GENIUS FORUMS

Carl,

I say television is not adding anything to consciousness.

So you don’t think stations such as PBS, discovery channel, documentary channel, and even the comedy network add nothing stimulating for humans to think about? You’re rather extreme and cynical aren’t you?

TV in general is rotting the minds of the populace

That is rather extreme, tv is not the cause, people are the cause, tv is just a medium, it is neutral, basically, you can find unconscious entertainment on television, but if you look hard enough, you can also find intellectuals intelligently discussing different issues.

And the same goes with the internet. Face it, technology is irrefutably helping to transform the population for the better. Books, film, and philosophy message boards have been very valuable in my own growth, and without them, I probably wouldn’t enjoy the degree of consciousness I presently do.

Gosh, last time I looked that was exactly what the U.S. media does; look at the selective pablum dished out nightly on televised newscasts and in print nationwide. You'll probably say it's not like that in Canada. I bet it is

but the US doesn’t control all information, only some. Many channels are free to report as they wish, just as the internet is not fully regulated. The beauty of free-market capitalism is that you have conflicting power groups who are only ever able to control some information mediums, as no individual party is ever able to control the information of the entire nation. The same is not true in places such as North Korea, where most of the information is controlled.

The Great Hope of Technology is an altar upon which you worship, and I dare say it remains one of your biggest delusions. Technology has no direct effect -- the word is not affect -- on consciousness in people.

That is a falsehood. You wouldn’t be able to write the above sentence if it wasn’t for technology. IE: Buildings, books, cars, chalk, the internet, and so on are all necessary things that were responsible for your past learning.

If consciousness has nothing to do with the brain, as is supposed by literal rebirth, then all memories should remain as crystal clear and perfect as in the moment they were formed - and not only of past lives.

We should all be able to remember what was happening before our mother's ova and our father's successful spermatozoa integrated. In fact, we should all be having a lot of out-of-body experiences just as a matter of course.

No one would have mental illnesses owing to genetic problems or physical damage to the brain. There would be no physical symptoms of cognitive stress, such as headaches. I should be able to go on experiencing just as I am, without a head - without even a body.

And so forth.

Clearly, the hypothesis hasn't been thought through.

Kelly Jones wrote:If consciousness has nothing to do with the brain, as is supposed by literal rebirth,

How is this supposed?

then all memories should remain as crystal clear and perfect as in the moment they were formed - and not only of past lives.

We should all be able to remember what was happening before our mother's ova and our father's successful spermatozoa integrated. In fact, we should all be having a lot of out-of-body experiences just as a matter of course.

No one would have mental illnesses owing to genetic problems or physical damage to the brain. There would be no physical symptoms of cognitive stress, such as headaches. I should be able to go on experiencing just as I am, without a head - without even a body.

And so forth.

Clearly, the hypothesis hasn't been thought through.

I actually do not know what you are on about, but it sounds like something that could use some more thinking through.

.



-Kelly Jones-
If consciousness has nothing to do with the brain, as is supposed by literal rebirth, then all memories should remain as crystal clear and perfect as in the moment they were formed - and not only of past lives.

-tomas-
Guess the only thing that remains the same from the day-to-day "humdrum" activities .. is, waking up the next day and seeing my other half (girlfriend) snoring away.




-Kelly-
We should all be able to remember what was happening before our mother's ova and our father's successful spermatozoa integrated. In fact, we should all be having a lot of out-of-body experiences just as a matter of course.

-tomas-
That's where the boys' have their early-teen 'wet dreams' to account for out-of-body experiences. Best to have underwear on whe this goes down... makes a mess if not properly taken care of in an efficient and timely manner.

Dunno if girls have this same early-teen experience :-/




-Kelly-
No one would have mental illnesses owing to genetic problems or physical damage to the brain. There would be no physical symptoms of cognitive stress, such as headaches. I should be able to go on experiencing just as I am, without a head - without even a body.

-tomas-
Yeah, dreampt of my late, Uncle Hildor a couple nights ago. Odd, only think of him when I'm back in North Dakota. In a few days, its back to California, and that will be a culture shock to readjust to on so many levels..




