all speculative).

Laird: What if through the soul's connection (via its manifesting attitude, mindset, thoughts and needs) to this aspect of reality,

dreadnought: What is the nature of this connection?

Quantum.

And why hasn't anyone come to my house to pay my phone bill for me or offer me a new telco deal? Who is in charge of this karmic lottery?!

The Hieroglyphic Crypto-Quantum Dealmaker, who rides upon his trusty Quasi-Probabilistic Unicorn. Only He knows the nature and necessity of the deals brokered between souls.

[Laird]

For the third or fourth time, if you wish to create some boundaries between yourself and others, then don't share your thoughts with them.

On that very good advice, I will refrain from sharing my thoughts on the remainder of your post with you.

[sschaula]

Kelly,

If a person accepts some idea from someone else, without thinking it through carefully, then there is something wrong with their mind.

There are things wrong with most everyone's minds.

A strong thinker can walk in someone else's footsteps and take their advice without becoming a disciple.

Yes, they can. I question whether you're a strong thinker, or just a disciple.

...

There is some wisdom in the poetry of Nietzsche:

Many a one cannot deliver himself from his own chains and yet he is his friend's deliverer.

Woman is not yet capable of friendship: women are still cats and birds. Or, at best, cows.

[Kelly Jones]

On that very good advice, I will refrain from sharing my thoughts on the remainder of your post with you.

I see that you chose to refuse to answer my questions as follows:

Laird: I am not ashamed to admit that I am both sexually and romantically attracted to women.

Kelly: You are not ashamed of this attraction. True or false?

You believe it is normal and sane part of life. True or false?

You also refused to state why you are using the Genius Forum.

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[Faust]

Laird reminds me of Hegel sometimes. I just thought that was funny..


Although there are many misconceptions about Hegel, I guess I would have to look into it more one day, anyone get to the bottom of Hegel?

[Kelly Jones]

Faust, what is your real name? You seem like a fairly sincere and thoughtful person generally.

[Elizabeth Isabelle]

What if there's a higher aspect of reality that goes beyond the dimensions of space, time and the laws of physics as we currently understand them, and which each person is somehow connected to through that person's soul (where thoughts and consciousness are manifestations of the soul)?

Then we would all be One Whole.

What if this aspect of reality can never be known to science?

Then science would be limited in such a way as to never know the whole Truth.

What if through the soul's connection (via its manifesting attitude, mindset, thoughts and needs) to this aspect of reality, other souls "negotiate" conditions of reality favourable for the current state of both souls,

Then there would be One Mind controlling all of this (essentially, a God that is consciously thinking and has an attachment to the current state of both souls.

Do you see anything that leads you to believe that Ultimate Reality is not dynamic in every aspect?

and through some unknown (and potentially unknowable) process, reality is forged through the known laws of physics such that those conditions occur?

There seems to be too much of a contradiction in there. How could an unknown and unknowable process be forged through known laws of physics?
.

[Laird]

Do you see anything that leads you to believe that Ultimate Reality is not dynamic in every aspect?

Yes, in the continuity of identity. Despite my changing beliefs, thoughts and physical composition, I remain the same person.

How could an unknown and unknowable process be forged through known laws of physics?

I explained that in my reply to dreadnought - through quantum mechanics.

Faust13: I haven't read Hegel but I just had a quick look at his bio on Wikipedia. I think that we do have some things in common - he seems to go for a bit of the old speculative thought which I'm quite fond of too.

[Kelly Jones]

Despite my changing beliefs, thoughts and physical composition, I remain the same person.

Is that because you use the same word for yourself?


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[Jamesh]

Is that because you use the same word for yourself?

For me it would be because the most direct cause of the concept of me resides in my brain, so when conscious I have no option but to be the thing my brain decides I will be. I am BOUNDED INTO CONTINUING EXISTENCE by the past (symbolically) stored experiences of my brain and body recoccuring in the now that my consciousness exists in.

It is far more than just a name, my (and everythings) whole universe is bounded to a higher degree by that which is most directed located to the thing in question, or to put it another way, everything is bounded by that which has the higher degree of causal relativity to its existence.

As I have mentioned before all existence comes from real underlying (fuzzy, changing) boundaries.

[sue hindmarsh]

Laird wrote to Kelly:

What offends me is your lack of boundaries and your willy-nilly assumptions. It seems though that I have as much of a lesson to learn about boundaries as you do.

I agree that Kelly’s outpouring at you showed she lacks a sense of “boundaries”, but I don’t agree that what she said was just “willy-nilly assumptions”. It's more the case of her just repeating what you have already stated.

