Get comfortable. Offtopic introspection ahead.

[Urb4n]

Mkay, grab something to drink before reading further, you might be sitting here for a bit. I assume at least some of you are willing to read this... here goes.

Just some deeper thinking done by me and my gang of idiots. feel free to throw in your ideas, counter ideas, whatever. This entire thread is really offtopic, but i wanted this to be heard.

Work with me on this. The entire point is to elicit some ideas from the people on this forum. on how you feel about, well, everything...

If this gets some good responses I'll be adding new things to it, might turn into something great and change something somewhere for someone.

1. I don't get people.


Animals are simple creatures with simple needs. Thier behaviors are notable and predictable.

But humans...

So unpredictible, irrational, emotional. So everything we can think of. What is it about humans that makes us so complex? Some would say it is our souls. but what if you do not believe in souls what is it then? We are interesting creatures. So much so that even our own feeble brains cannot understand ourselves. Whether you believe it was nature or a greater power that did this to us, something happened during the course of time that made humanity in the single most interesting thing in our universe.

What was it? Who or what did it? Why?
Is this even the right question to ask?

[marik]

i have no clue what your point is Urb4n! :(

[Urb4n]

Mkay, This one isnt actually from me or anyone I know personally, but it's from another forum. It is very interesting. These are just his 10 big things he's learned about life, coming from the perspective of a graphical designer.

2.

10 Things I Have Learned- Milton Glaser

Like all of us I was in a state of shock after September 11th. The trauma and madness of the event stirred up all the fears about annihilation and uncertainty of my earliest childhood. For six or seven weeks I could think of nothing else and spent my time trying not to feel powerless and impotent. I wanted to use my skill and training as a designer to affect the situation. I was not alone in this regard. Many designers in and out of New York, feeling they had a public responsibility, produced images and words to help us deal with this unprecedented event. I felt proud to be part of a profession where serving the needs of the public was considered appropriate and necessary. I’ll get back to this idea later in my talk, for now let me show you a few slides about what I tried to do.

All I ever wanted to do was to make images and create form. This instinct for form-making seems to be something that is very characteristic of our entire species. It’s one of the things that almost defines humankind. I like the idea of cultures that do not have an idea of art as a separate activity from their daily life, such as many African groups, where there isn’t a word that approaches the idea of art. They are very interested in containing magic but that is another thing. Among the Balinese, there is no word for art. They just say ‘we do things the best that we can.' Which is a nice way to think about what we all do. I am going to tell you everything that I know about the practice of design. It is a sort of collage of bits and pieces that I have assembled over 50 years. It includes a lot of things I’ve said before but I’ve repackaged them rather attractively. This is what I’ve learned.

Number 1
YOU CAN ONLY WORK FOR PEOPLE THAT YOU LIKE.
It took me a long time to learn this rule because at the beginning of my practice I felt the opposite. Professionalism inferred that you didn’t necessarily have to like the people that you worked for, and should maintain an arms length relationship to them. As a result, I never had lunch with a client or saw them socially. Some years ago I realised that I was deluded. In looking back, I discovered that all the work I had done that was meaningful and significant came out of an affectionate relationship with a client. Affection, trust and sharing some common ground is the only way good work can be achieved. Otherwise it is a bitter and hopeless struggle

Number 2
IF YOU HAVE A CHOICE NEVER HAVE A JOB.
One night I was sitting in my car outside Columbia University where my wife Shirley was studying Anthropology. While I was waiting I was listening to the radio and heard an interviewer ask ‘Now that you have reached 75 have you any advice for our audience about how to prepare for your old age?’ An irritated voice said ‘Why is everyone asking me about old age these days?’ I recognised the voice as John Cage. I am sure that many of you know who he was – the composer and philosopher who influenced people like Jasper Johns and Merce Cunningham as well as the music world in general. I knew him slightly and admired his contribution to our times. ‘You know, I do know how to prepare for old age’ he said. ‘Never have a job, because if you have a job someday someone will take it away from you and then you will be unprepared for your old age. For me, it has always been the same every since the age of 12. I wake up in the morning and I try to figure out how am I going to put bread on the table today? It is the same at 75, I wake up every morning and I think how am I going to put bread on the table today? I am exceeding well prepared for my old age’ he said.

Number 3
SOME PEOPLE ARE TOXIC AVOID THEM.
This is a subtext of number one. There was in the sixties an old geezer named Fritz Perls who was a gestalt therapist. Gestalt therapy derives from art history, it proposes you must understand the ‘whole’ before you can understand the details. What you have to look at is the entire culture, the entire family and community and so on. Perls proposed that in all relationships people could be either toxic or nourishing towards one another. It is not necessarily true that the same person will be toxic or nourishing in every relationship, but the combination of any two people in a relationship produces toxic or nourishing consequences. And the important thing that I can tell you is that there is a test to determine whether someone is toxic or nourishing in your relationship with them. Here is the test: You have spent some time with this person, either you have a drink or go for dinner or you go to a ball game. It doesn’t matter very much but at the end of that time you observe whether you are more energised or less energised. Whether you are tired or whether you are exhilarated. If you are more tired then you have been poisoned. If you have more energy you have been nourished. The test is almost infallible.

Number 4
PROFESSIONALISM IS NOT ENOUGH or THE GOOD IS THE ENEMY OF THE GREAT.
Early in my career I couldn’t wait to become a professional. That was my complete aspiration in my early life because professionals seemed to know everything - not to mention they got paid well for it. Later I discovered after working for a while that professionalism itself was a limitation. After all, what professionalism means in most cases is limiting risks. So if you want to get your car fixed you go to a mechanic who knows how to deal with transmission problems in the same way each time. I suppose if you needed brain surgery you wouldn’t want the doctor to fool around and invent a new way of connecting your nerve endings. Please doc, do it in the way that has worked in the past.

Unfortunately in our field, in a so-called creative activity – I’ve begun to hate that word. I especially hate when it is used as a noun. I shudder when I hear someone called a creative. Anyhow, when you are doing something in a recurring way to diminish risk or doing it in the same way as you have done it before, it is clear why professionalism is not enough. After all, what is desirable in our field, is continuous transgression. Professionalism does not allow for that because transgression has to encompass the possibility of failure and if you are professional your instinct is not to fail, it is to repeat success. Professionalism as a lifetime aspiration is a limited goal.

Number 5
LESS IS NOT NECESSARILY MORE.
Being a child of modernism I have heard this mantra all my life. Less is more. One morning upon awakening I realised that it was total nonsense, it is an absurd proposition and also fairly meaningless. But it sounds great because it contains within it a paradox that is resistant to understanding. But it simply does not obtain when you think about the visual of the history of the world. If you look at a Persian rug, you cannot say that less is more because you realise that every part of that rug, every change of colour, every shift in form is absolutely essential for its aesthetic success. You cannot prove to me that a solid blue rug is in any way superior. That also goes for the work of Gaudi, Persian miniatures, art nouveau and everything else. However, I have an alternative to the proposition that I believe is more appropriate. ‘Just enough is more.’

Number 6
STYLE IS NOT TO BE TRUSTED.
I think this idea first occurred to me when I was looking at a marvellous etching of a bull by Picasso. It was an illustration for a story by Balzac called The Hidden Masterpiece. I am sure that you all know it. It is a bull that is expressed in 12 different styles going from very naturalistic version of a bull to an absolutely reductive single line abstraction and everything else along the way. What is clear just from looking at this single print is that style is irrelevant. In every one of these cases, from extreme abstraction to acute naturalism they are extraordinary regardless of the style. It’s absurd to be loyal to a style. It does not deserve your loyalty. I must say that for old design professionals it is a problem because the field is driven by economic consideration more than anything else. Style change is usually linked to economic factors, as all of you know who have read Marx. Also fatigue occurs when people see too much of the same thing too often. So every ten years or so there is a stylistic shift and things are made to look different. Typefaces go in and out of style and the visual system shifts a little bit. If you are around for a long time as a designer, you have an essential problem of what to do. Incidentally, it’s popular for designers to claim they have no style but this is generally not true. Most good designers have developed a vocabulary, a form that is their own. It is one of the ways that they distinguish themselves from their peers, and establish their identity in the field. How you maintain your own belief system and preferences becomes a real balancing act. As a career progresses the question of whether you pursue change or whether you maintain your own distinct form becomes difficult. We have all seen the work of illustrious practitioners that suddenly look old-fashioned or, more precisely, belonging to another moment in time. And there are sad stories such as the one about Cassandre, arguably the greatest graphic designer of the twentieth century, who couldn’t make a living at the end of his life and committed suicide. But the point is that anybody who is in this for the long haul has to decide how to respond to change in the zeitgeist. What is it that people now expect that they formerly didn’t want? And how to respond to that desire in a way that doesn’t violate your sense of integrity and purpose.