-Kelly-
And so forth.

-tomas-
Seems like every time back in Dakotah, another classmate drops dead .. happened last Thursday. Will go to the funeral home tomorrow (Monday) afternoon, sign the book, haven't decided whether to 'view the body' - that is something I always put off deciding til I arrive at the fun-e-ral home - depending how many of his next-of-kin are present. He was very well-known and admired for his gregariousness and open-hearted gestures of goodwill. He was down-home real. When we were growing up, we were on the golf course a lot, smoking cigars. BTW, he "approved" of my girlfriend, and said, 'You two are a lifetime.' That felt good, coming from him, he recently married in 2000. A late honey-boomer as far as marriage is concerned.




-Kelly-
Clearly, the hypothesis hasn't been thought through.

-tomas-
There is no end to the argument of what-if this is gonna be, what about that memory from whenever. There is no reincarnation, there is no resurrection. Only hell (the grave).

Make the best of it right here right now.

One life to live.




Peace Up


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Ryan Rudolph wrote:Carl,

I say television is not adding anything to consciousness.

So you don’t think stations such as PBS, discovery channel, documentary channel, and even the comedy network add nothing stimulating for humans to think about? You’re rather extreme and cynical aren’t you?

Thinking and consciousness are two different things.

TV in general is rotting the minds of the populace

That is rather extreme, tv is not the cause, people are the cause, tv is just a medium, it is neutral, basically,[/quote]
I disagree, it is a programming tool, and that is not 'neutral' in my opinion.

you can find unconscious entertainment on television, but if you look hard enough, you can also find intellectuals intelligently discussing different issues.

Mostly of no real import.

And the same goes with the internet. Face it, technology is irrefutably helping to transform the population for the better.

I don't think the consciousness of the average person is increasing, for whatever reasons.

Books, film, and philosophy message boards have been very valuable in my own growth, and without them, I probably wouldn’t enjoy the degree of consciousness I presently do.

Your personal testimony is cool with me. Yes, technology can certainly be used as a tool for one already on the consciousness path. But I disagree that in general technology is helping to raise consciousness. In general quite the opposite is true, it is helping to dull people and put them further to sleep.

Gosh, last time I looked that was exactly what the U.S. media does; look at the selective pablum dished out nightly on televised newscasts and in print nationwide. You'll probably say it's not like that in Canada. I bet it is

but the US doesn’t control all information, only some. Many channels are free to report as they wish, just as the internet is not fully regulated. The beauty of free-market capitalism

Hold it right there, I'm no economy major but "free-market capitalism" sounds like something we don't have here in the U.S. You do know that a gang of thieves runs this country, don't you?

is that you have conflicting power groups who are only ever able to control some information mediums, as no individual party is ever able to control the information of the entire nation. The same is not true in places such as North Korea, where most of the information is controlled.

It's controlled in the U.S., too. Did you know that something under a dozen companies own most of the media? And that many of the board members of these companies are in the same clubs?

The Great Hope of Technology is an altar upon which you worship, and I dare say it remains one of your biggest delusions. Technology has no direct effect -- the word is not affect -- on consciousness in people.

That is a falsehood. You wouldn’t be able to write the above sentence if it wasn’t for technology. IE: Buildings, books, cars, chalk, the internet, and so on are all necessary things that were responsible for your past learning.

Dude, I thought we were talking about consciousness and enlightenment, not mere education and transportation.

Carl G wrote:

Kelly Jones wrote:If consciousness has nothing to do with the brain, as is supposed by literal rebirth,

How is this supposed?

Obviously not by using their brains.

Oh, you mean, what reasoning did I use to conclude that literal rebirth-ers suppose that consciousness has nothing to do with the brain? By their claim that memories remain intact when the 'mindstream' is in limbo between bodies. Or, I suppose, if one wants to get fancy, the memories might be stored in some generic mid-incarnation memory storage facility, in between reincarnations, while the mindstream is floating around disembodied, but that hypothesis has exactly the same problem. Namely, in transference from one body to the generic brain and thereafter to a new host body, and on and on through the same process. I mean, look what kinds of mental somersaults one has to perform to accept the doctrine.