I would add though, that I found nothing of philosophical importance in what she had to say to you, and therefore consider it also to be just gossip.

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[sue hindmarsh]

Laird wrote:

To what extent do our thoughts and our needs affect reality?

Some suggestive experiences from my recent past:
* I move to an isolated country town and find that one of my neighbours is both a computer programmer like myself as well as a deep-thinking philosopher, who reawakens within me thoughts that I would never have expected to find in a small village
* I remember my belief in God and a few days later the Jehovah's Witnesses show up on my doorstep
* My bedroom light switch becomes pretty much unresponsive. In timely fashion a lost electrician shows up on my doorstep looking for directions - I tell him about my problem and he solves it for me cheaply.

Each of these incidents in isolation can easily be described as a coincidence. When viewed together and with the many other similar incidents that have happened in the past though, they are suggestive of a pattern.

It becomes a pattern only if you ignore the trillion of things that did not come about.

[Wasn't there a few thoughts of lovely lasses beating down your door? - But instead you got Kevin! That doesn't sound like the universe offering up what you desire. Unless, that is, you think the universe is against you - then it all makes sense. ;p ]

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[clyde]

Regarding our continuity, our mothers have recognized us since we were born “despite [our] changing beliefs, thoughts and physical composition”; i.e., our mothers recognize a dynamic us, an aging and constantly changing us.

clyde

[Kelly Jones]

I agree that Kelly’s outpouring at you showed she lacks a sense of “boundaries”, but I don’t agree that what she said was just “willy-nilly assumptions”. It's more the case of her just repeating what you have already stated.

Laird's referring to my email replies here, rather than the forum.

I would add though, that I found nothing of philosophical importance in what she had to say to you, and therefore consider it also to be just gossip.

My aim has been to get Laird to think about why he's using the Genius Forum. I think this is very important, philosophically.

Laird openly denies the possibility of absolute truths, the effectiveness of logic, and holds uppermost values such as kindness, love, dignity, and the like --- not truth. So, what he is doing on the Genius Forum is anybody's guess.

Can you describe what you saw as gossip in my posts, Sue?


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[sue hindmarsh]

Kelly wrote:

Sue: I agree that Kelly’s outpouring at you showed she lacks a sense of “boundaries”, but I don’t agree that what she said was just “willy-nilly assumptions”. It's more the case of her just repeating what you have already stated.

Laird's referring to my email replies here, rather than the forum.

Yes, that your information came from private correspondence was made clear in Laird’s reply to you. It was your lack of tact in this matter that caused me to agree with him that you also lacked a sense of boundaries.

I must add though, I’m not completely adverse to your approach, as sometimes it can cause those under attack to be thrown off-balance long enough for them to reveal even more of their true nature. But it’s usually a one-off thing, as afterwards no one will want to confide in you ever again. So picking a worthy target would seem prudent. I personally wouldn’t have chosen Laird.

Sue: I would add though, that I found nothing of philosophical importance in what she had to say to you, and therefore consider it also to be just gossip.

My aim has been to get Laird to think about why he's using the Genius Forum. I think this is very important, philosophically.

He’s stated many times that his aim is to use the forum to share his ideas and become acquainted with other views. The fact that his ideas about life aren’t very well thought out. Or that he hasn't thought them out at all. Or that he doesn’t take the time to think through other people’s views - isn’t at all unusual behaviour on a public forum like this one. You have allsorts venturing in here, and you never know, every so often someone interesting shows up. Passthrough is an example of someone who wasn’t that interesting to begin with, but she has grown more so in the time she has been here. That’s because her hard work at unravelling the truth of things has paid off, for now her work reflects less her personal worries and concerns, and more a direct reckoning of philosophic matters.

So you never know - Laird may have a breakthrough in his thinking. Or he may become bored and wander off somewhere else. You just never know.

Laird openly denies the possibility of absolute truths, the effectiveness of logic, and holds uppermost values such as kindness, love, dignity, and the like --- not truth. So, what he is doing on the Genius Forum is anybody's guess.

I guess he was bored doing what he was doing before he stumbled into GF. And, as I said above, he may well become bored here, and stumble back out.

Can you describe what you saw as gossip in my posts, Sue?

Laird isn’t a great mystery. He’s an ordinary bloke (a bit too ordinary) yet you felt it your job to publicly attack him with information that you obtained privately. I call that gossiping.

He had a perfectly good post sitting there that you could have directed your attention to and torn to smithereens by using your intelligence, but instead you chose to ignore it so that you could gossip about him. To me, that’s not doing philosophy.

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