Number 7
HOW YOU LIVE CHANGES YOUR BRAIN.
The brain is the most responsive organ of the body. Actually it is the organ that is most susceptible to change and regeneration of all the organs in the body. I have a friend named Gerald Edelman who was a great scholar of brain studies and says that the analogy of the brain to a computer is pathetic. The brain is actually more like an overgrown garden that is constantly growing and throwing off seeds, regenerating and so on. And he believes that the brain is susceptible, in a way that we are not fully conscious of, to almost every experience of our life and every encounter we have. I was fascinated by a story in a newspaper a few years ago about the search for perfect pitch. A group of scientists decided that they were going to find out why certain people have perfect pitch. You know certain people hear a note precisely and are able to replicate it at exactly the right pitch. Some people have relative pitch; perfect pitch is rare even among musicians. The scientists discovered – I don’t know how - that among people with perfect pitch the brain was different. Certain lobes of the brain had undergone some change or deformation that was always present with those who had perfect pitch. This was interesting enough in itself. But then they discovered something even more fascinating. If you took a bunch of kids and taught them to play the violin at the age of 4 or 5 after a couple of years some of them developed perfect pitch, and in all of those cases their brain structure had changed. Well what could that mean for the rest of us? We tend to believe that the mind affects the body and the body affects the mind, although we do not generally believe that everything we do affects the brain. I am convinced that if someone was to yell at me from across the street my brain could be affected and my life might changed. That is why your mother always said, ‘Don’t hang out with those bad kids.’ Mama was right. Thought changes our life and our behaviour. I also believe that drawing works in the same way. I am a great advocate of drawing, not in order to become an illustrator, but because I believe drawing changes the brain in the same way as the search to create the right note changes the brain of a violinist. Drawing also makes you attentive. It makes you pay attention to what you are looking at, which is not so easy.

Number 8
DOUBT IS BETTER THAN CERTAINTY.
Everyone always talks about confidence and believing in what you do. I remember once going to a class in Kundalini yoga where the teacher said that, spirituality speaking, if you believed that you had achieved enlightenment you have merely arrived at your limitation. I think that is also true in a more practical sense. Deeply held beliefs of any kind prevent you from being open to experience, which is why I find all firmly held ideological positions questionable. It makes me nervous when someone believes too deeply or too much. I think that being sceptical and questioning all deeply held beliefs is essential. Of course we must know the difference between scepticism and cynicism because cynicism is as much a restriction of one’s openness to the world as passionate belief is. They are sort of twins.

Number 9
SOLVING THE PROBLEM IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN BEING RIGHT.
Ultimately, if we’re lucky, we begin to understand that always being right is a delusion. There is a significant sense of self-righteousness in both the art and design world. Perhaps it begins at school. Art school often promote the Ayn Rand model of the single personality resisting the ideas of the surrounding culture. The theory is that as an individual you can transform the world, which is true up to a point but as someone once said ‘In the battle between you and the world, bet on the world.’ One of the signs of a damaged ego is absolute certainty.

Schools encourage the idea of not compromising and defending your work at all costs. Well, in our work the issue is usually all about the nature of compromise. You just have to know when compromise is appropriate. Blind pursuit of your own ends which excludes the possibility that others may be right does not allow for the fact that in design we are always dealing with a triad – the client, the audience and you.

Ideally, making everyone win through acts of accommodation is desirable. But self-righteousness is often the enemy. Self-righteousness and narcissism generally come out of some sort of childhood trauma, which we do not have to go into. It is a consistently mischievous element in human affairs. Some years ago I read a most remarkable thing about love, that also applies to the nature of co-existing with others. It was a quotation by Iris Murdoch from her obituary. It read ‘ Love is the extremely difficult realisation that something other than oneself is real.’ Isn’t that fantastic! The best insight on the subject of love that one can imagine.

Last year someone gave me a charming book by Roger Rosenblatt called ‘Ageing Gracefully’ I got it on my birthday. I did not appreciate the title at the time but it contains a series of rules for ageing gracefully. The first rule is the best. Rule number one is that ‘it doesn’t matter.’ ‘It doesn’t matter that what you think. Follow this rule and it will add decades to your life. It does not matter if you are late or early, if you are here or there, if you said it or didn’t say it, if you are clever or if you were stupid. If you were having a bad hair day or a no hair day or if your boss looks at you cockeyed or your boyfriend or girlfriend looks at you cockeyed, if you are cockeyed. If you don’t get that promotion or prize or house or if you do – it doesn’t matter.’ Wisdom at last. A week or two later I read a joke that I haven’t been able to get out of my head. A butcher was opening his market one morning and as he did a rabbit popped his head through the door. The butcher was surprised when the rabbit inquired ‘Got any cabbage?’ The butcher said ‘This is a meat market – we sell meat, not vegetables.’ The rabbit hopped off. The next day the butcher is opening the shop and sure enough the rabbit pops his head round and says ‘You got any cabbage?’ The butcher now irritated says ‘Listen you little rodent I told you yesterday we sell meat, we do not sell vegetables and the next time you come here I am going to grab you by the throat and nail those floppy ears to the floor.’ The rabbit disappeared hastily and nothing happened for a week. Then one morning the rabbit popped his head around the corner and said ‘Got any nails?’ The butcher said ‘No.’ The rabbit said ‘Ok. Got any cabbage?’ My last rule is based on an article I wrote in the AIGA Journal some years ago and also refers to the sense of public responsibility I mentioned in my opening remarks.

Number 10
TELL THE TRUTH.The rabbit joke is relevant because it occurred to me that looking for a cabbage in a butcher’s shop might be like looking for ethics in the design field. It may not be the most obvious place to find either. It’s interesting to observe that in the new AIGA’s code of ethics there is a significant amount of useful information about appropriate behaviour towards clients and other designers, but not a word about a designer’s relationship to the public. In daily life we expect a butcher to sell us eatable meat and not to misrepresent his wares. I remember reading that during the Stalin years in Russia that everything labelled veal was actually chicken. I can’t imagine what everything labelled chicken was. We can accept certain kinds of misrepresentation, such as fudging about the amount of fat in his hamburger but once a butcher betrays our trust by knowingly selling us spoiled meat we go elsewhere. As a designer, do we have less responsibility to our public than a butcher? Our meat is information. Everyone interested in licensing our field might note that the reason licensing has been invented is to protect the public not designers or clients. ‘Do no harm’ is an admonition to doctors concerning their relationship to their patients, not to their fellow practitioners or the drug companies. Incidentally, if we were licensed, telling the truth might become more central to what we do.

I went to Las Vegas for the last AIGA convention. Someone once claimed that Vegas was the greatest single work of art the human species has yet produced. I was staying in a hotel called the Venetian, which had more clouds painted on the ceilings of the hallways than had ever been executed in 15th century Venice.

I went up to the reception desk and I said ‘I understand that there is a Grand Canal here’ and she said ‘Yes we have one here.’ I said ‘Where is it?’ She said ‘One flight up!’