Carl,

Hold it right there, I'm no economy major but "free-market capitalism" sounds like something we don't have here in the U.S. You do know that a gang of thieves runs this country, don't you?

Well, that is an over simplification, meaning most of the powerful groups don’t cooperate as much as you would like to believe. I think there are pockets of power in competition with each other. For instance: oil companies are being pressured by environmentalists lobbyists who have power in government, and each candidate running for president wants to adopt a carbon tax system, and increase the taxes on the profits of oil companies to fuel alternative energy research. So when you have conflicting interests colliding, and power struggles, that suggests to me that the group of thieves is not as united as you would like to believe.

Kelly Jones wrote:

Carl G wrote:

Kelly Jones wrote:If consciousness has nothing to do with the brain, as is supposed by literal rebirth,

How is this supposed?

Obviously not by using their brains.

Oh, you mean, what reasoning did I use to conclude that literal rebirth-ers suppose that consciousness has nothing to do with the brain? By their claim that memories remain intact when the 'mindstream' is in limbo between bodies. Or, I suppose, if one wants to get fancy, the memories might be stored in some generic mid-incarnation memory storage facility, in between reincarnations, while the mindstream is floating around disembodied, but that hypothesis has exactly the same problem. Namely, in transference from one body to the generic brain and thereafter to a new host body, and on and on through the same process. I mean, look what kinds of mental somersaults one has to perform to accept the doctrine.

Oh, I see. It's the idea of a transfer mechanism that's got you turning somersaults? I don't know why that would be such a problem. Think of it in computer language, as a remote server. Or think of it as indigenous peoples of old carrying fire embers in bag full of moss, on their travels, to fan into flames at the point of destination. It could be accomplished in any number of ways.

Some people believe that time is not really moving forward, that since all we ever have is now, all lives are unspooling concurrently. This would make the idea of a remote server, a central soul, of sorts, quite a practical transfer device for information between "past" and "future" aspects of one's existence.

What matters essentially is what one does with such ideas, not the absolute truth or non-truth of them; after all, as we've all agreed, there is no way of certainly knowing.

Ryan Rudolph wrote:Carl,

Hold it right there, I'm no economy major but "free-market capitalism" sounds like something we don't have here in the U.S. You do know that a gang of thieves runs this country, don't you?

Well, that is an over simplification, meaning most of the powerful groups don’t cooperate as much as you would like to believe. I think there are pockets of power in competition with each other. For instance: oil companies are being pressured by environmentalists lobbyists who have power in government, and each candidate running for president wants to adopt a carbon tax system, and increase the taxes on the profits of oil companies to fuel alternative energy research. So when you have conflicting interests colliding, and power struggles, that suggests to me that the group of thieves is not as united as you would like to believe.

..to which I would say, that's how it is meant to look. In fact, past research I have done indicates that the system now in place is result of rather close-knit workings together, at the highest levels of power.

A good example is the relationship between so-called Democrats and so-called Republicans; they are pretty much the same, and they do rubber-stamp each others agendas to fleece the populace and line their own pockets with that fleece. Face it, U.S. government is a one party system. And it serves not the average citizen, but Big Business.

Carl G wrote:Think of it in computer language, as a remote server.

Fine: the data is stored as physical switches. It gets to those switches via physical cables and computer circuitry. The data is not floating around in the ether, maintaining integrity, whilst completely disconnected from anything.

Or think of it as indigenous peoples of old carrying fire embers in bag full of moss, on their travels, to fan into flames at the point of destination. It could be accomplished in any number of ways.

This analogy doesn't work. Heat is maintained by continuing to oxydise carbon; it's not floating about disembodied in the ether.

But even if you wish to extrapolate that consciousness is electrochemical signals, and that some nanotechnological robotic cable could be drifting around in the ether ferrying signals in a coordinated way towards a remote server, you are still dependent on some technical stuff.

So the literal birth-ers' problem of consciousness not being dependent on a brain is still not resolved. It doesn't exist for me, and I can't be bothered resolving a fake problem.