What a concept. The earth reeled beneath my feet when I thought about it. I took the stairs up and there indeed was the Grand Canal with gondolas and gondoliers who will cheerfully take you to St. Marco Plaza, which was just around the corner in perpetual twilight. If you sit in the plaza even though it is under a plaster ceiling, the waiter will ask you ‘Would you like to sit inside or outside?’

One day the plumbing broke down and the ghastly smell started to fill the game rooms. Actually it was very much like Venice in the summertime. I wondered if they might be doing this intentionally. Is there such a thing as a virtual smell? I never found out but on the way back I took a flight that I thought might have been influenced by its proximity to Las Vegas. When I got on board a stewardess came from the back of the cabin carrying steaming towels, I had never seen towels steaming that much – they were billowing. I realised as she approached that the steam wasn’t coming from the towels. The source was a wineglass she was balancing on her tray. ‘What’s in glass?’ I inquired. ‘Dry ice,’ she replied. ‘Is that for the drama?’ I asked. She said ‘yes.’

So I tried to imagine the meaning of all this and where the decision to do it was made. In the boardroom? The advertising agency or perhaps on the flight? Who benefits? I wondered. Could the thinking be that if the glass were steaming enough people would remember and next time they book a flight they would want to go with an airline that had steaming towels? Because if they paid attention to hot towels they might also be attentive to whether the plane was going to land or not. How about the man in the last aisle who put a steaming towel on his face that was ice cold and immediately thought that he had had a stroke. I don’t know exactly why this modest misrepresentation bothered me but it did. For one thing, lies erode your ability to act. Ultimately the lie is an instrument of power.

One must start with the presumption that telling the truth is important for human survival, but at this moment of relativism and virtuality, I’m not sure how many would agree on what truth is or how important it is in our private and professional lives.

But we must begin somewhere. The question becomes a professional one, because as designers or communicators (the preferred current description), we are constantly informing the public, transmitting information, and affecting the beliefs and values of others. Should telling the truth be a fundamental requirement of this role? Is there a difference between telling the truth to your wife and family and telling the truth to a general public? What is that difference? We also cannot overlook the pervasive power of advertising, the activity that drives our economy and does more to shape our idea of truth in communication than any single thing.

Two years ago, as I was doing the illustrations for Dante’s Purgatory, I got very interested in the Road to Hell and designed a little questionnaire to see where I stood in terms of my own willingness to lie. So here it is -- 12 steps in the Road to Hell. I personally have taken a number of them.

1. Designing a package to look bigger on the shelf.

2. Doing an ad for a slow, boring film to make it seem like a light-hearted comedy.

3. Designing a crest for a new vineyard to suggest that it has been in business for a long time.

4. Designing a jacket for a book whose sexual content that you find personally repellent.

5. Designing a medal using steel from the World Trade Center to be sold as a profit-making souvenir of September 11th.

6. Designing an advertising campaign for a company with a history of known discrimination in minority hiring.

7. Designing a package for children whose contents you know are low in nutrition value and high in sugar content.

8. Designing a line of t-shirts for a manufacture that employs child labour.

9. Designing a promotion for a diet product that you know doesn’t work.

10. Designing an ad for a political candidate whose policies you believe would be harmful to the general public.

11. Designing a brochure for an SUV that turned over frequently in emergency conditions known to have killed 150 people.

12. Designing an ad for a product whose frequent use could result in the user’s death.

The range goes from making a package that seems a little bigger to somebody’s death. The interesting thing is how slippery that slope is and how easy it is to move from stage to stage until you arrive at the ultimate human sin. But then again, why talk about it. This discussion has been going on since the dawn of history. But something occurred to me the other night. Imagine that the butcher goes out shopping one morning and before he makes his first purchase a vision of the rabbit’s face comes to him. He thinks about how adorable that rabbit was, even though a bit of a pest, and at that moment he decides to buy a pound of cabbage instead of a pound of nails.

I left the font black, i'd hate to read all that in blue too.

[Urb4n]

i have no clue what your point is Urb4n! :(

the point is to see how you feel about what I am posting, and hopefully you guys would be willing to post your ideas on things as well and then we can bounce ideas between each other, just to make ourselves think :D

(this works best in forums, since i refuse to join any blog-thingy, and good ideas worth reading/listening to take a bit to type :)

[SupaKrupa]

Nice, discuss-able thread. All the following is not fact, obviously can't be proved. It's all my opinion.

1.
Natural Selection plays a part in my opinion. We evolved in a way which allowed us to gather resources from our environment [eg. A fish or snail couldn't gather resources (food and materials for effective sheltering etc) as effectively (in terms of advancing, and not just requiring the bare essentials) as we can] Humans are more complex than other animals. Complexity requires more energy to maintain, but also is advantageous in the way that we can adapt to our environments more effectively and/or tap energy sources more effectively.

Our (human) ancestors had a firm grasp of the concept of co-evolution, domesticating animals/plants and such. But to go even further back in time, I believe what distinguishes humans from all other organisms is the evolution of symbolic language—the capacity to exchange/pass on/store information with great precision, allowing for advances (we don't need to learn how to do things (so to speak), we can be told) rather than evolutionary stagnation.

As urb4n is, I am totally open to critisicm also.

Edit: Didn't see your huge, second post...

[Urb4n]

Good Point Supa, it makes sense, considering we are the only creatures who have managed to create symbol systems to communicate beyond basic verbal communication. And humans natural desire to do better might explain why ingenuitive thinking came into play ( we got bored with the basics and began to create new things, thus invention was born). But that leaves out emotions. Emotions are a hard one to put a finger on, since its very hard to justify that emotion was part of any evolutionary process, considering that if a person were to emotionally break down in a tense situation, that leaves them open for attack. (just an example). Maybe there is an instinct linked with the basic nuturing nature of a mother, and that of a protective father. And maybe, as the mind developed, thinking clearer, and creating more complex things the brain automatically matched that with more complex emotions.

That said, being entirely possible, why not other creatures as well? There is no way a few scattered clans of humans could have developed at such a rapid pace and simultanously suppress the evolutionary process of every other species on the planet. Is it not possible that a larger force may have been at work, whether gifting the race with emotions and intelligence, or merely speeding the process for us?

(playing the devils advocate, i am staying objective, just counter argueing for the sake of thought)

[SupaKrupa]

There is no way a few scattered clans of humans could have developed at such a rapid pace and simultanously suppress the evolutionary process of every other species on the planet. Is it not possible that a larger force may have been at work, whether gifting the race with emotions and intelligence, or merely speeding the process for us?

Yeh there is way. Might be biological. The number of chromosomes or something. Or might not be. And humans developing while simultaneously suppressing other species? Not likely. Maybe in hunting and killing them, but I highly doubt us evolving had anything to do with every other species not evolving. As for the larger force... it's an ironic question when we're so deep into the scientific realm :)

Rebutting for the sake of it.

[Zack -Alizee Lover-]

Here comes the nerd conversation....

[espire]

I believe what distinguishes humans from all other organisms is the evolution of symbolic language—the capacity to exchange/pass on/store information with great precision,

However, other animals are able to communicate with each other. One, for example, is the dolphin. They actually have quite a sophisticated method of communication which uses their ability to produce high-pitched sounds.

While human speech is much more sophisticated, I'd have to go with the "soul" reason. If a person's not into all that religion/belief stuff, I guess they wouldn't even accept a conscience as a reason. However, I think that the cause of human speech being created is because of that anomaly -- that we care for each other and have compassion -- which forces us to have a method to communicate and express ourselves as well as we can.

[Deepwaters]

I enjoyed that second post that people aren't reading. :D

My own opinion is that there is no hard-and-fast line dividing humans from other animals. Every capacity possessed by H. sapiens is possessed in embryonic form by a number of other species among the apes, whales, bears, raccoons, parrots, crows, ravens, and/or other highly intelligent species of mammal or bird. To the extent we show traits which are not found in other animals at all, these represent emergent properties which arise from intelligence which is not fundamentally different from that of other species, merely greater.

Language? As already pointed out, the dolphins (also other whale species) have language of their own. So do a number of bird species, and these are not merely instinctive cries, because they vary from animal culture to animal culture. They are not as sophisticated as human language, though, and cannot express abstract thought, but those are differences of degree.

Tool use? Chimpanzees, crows, and parrots make and use tools. I used to have two pet cockatoos; one of them liked to fly onto the cage of the other and dismantle it by unscrewing the screws. An animal-made tool is usually no more sophisticated than a branch with the bark and leaves stripped off used to gather bugs from a nest, but it's the same principle. Make that crow more intelligent, and it could design a computer.

In understanding how human intelligence and all of its products can arise from the simpler intelligence of other species (including our own pre-human ancestors), the concept of emergence is important, and here's an article on that:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergent_properties)

Evolution works through survival pressure, enhancing abilities that a species depends on for survival by making it hard to survive. Our ancestors, like the chimpanzees and crows, depended on social organization and intelligent manipulation of their environments to survive. Hit with an ice age and high death tolls, succeeding generations were selected for increased abilities in these areas. This increased intelligence generated all of the emergent properties that civilization consists of.

Nothing extraordinary needed to be added to the mix to make this happen. It just took a bit more of what was already there, until a line was crossed.

[heyamigo]

This is one view, (http://www.near-death.com/experiences/cayce03.html) and an insightful one that might help you with some of the questions from post #1. i just started reading edgar cayce stuff recently and while i can't comprehend everything of his, some of it is very interesting stuff.

[Edcognito]

That said, being entirely possible, why not other creatures as well? There is no way a few scattered clans of humans could have developed at such a rapid pace and simultanously suppress the evolutionary process of every other species on the planet. Is it not possible that a larger force may have been at work, whether gifting the race with emotions and intelligence, or merely speeding the process for us?
(playing the devils advocate, i am staying objective, just counter argueing for the sake of thought)

Ahhhh, language! Typically slippery, the only certainty is in mathamatical precision (expression).

Where to start . . .

1. Who says the evolutionary process has been suppressed at all? Monkeys and Chimps may be blazing forward to a time when they develope their own language, it just seems slow in comparison to our own brief moments on this planet! I mean a distinct, formal spoken language, with spelling and grammer and 3rd grade "language" teachers to terrorize the students with! :)

2. Who says the progress of humans is at "such a rapid pace"? Rapid compared to what? What went before? Speaking in terms of Geologic time, yes our progress has been "fast". But who is to say that this isn't "normal" speed for a species that can remember yesterday, record and transmit information about it to another and anticipate a tomorrow and plan for it based on "history" (memory)....

3. "Larger Force" - Meteors and natural disasters cleared the way (or thinned out competition along the way) until we are where we are now: 99% of all species that have existed on this planet are extinct - and we are able to cogitate.

Just because we can "think" (and i use that term loosley!) does not mean that there has to be a "cause" or "reason" or "guiding force".... There have been literally millions (if not billions) of species that evolved on this planet over the last 4.5 Billion years. Given enough time and a suitable environment, who is to say that "LIFE" isn't just predictable, but almost inevitable? Over a long enough period of time, probability says that a thing, no matter how unlikely, "CAN" (not has to, but can) occure.

4.5 Billion years is a long time indeed.

Ed:cool:

[Edcognito]

This is one view, (http://www.near-death.com/experiences/cayce03.html) and an insightful one that might help you with some of the questions from post #1. i just started reading edgar cayce stuff recently and while i can't comprehend everything of his, some of it is very interesting stuff.

Edgar Cayce . . .

I'll have to paraphrase a friend of mine when i talk about EC - "Even a blind squirrel can find a nut sometimes".

Cayce made very FEW concrete "predictions" (far enough in advance to have a chance of verifying without the subject being able to have had prior knowledge). When he did - he did about as well as anyone else - roughly 97% wrong, and 3% right (or accurate). I have forgotten where i read the statistic now - but if you start making predictions (of or about human beings) - there are now enough of us on the planet to make almost anything "possible".

What generally happens (and has happened with Cayce and all other "psychics, mediums and wizards" of the last 100 years that i know of) is that followers will take the "hits" as evidence or proof of what they claim, and either discount or minimize the misses. This is called observing selective results (again, my old brain is forgetting the actual terminology - anyone knowing the exact phrasing, please feel free to correct me!). Selectively accepting only the "hits" and ignoring the misses is almost as common as predicting the end of the world on any specific date. . . . And just about as accurate! :)

I went through all of this with my father for years, when he tried to use Cayce's predictions (and the Cayce Foundations snake oil cures) for his Parkinson's Disease.... Needless to say - he still has the disease, despite claims that it could be cured. He still has a tattoo of an "x" on the back of his neck, that he used with a "sensor pad" to "positively charge" his body - Cayce believing (and prognosticating) that this was the cause and root of Parkinson's Disease . . . .

My father is still alive, but not for much longer, but that has more to do with genetics than Cayce. In my hospital i've seen people catch Parkinson's and die within a year of diagnosis, and there are a couple still alive after 20 yrs. . . . My father is currently in speech therapy because it is slowly destroying his abliity to speak (nerve damage). Soon it will become difficult for him to swallow, at which time he will have to decide whether he wants a feeding tube or not. (He has already told us he will not have one, but we will see when the time comes).

This is a difficult thing for me to see, but I have accepted it (as well as anyone CAN). The thing thats made me maddest is the attempts by Cayce', or Hubbard' followers to try and milk people of money with these so called "cures".....

Hmmmmm, after re-reading my post, maybe I'm not the most disinterested observer . . . . .

Ed:cool:

[Urb4n]

Hmm, all very good points. I had forgotten about the communication of animals such as dolphins. This brings me to another thought. Think about bees, ants, termite. Ect. They are social creature and have a language that is made of body movements, or touch or sound signals. It would seem that we are very closely linked to them in that respect. I wonder where the link is.

I've never heard of this EC guy but some things of his sound interesting:) I'll have to read from his stuff.

Thank you all for your ideas, it's always interesting seeing what people think about that subject. It's a particularly rough one though. It hits on both the fundamentals of religeon and science. (don't want to see a war!)

[Urb4n]

3. Ok, this particular topic is one that has been argued and reargued amongst scholars (and gangs of idiots :P)for years.

What makes some people naturally nice to others, other people particularly bitter, or depressed. what about the mindset of murderers, what makes them have such a need to end life. Some say that the way people behave is genetic. That a family with a history of aggression is likely to have aggressive hiers. Others say it is the environment of people when they are young. It is said that the first few years of life are where the most life changing events actually occur. As a baby explores its surroundings it takes it all in at a rapid pace, considering it grows very rapidly during that time.

This is the nature vs. nuture debate. Are people the way they are because of genetics or because of thier raising?

Personally i believe it is a combination of both. there has been viable evidence saying that things such as aggressive tendencies tend to be passed down. But also there is the case of the wildgirl. The girl found in russia who was raised by dogs (somehow) and quite literally believe she was a dog.

>>Unfortunately this is a very scientific topic :( but worth discussing. the next ones will be less debate oriented and more on the personal opinion side. :D

[atra201]

1. I don't get people.


Animals are simple creatures with simple needs. Thier behaviors are notable and predictable.

But humans...

So unpredictible, irrational, emotional. So everything we can think of. What is it about humans that makes us so complex? Some would say it is our souls. but what if you do not believe in souls what is it then? We are interesting creatures. So much so that even our own feeble brains cannot understand ourselves. Whether you believe it was nature or a greater power that did this to us, something happened during the course of time that made humanity in the single most interesting thing in our universe.

What was it? Who or what did it? Why?
Is this even the right question to ask?
the reason is because humans have brains so sophisticated than animals'
and we use them to think about everything
while animals have only their survival instinct
or so i think

[Deepwaters]

and we use them to think about everything
while animals have only their survival instinct
or so i think

Human brains are more sophisticated and more intelligent than those of other animals. But it's not true that other animals all have only their survival instinct. Many other species are capable of play, humor, love, compassion, and even some basic abstract thought and self-awareness. The difference between our brains and those of other species is only one of degree.