As far as I can see, it comes down to a misinterpretation of the Buddha's ideas on transmigration. I posted excerpts from one such selection of ideas on the E-Sangha forum yesterday.


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Kelly Jones wrote:I posted excerpts from one such selection of ideas on the E-Sangha forum yesterday..

It's now i-Sangha, at i-sangha.com, just to avoid any confusion.

Kevin Solway wrote:It's now i-Sangha, at i-sangha.com, just to avoid any confusion.

Kevin Solway wrote:Please come along and register an account. We'll have more members than that other crowd in no time!

So you registered a new domain in response to E-sanga? And its name is a play on that websites name. And you want many people to join so that you have more members than them. What's the possibility that there's quite a bit of egotistical and emotional(shock horror!) motivation in this reaction Kevin, especially given your less than welcome reception at E-sanga.

Jason wrote:What's the possibility that there's quite a bit of egotistical and emotional(shock horror!) motivation in this reaction Kevin, especially given your less than welcome reception at E-sanga.

Not much, really.

I'm just having a go at them for arrogantly calling themselves "The Buddhist Community", when in fact what they really are is just a bunch of, for the most part, ignorant fundamentalists.

With any luck the new website will become populated with more broad-minded Buddhists.

Setting up the new site only cost me about $10 and a couple of hours work, so it wasn't a major effort.

.



-Kevin-
It's now i-Sangha, at i-sangha.com, just to avoid any confusion.

Please come along and register an account. We'll have more members than that other crowd in no time!


-Jason-
So you registered a new domain in response to E-sanga? And its name is a play on that websites name.

-tomas-
Much the same as Charles Manson was pushing .. the women here are flocking to the Buddhist-way of thinking, as they've come to the conclusion that Jezus ain't coming back ii their lifetimes .. so best to get their aging bodies squat on the floor to cover their fat asses. The occasional man trots along (crosses over) to pass the male scent amongst the unconscious women to keep them attentive. Note: Dan and Kelly have signed on with the facade.


-Jason-
And you want many people to join so that you have more members than them. What's the possibility that there's quite a bit of egotistical and emotional(shock horror!) motivation in this reaction Kevin, especially given your less than welcome reception at E-sanga.

-tomas-
The road to hell is paved with good (godly) intentions.

Toss the women into the mix and more men will follow the scented (baited) trail.



Peace Up





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maestro:

I like the sound of that.

Yes. Alliteration is poetry in prose—or is that pose? :)

The problem with that paradigm is that the adaptations learnt in an animal's lifetime are lost forever.

Skills acquired in a single lifetime are not, by definition, adaptations.

Advances in species come through chance mutations.

You mean, naturally selected adaptations represent advances through chance mutations, since any unsuccessful mutation extinguishes a single lifetime organism or two?

I think mutation can be likened to a change in a line of programming code (mutations are genetic alterations) and the adaptation (structural or systemic/biochemical) the manifest trait of the new code.

A mechanism that allows the learnt skills to be retained in some manner would be very advantageous to evolution.

Really? Why?

Evolution and natural selection require, above all else, time. What makes you think that some mechanism whereby skills acquired in a single lifetime were passed down solely through the genetic/sex line into one’s immediate offspring would be advantageous to evolution?

Study into near-death experiences

...the researchers have set up special shelving in resuscitation areas. The shelves hold pictures - but they're visible only from the ceiling.

Dr Parnia and medical colleagues will analyse the brain activity of 1,500 cardiac arrest survivors, and see whether they can recall the images in the pictures.

That sounds like a good idea but technically not deception-proof in case of positives. That's generously assuming nobody with knowledge of the pictures will be in contact with doctors or patients as that would introduce even other possibilities. In itself also interesting of course, like non-verbal sub-conscious sign-languages or even, gasp, telepathic transfer of the content of the pictures.

Another older article on the topic: Near Death Experiences in Cardiac Arrest and the Mystery of Consciousness - Dr. Sam Parnia

I'd be interested to know what method they plan to use to see if there is a memory of the pictures. Like, are they planning on seeing if the sample simply volunteers the information, like they usually do with the bright light phenomenon?