[jeroh]

Here comes the nerd conversation....

tell the true zack u are too lazy for read all those posts :P

[Tye]

I would like to join this thread with something I have been wondering.

#1. Scientists believe that it is impossible for the average human to remember things before the age of 2 or 3 years old. This is about the time speach patterns such as babble and noises begin to take a premitive shape. Does this mean that memory and our entire brain function relies on language?

#2. Have you ever tried to think without using any words? We use words to form thought processes so how does a baby think that doesn't know a language? Does the human brain lose the ability to think without words at a certain age, or is it simply impossible to think words?

#3. How does an animal think that can't use words? Do they think using their communication system or do they run purely based on instincts.

These are just a few things I have been wondering.

[Tye]

Human brains are more sophisticated and more intelligent than those of other animals. But it's not true that other animals all have only their survival instinct. Many other species are capable of play, humor, love, compassion, and even some basic abstract thought and self-awareness. The difference between our brains and those of other species is only one of degree.

This is especially true with Chimpanzees and humans. We are supposed to be from the same ancestor and this shows up the most with our brains. A chimp's brain and a human brain only differs by about 1-2%.

[Urb4n]

Human brains are more sophisticated and more intelligent than those of other animals. But it's not true that other animals all have only their survival instinct. Many other species are capable of play, humor, love, compassion, and even some basic abstract thought and self-awareness. The difference between our brains and those of other species is only one of degree.

I'll have to go against you there. :o I fully believe that animals are capable of play and such, but emotions like love, self-awareness, hatred, and happiness are something of suspect. The emotions that we think we see in animals (i personally believe) is just our brains compensating for the lack of said emotions. When we see animals fight, for example, we assume they hate each other. We do this because, in a situation where one person hates another, fighting is seen as an acceptable reaction to it. And for play, child play is very important to developing skills to be used later in life. Animals use it as a training program of sorts to build skills to survive in the wild. Our brains only assume that the animals are happy, because as a child we were happy when we played.

My whole point is, I truly do not believe animals have emotion. Thier brains are large enough to hold the code for instinctual behavior. But beyond that I doubt they truly love or hate or can expirience happiness. Sure they can feel pain or pleasure. But in truth, all emotion that we assume animals have is really our brain personifying them, trying to understand them.

Many will argue that animals must have some capacity for emotion lest why would they be lifelong companions for some, or be aware of thier names when called? I think any animal is capable of building a coexistential relationship with another once they realise it's to thier benefit. If you kept your dog outside and quit feeding all of a sudden, you think it would stick around to the point of starvation? At one point it's going to make a decision to leave and feed itself. And as far as understanding thier name, i don't believe they do. I think that they work on the principle of sound signals. Certain sounds are recgonised by them, such as mating calls. Once they hear a sound repeatedly ( thier name for example) they understand that as meaning a couple of things, maybe a chance to go outside, or a chance to eat.

Again this is just my opinion based on what little knowledge my brain has stored :)

[Killian]

Animals can and do displayand feel emotions.

Happiness is a basic emotion in most intelligent animals, as is fear, sadness etc.

Swans for example have been known to mourn for the loss of their companion (sadness). Dolphins have displayed acts of extreme sadness and are capable of tears when their "friends" are killed.

Chimpanzees are capable of compassion, and have been known to display it. They are the only other animal, besides humans, which know they are causing pain to others, and can choose whether or not to do it.

So I feel some animals, not all, are very capable of emotions.

[Deepwaters]

I'll have to go against you there. :o I fully believe that animals are capable of play and such, but emotions like love, self-awareness, hatred, and happiness are something of suspect. The emotions that we think we see in animals (i personally believe) is just our brains compensating for the lack of said emotions.


Well, let me ask you this. Granted that we cannot prove that an animal feels emotions when we see behavior that such emotions are normally associated with -- how can we prove that any human being other than oneself does, either? Simple answer: we cannot. We cannot demonstrate objectively the existence of any emotion, in any creature whatsoever, apart from the behavior and neuronic activity with which we associate it. And if it is reasonable nonetheless to assume that other human beings do have genuine feelings, on what basis can we say that it is not equally reasonable to make the same assumption about animals, on the exact same evidence?

[Tye]

[/COLOR][/B]Well, let me ask you this. Granted that we cannot prove that an animal feels emotions when we see behavior that such emotions are normally associated with -- how can we prove that any human being other than oneself does, either? Simple answer: we cannot. We cannot demonstrate objectively the existence of any emotion, in any creature whatsoever, apart from the behavior and neuronic activity with which we associate it. And if it is reasonable nonetheless to assume that other human beings do have genuine feelings, on what basis can we say that it is not equally reasonable to make the same assumption about animals, on the exact same evidence?

Something else to think about is this, how can you be sure that everything around you just isn't something your mind is creating? I know it sounds weird, but I saw a book on this at a Waldenbooks. There is no way for one human being to prove the existence of someone around them outside of their own mind. You can't prove another person's existence based on your ability to see, touch, smell, and hear them because these are senses your brain and mind are making real. So really everything your perceive is done so by your brain. This makes you wonder if what you are seeing and interacting with are actually real or just something your brain is emalating. How can you be sure that you are not in a world and environment that your brain is creating? This idea is what the Matrix films were loosely based on.

Another thing I read about is the fact that we only use 10% of our brain's capabilities. What would happen and what would a human be capable of if we could use all 100% of our brains?


Killian, I feel the same way you do. Some animals are capable of emotion. Dogs will mourn the loss of their owner if they are given to someone else, or if their owner dies. Dogs also mourn if a dog they have lived with for a long time dies.

I had two dogs. I only have one now. My Bichon Frisé ( look somewhat like a poodle if you don't know) was very young when I got him. I already had a poodle who was 10 years old. My Bichon lived with my poodle for 5 years, and they became very close. When my poodle got to where he was unable to get food for himself my Bichon would bring food to him, and my poodle would gladly eat it. After my poodle died, my Bichon contiued to leave piles of food in different places in my house, because he thought he still needed to continue to help my older poodle. He got very unactive, and even began to rebel. He continued to do this for about 5 months. This right here shows that animals have the capacity to help those in need, and that they can feel emotion.

[Killian]

If what your saying is true, Tye, couldn't the entire reality we think we know be a figment of our imagination and reality could be entirely different. In essence, we could be living a dream, and one day our brain could sense reality and it could be something unrecognisable. :confused:

Oh, and about the dog, sorry you lost him/her. I have a Maltese who is three and know that must have been hard.
And about emotions, I do feel my dog can feel love, or at least an abstract form of friendship. Each summer I go to California for two months, and we leave him with a friendly lady who looks after a lot of dogs. Now, he does enjoy this place and is happy to see her, but this summer when I dropped him off he nearly broke my heart. When we arrived he acted excited but after about a minute he calmed down and kept clawing my leg. I thought he just wanted to be picked up, so I did. He dug his claws into me and kept licking me. He refused to be put down, so the lady had to take him. Then, when we were walking back to the car he tried to run after us and come with us and when he couldn't he bgan to whine and yelp and I could hear him as my dad and I drove down the road. I felt like crying. If this isn't a sign of emotion in an animal I don't know what is. I know I can't prove it, as Deepwaters said that is impossible, but I strongly believe having experienced many things like this with my dog, I honestly feel he has the capacity for emotions.

[OGRE]

I found the mountain of text, with the bold slippery sans serif, nigh unassailable. However, I have established a base camp just beyond the first paragraph. In the morning, when I wake up, I'll stare up at the angry lofty peak, and ask myself, "Why go there"? But I already know the answer, as I pack up, head back down to the green line, pull out my En Concert DvD...and enjoy life.

[Tye]

If what your saying is true, Tye, couldn't the entire reality we think we know be a figment of our imagination and reality could be entirely different. In essence, we could be living a dream, and one day our brain could sense reality and it could be something unrecognisable. :confused:

Really makes your head hurt to think about, doesn't it?:)

Oh, and about the dog, sorry you lost him/her. I have a Maltese who is three and know that must have been hard.
And about emotions, I do feel my dog can feel love, or at least an abstract form of friendship. Each summer I go to California for two months, and we leave him with a friendly lady who looks after a lot of dogs. Now, he does enjoy this place and is happy to see her, but this summer when I dropped him off he nearly broke my heart. When we arrived he acted excited but after about a minute he calmed down and kept clawing my leg. I thought he just wanted to be picked up, so I did. He dug his claws into me and kept licking me. He refused to be put down, so the lady had to take him. Then, when we were walking back to the car he tried to run after us and come with us and when he couldn't he bgan to whine and yelp and I could hear him as my dad and I drove down the road. I felt like crying. If this isn't a sign of emotion in an animal I don't know what is. I know I can't prove it, as Deepwaters said that is impossible, but I strongly believe having experienced many things like this with my dog, I honestly feel he has the capacity for emotions.

Thank you for the kind words, Killian. Love and cherish your dog as much as possible, because when he/she is gone it really is like losing a best friend. It is like there is a big hole in your life. It is really hard to come to grips with the fact that they are gone and you feel like when look around the corner they will be looking back at you with that friendly lovable face. I hope you and your maltese have many more years of fun and love together, because when he/she is gone it is the memories that keep you happy.

About leaving your maltese to go on vacation, my bichon does the same thing when I leave him to go on vacation. I take him to my aunts, and he whines so much when I leave him. He loves to be around my aunt, but he can't stand it when I leave him. When I get back from vacation and pick him up he gets so excited. He will start to jump up and down and run around my legs until I pick him up and when I pick him up he licks me all over the face. That to me is a sign that he is very happy to see me and loves me.:)

[Rev]

<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=6 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD class=alt2 style="BORDER-RIGHT: 1px inset; BORDER-TOP: 1px inset; BORDER-LEFT: 1px inset; BORDER-BOTTOM: 1px inset">If what your saying is true, Tye, couldn't the entire reality we think we know be a figment of our imagination and reality could be entirely different. In essence, we could be living a dream, and one day our brain could sense reality and it could be something unrecognisable.

Posted by Tye
Really makes your head hurt to think about, doesn't it?:) If Lili is a dream, then I don't want to wake up.:)


</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>

Look at my location description (above right). Maya is a word menaing illusion, or the veil. Essentially, what you see is not true reality.

So, if you follow this thought, then Lili, as you currently think of her, truly IS a part of the dream.

[Rev]

Something else to think about is this, how can you be sure that everything around you just isn't something your mind is creating? I know it sounds weird, but I saw a book on this at a Waldenbooks. There is no way for one human being to prove the existence of someone around them outside of their own mind. You can't prove another person's existence based on your ability to see, touch, smell, and hear them because these are senses your brain and mind are making real. So really everything your perceive is done so by your brain. This makes you wonder if what you are seeing and interacting with are actually real or just something your brain is emalating. How can you be sure that you are not in a world and environment that your brain is creating? This idea is what the Matrix films were loosely based on.

Heavy. But what if it is true?

Here is a thought. We see only the past. Everything we percieve is based on a model we built up starting in childhood.

We are taught in school that our body is made of energy (atoms, etc.) and yet we percieve a solid object where no solid object exists.

Perhaps it is because we are not seeing the present as it actually is, but rather a model we built up in our mind. Therfore, we see only the past, and therefore do not see reality as it actually is in this moment.

[Rev]

<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=6 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD class=alt2 style="BORDER-RIGHT: 1px inset; BORDER-TOP: 1px inset; BORDER-LEFT: 1px inset; BORDER-BOTTOM: 1px inset">Originally Posted by Urb4n http://moi-alizee.us/forums/images/bigred/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://moi-alizee.us/forums/showthread.php?p=51871#post51871)
I'll have to go against you there. :o I fully believe that animals are capable of play and such, but emotions like love, self-awareness, hatred, and happiness are something of suspect. The emotions that we think we see in animals (i personally believe) is just our brains compensating for the lack of said emotions.

</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>


Well, let me ask you this. Granted that we cannot prove that an animal feels emotions when we see behavior that such emotions are normally associated with -- how can we prove that any human being other than oneself does, either? Simple answer: we cannot. We cannot demonstrate objectively the existence of any emotion, in any creature whatsoever, apart from the behavior and neuronic activity with which we associate it. And if it is reasonable nonetheless to assume that other human beings do have genuine feelings, on what basis can we say that it is not equally reasonable to make the same assumption about animals, on the exact same evidence?

Ever heard of the buddhist concept of emptiness. That nothing has any meaning at all other that the meaning we give it.

Or another thought, that we pass everything we see in others through our own filters. [back to the past again] That, in essence, we pull from our own past to interpret everything we percieve in the present. If so, both our preceptions of people and animals would be going through similar filters.

[Deepwaters]

Ever heard of the buddhist concept of emptiness. That nothing has any meaning at all other that the meaning we give it.

Yes; you're putting out some great stuff here Rev. I'll have things to add, but it will have to wait until tomorrow. I am just too tired to think straight. Woke up at 3 this morning and could not get back to sleep.

I know why, too, and it was my own fault. But perhaps I can catch up tonight. This is a good discussion. More later.

[c-dawg777]

Whether you believe it was nature or a greater power that did this to us, something happened during the course of time that made humanity in the single most interesting thing in our universe.

What was it? Who or what did it? Why?
Is this even the right question to ask?

In what way do you think we are the single most interesting thing in the universe? Weather or not you believe in other life in the universe is irrelevent, the basic fact is we have not discovered the single most interesting thing in the universe, or it has not discovered us. We will in all likelyhood, terminate our own pitifull existense before we cross paths with the single most interesting thing in the universe.

[fsquared]

Something else to think about is this, how can you be sure that everything around you just isn't something your mind is creating? I know it sounds weird, but I saw a book on this at a Waldenbooks. There is no way for one human being to prove the existence of someone around them outside of their own mind. You can't prove another person's existence based on your ability to see, touch, smell, and hear them because these are senses your brain and mind are making real. So really everything your perceive is done so by your brain. This makes you wonder if what you are seeing and interacting with are actually real or just something your brain is emalating. How can you be sure that you are not in a world and environment that your brain is creating? This idea is what the Matrix films were loosely based on.


Whee....solipsism!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solipsism

But, then, which one of us is the ONE? :D

And, why would that one person generate the entire Alizee media-construct, and this forum, and this discussion in an off-topic thread? ;)

[marik]

oh noes!!!!..........
i cant read the longest post!
dont have much time!:(

[Alizee_is_Scottish!]

I know everyone likes dolphins, but they are not as nice as people make out. As soon as food is in short supply, they start throwing their weight around. Or maybe they are more like humans than we think, except we have more advanced ways of killing our enemies than ramming them.

Killer dolphins: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4187551.stm

On a lighter note, a wee dog that stayed by his masters graveside for 14 years. Showing emotion? (Or maybe the locals were just feeding him there:p ). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greyfriars_Bobby

[Deepwaters]

When we begin talking about Maia, the illusion, penetrating the illusion, enlightenment, we've moved onto a different plane. All of the discussion about human origins and whether humans are unique compared to other animals or not is on one plane of discourse, in which we assume that the patterns we observe are real ones; religious ideas are relevant but not mystical ones particularly.

And in the end, I'm not convinced mystical ideas have a bearing on that question, except to place it in context. As the Zen saying goes, "before enlightenment, chop wood and carry water; after enlightenment, chop wood and carry water." Penetrating the illusion doesn't change one's understanding of how the illusion functions, only one's attitude towards it. Maia has its own laws which persist in relevance within its coils. Those laws do not change merely because we become aware of the true Identity underlying the mask of the personality.

My own views of human beings as animals, and any unique properties we exhibit being emergent properties arising from a higher degree of intelligence and not unique attributes per se, arise from my own Pagan religious beliefs, which emphasize humanity's place as a part of nature rather than dominant over it and separate from it, just as much as other ideas may arise from a Christian or Muslim view of humans as resulting from a special creation, as being the only creatures with immortal souls, and so on. But I also think they accord better with science, which finds no evidence for human uniqueness (except in the same sense in which every other species is equally unique), and does account for extraordinary human abilities and for civilization in terms of emergence.

I also think that the idea of humans as animals, as guardians or caretakers of nature but also a part of, and in service to, nature, is a better one than the idea of humans as above nature, in moral terms, given the situation we now face. We must deal with the reality of natural limits, and of the damage we as a species are doing to the natural world of which we are a part, and on which we depend for our survival. Our situation has changed radically from what we faced when the religious ideas of human uniqueness were formed. We no longer have an empty world to fill up by maximizing birthrates and spreading civilization. We have a full-to-capacity (probably beyond capacity) world and we must adopt a more responsible attitude towards it. This requires changes in our view of ourselves.

[Urb4n]

Something else to think about is this, how can you be sure that everything around you just isn't something your mind is creating? I know it sounds weird, but I saw a book on this at a Waldenbooks. There is no way for one human being to prove the existence of someone around them outside of their own mind. You can't prove another person's existence based on your ability to see, touch, smell, and hear them because these are senses your brain and mind are making real. So really everything your perceive is done so by your brain. This makes you wonder if what you are seeing and interacting with are actually real or just something your brain is emalating. How can you be sure that you are not in a world and environment that your brain is creating? This idea is what the Matrix films were loosely based on.


Very interesting. Here are some questions that I was asked about this kind of thing, and a few I have thought on my own.

-If the world we live in is our brains' emulation, then what is happening to our bodies?
-Are our bodies living in thier own world, using another part of our brain? -Are they vegatables, much like the matrix?
-Perhaps in reality we have no body, maybe this is a world of souls or spirits.
-If the world is as we imagine it to be, would it not be possible for a person to provoke change in it purely by thought?
-If this is all fake, is there a way out?

[Urb4n]

In what way do you think we are the single most interesting thing in the universe? Weather or not you believe in other life in the universe is irrelevent, the basic fact is we have not discovered the single most interesting thing in the universe, or it has not discovered us. We will in all likelyhood, terminate our own pitifull existense before we cross paths with the single most interesting thing in the universe.

This is just my opinion :) . We make leaps and bounds in almost all our scientific fields. We've discovered almost every square inch on this planet(except the deepest oceans) and space is the new frontier. I admit there are some amazing things up there. But the human psyche has been studied for so long and still we're finding out more. (and anything else that might be out there, isnt as interesting to us yet)

[Rev]

-If this is all fake, is there a way out?

"Take the red(?) pill and you will learn hew deep the rabbit hole goes ..."


Very interesting. Here are some questions that I was asked about this kind of thing, and a few I have thought on my own.

-If the world we live in is our brains' emulation, then what is happening to our bodies?
-Are our bodies living in thier own world, using another part of our brain? -Are they vegatables, much like the matrix?
-Perhaps in reality we have no body, maybe this is a world of souls or spirits.
-If the world is as we imagine it to be, would it not be possible for a person to provoke change in it purely by thought?

Yes! But let me shift the thought a bit. Perhaps, if it is all illusion, then what needs to change IS your mind, your concept of how powerless you percieve yourself to be.

Instead, imagine that the external reality is simply a reflection of your state of mind. If this is true, then by truly changing your mind, your perception of what you currently think of as external reality will also begin to shift. :)

[Deepwaters]

Instead, imagine that the external reality is simply a reflection of your state of mind. If this is true, then by truly changing your mind, your perception of what you currently think of as external reality will also begin to shift. :)

Rev, here I believe you are stating a common confusion between the magical and the mystical. I don't believe you are right here.

Magic is a part of the illusion, a part of Maia. It has its own rules, very much akin to the laws of physics -- I've even made a mathematical model describing those rules. While some degree of enlightenment is necessary to be able to use magic effectively, still the two are not one, and enlightenment alone does not allow one to change "external" reality through the mechanism you describe. There's more to it than that, and the gaining of magical power is not the reason why one should pursue enlightenment.

[Rev]

Rev, here I believe you are stating a common confusion between the magical and the mystical. I don't believe you are right here.

Magic is a part of the illusion, a part of Maia. It has its own rules, very much akin to the laws of physics -- I've even made a mathematical model describing those rules. While some degree of enlightenment is necessary to be able to use magic effectively, still the two are not one, and enlightenment alone does not allow one to change "external" reality through the mechanism you describe. There's more to it than that, and the gaining of magical power is not the reason why one should pursue enlightenment.

It does sound like magic, however that is not what I am referring to. The way you responded to me indicates that you are coming from a perception of separation (as we all typically are). What I am trying to describe is a state in which one is more fully aware of the oneness.

In these moments, an interesting shift that sometimes occurs is that when you calm your mind, often external reality does seem to also calm. Why this occurs is perhaps difficult to explain, but it often does occur.

I had actually written a long comment last night, but then the cable went out and I could not post it. I'll try to post it next.

By the way, I would love to see the mathematical model you speak of.

[Rev]

When we begin talking about Maia, the illusion, penetrating the illusion, enlightenment, we've moved onto a different plane. All of the discussion about human origins and whether humans are unique compared to other animals or not is on one plane of discourse, in which we assume that the patterns we observe are real ones; religious ideas are relevant but not mystical ones particularly.

And in the end, I'm not convinced mystical ideas have a bearing on that question, except to place it in context. As the Zen saying goes, "before enlightenment, chop wood and carry water; after enlightenment, chop wood and carry water." Penetrating the illusion doesn't change one's understanding of how the illusion functions, only one's attitude towards it. Maia has its own laws which persist in relevance within its coils. Those laws do not change merely because we become aware of the true Identity underlying the mask of the personality.

I enjoy these conversations. You are very ... deep.

Penetrating the illusion does begin to loosen the hold Maya has on us, in that we begin to see it for what it is, and to expand and become aware of that part of us which does not fall within it's control. The physical (and karmic) laws do not change, but we do begin to transcend them as we become aware of “more.”


My own views of human beings as animals, and any unique properties we exhibit being emergent properties arising from a higher degree of intelligence and not unique attributes per se, arise from my own Pagan religious beliefs, which emphasize humanity's place as a part of nature rather than dominant over it and separate from it, just as much as other ideas may arise from a Christian or Muslim view of humans as resulting from a special creation, as being the only creatures with immortal souls, and so on. But I also think they accord better with science, which finds no evidence for human uniqueness (except in the same sense in which every other species is equally unique), and does account for extraordinary human abilities and for civilization in terms of emergence.

What do you think of reincarnation? If you happen to accept some form of this belief then perhaps there is little difference between humans and animals, except maybe the age of the attached soul.

Perhaps we are just spirits having a human experience. The "animal" we happen to inhabit at the moment is the shell of choice (the perfect shell for this moment in our existence), the physical body by which we can experience and communicate in this physical world.


I also think that the idea of humans as animals, as guardians or caretakers of nature but also a part of, and in service to, nature, is a better one than the idea of humans as above nature, in moral terms, given the situation we now face. We must deal with the reality of natural limits, and of the damage we as a species are doing to the natural world of which we are a part, and on which we depend for our survival. Our situation has changed radically from what we faced when the religious ideas of human uniqueness were formed. We no longer have an empty world to fill up by maximizing birthrates and spreading civilization. We have a full-to-capacity (probably beyond capacity) world and we must adopt a more responsible attitude towards it. This requires changes in our view of ourselves.

Do you mean who we think we are? Or do you mean how we fit into nature and what our level of inter-relationship should be?

If people perceived even a small amount of the aliveness in a tree or a rock or a plant, I'm sure there would be a substantial shift in how human beings think about Gaia. Unfortunately, at least at present, people are very disconnected from Gaia. They think of themselves as separate, and perception reinforces this thought. As long as this separation thinking continues, human beings will continue to make poor choices.

[Deepwaters]

It does sound like magic, however that is not what I am referring to.


Actually, I believe it is; that is to say, it is the employment of the organizing principle which affects the probabilities of indeterminate events and is propagated in the medium of association. :D It may not necessarily employ a magical ritual or formal spell, but it is the same power.


The way you responded to me indicates that you are coming from a perception of separation (as we all typically are). What I am trying to describe is a state in which one is more fully aware of the oneness.


Any time you are describing some effect in observable reality, you are coming from a perception of separation. If you were not, no reality could be observable, because in every act of observation there are two entities: yourself as observer, and that which you are observing. Even when you are "more fully aware of the oneness," you are still perceiving the separation; if you were not, you would be absorbed fully into the oneness (and aware of nothing in any ordinary sense), not merely "more fully aware" of it.


In these moments, an interesting shift that sometimes occurs is that when you calm your mind, often external reality does seem to also calm. Why this occurs is perhaps difficult to explain, but it often does occur.


I don't think it's difficult to explain, and it is a magical effect. But I'll get to that in a moment.


By the way, I would love to see the mathematical model you speak of.

Sure. It's more a curiosity than anything else, since most of it is unverifiable (it refers to quantities that can't be precisely measured). But here it is, and I do stand by the non-mathematical forms of the same laws.

I'll start with a few definitions:

Mana is the organizing principle, the energy-analogue (it is not actually energy) that powers magic by altering the probabilities of indeterminate events. Mana potential refers to the amount of this principle possessed by or able to be generated by an object.

An object is any entity that the mind can recognize. All objects are composed of four types of experience: sensation, imagination, cognitive thought, and emotion. For purposes of this model, an imaginary object is as "real" as one perceived through sensation. (For other purposes it might be more or less real, of course.)

Association refers to the degree to which two objects have attributes in common and/or are recognizably linked. Association is always a real number between 1 and -1, except that it can never be -1 and is only 1 when considering the association between an object and itself.

The model consists of four statements.

1. M(o) = 1/P(o), where M(o) refers to the mana potential of object o and P(o) refers to the probability of object o's existence as observed. Note that since P(o) is a value between 0 and 1, M(o) is a positive real number greater than or equal to 1. M=1 is the magical null value.

2. M[(a)->(b)] = [M(a)^(a@b)] M(b), where M[(a)->(b)] is the mana potential of object b as modified by its association with object a, and a@b is the association between a and b. Remember that a@b is a real number between 1 and -1, and that M(a) and M(b) are real numbers larger than 1. Play around with this equation for a while and see what happens when a@b is negative versus when it is positive.

3. M(a)->E = M(a)^(a@E), where E is an indeterminate event, M(a)->E is the mana potential applied by object a to event E, and a@E is the association between a and E.

4. P'(E)=P(E) / [P(E) + (Q(E) / M(E))], where P(E) is the normal probability of event E occurring, P'(E) is the probability as modified by magic, Q(E)=1-P(E) (i.e. it's the inverse probability or probability of not-E), and M(E) is the mana potential applied to impact the event.

If you like, play with these for a while. In particular, check out the limit conditions such as M= infinity or P(E) = 1 or 0.

As I said, these are curiosities more than anything else (the fourth law can be experimentally demonstrated in a roundabout way but the others cannot). But there are non-mathematical forms of each of them that are more practical.

[Rev]

Wow! I only have a couple of minutes online at the moment, however I printed out a copy and will peruse it when I get a chance (assuming I can "get" the math). Did you major or minor in math, or did you go for a PHD?

[fsquared]

Deepwaters,
Interesting. So high mana means less likely to exist?
And ^ is an exponentiation here?

I haven't thought hard about it, but why is 4 experimentally demonstrable (and why are the others not?) And where does one obtain any object with M != 1 to perform the demonstration?

[Deepwaters]

Deepwaters,
Interesting. So high mana means less likely to exist?


The rarer the object, the higher the mana potential. Exceptions to this rule arise due to the action of the second law.


And ^ is an exponentiation here?


Yes.


I haven't thought hard about it, but why is 4 experimentally demonstrable (and why are the others not?)

The fourth law can be demonstrated using an effect that emerges from application of magic to an event with two or more degrees of freedom. The probability distribution is shifted in such a way that outcomes further removed from the desired outcome drop in measured mana applied according to a linear formula.

The others can't be, or anyway I haven't thought of a way to do it, because they would require direct measurement of association and/or raw mana potential and there is no way to precisely measure either of those.

[Rev]

Actually, I believe it is; that is to say, it is the employment of the organizing principle which affects the probabilities of indeterminate events and is propagated in the medium of association. It may not necessarily employ a magical ritual or formal spell, but it is the same power. .

Quite a sentence! However, not really the concept I was aiming at. It’s not that what you described does not exist, but that there is more involved that just that. Although I understand the concept of magic, I do not focus on the development of magic as a goal (it is more of a byproduct anyway ). Also, I don’t want to go further into a technical discussion (and we could easily spend pages just defining the words you used in that sentence). Words are abstractions of abstractions, so far removed from the source as to only offer a general concept of what direction to look in when we start talking about concepts like these.

Still, I thank you for sharing the mathematical model you obviously spent time to develop. I haven’t had to play with these types of equations for many years so I will admit to a LOT of rust.

Any time you are describing some effect in observable reality, you are coming from a perception of separation. If you were not, no reality could be observable, because in every act of observation there are two entities: yourself as observer, and that which you are observing. Even when you are "more fully aware of the oneness," you are still perceiving the separation; if you were not, you would be absorbed fully into the oneness (and aware of nothing in any ordinary sense), not merely "more fully aware" of it.
Absolutely! If one does not have any perception of separation, then it is impossible to navigate within the physical realm at that moment.

Sure. It's more a curiosity than anything else, since most of it is unverifiable (it refers to quantities that can't be precisely measured). But here it is, and I do stand by the non-mathematical forms of the same laws.

I'll start with a few definitions:

Mana is the organizing principle, the energy-analogue (it is not actually energy) that powers magic by altering the probabilities of indeterminate events. Mana potential refers to the amount of this principle possessed by or able to be generated by an object.

An object is any entity that the mind can recognize. All objects are composed of four types of experience: sensation, imagination, cognitive thought, and emotion. For purposes of this model, an imaginary object is as "real" as one perceived through sensation. (For other purposes it might be more or less real, of course.) .
Can I assume that is due to your being able to generate the same amount of intention around an imaginary object as a real one? Or are you using the term imaginary in a purely mathematical sense?

Association refers to the degree to which two objects have attributes in common and/or are recognizably linked. Association is always a real number between 1 and -1, except that it can never be -1 and is only 1 when considering the association between an object and itself.

The model consists of four statements.

1. M(o) = 1/P(o), where M(o) refers to the mana potential of object o and P(o) refers to the probability of object o's existence as observed. Note that since P(o) is a value between 0 and 1, M(o) is a positive real number greater than or equal to 1. M=1 is the magical null value. .
So the more mana the less the likelihood that the object is as it seems to be? Makes sense.
2. M[(a)->(b)] = [M(a)^(a@b)] M(b), where M[(a)->(b)] is the mana potential of object b as modified by its association with object a, and a@b is the association between a and b. Remember that a@b is a real number between 1 and -1, and that M(a) and M(b) are real numbers larger than 1. Play around with this equation for a while and see what happens when a@b is negative versus when it is positive. .
So, just sit in the presence of a master and …

3. M(a)->E = M(a)^(a@E), where E is an indeterminate event, M(a)->E is the mana potential applied by object a to event E, and a@E is the association between a and E. .
Reasonable.

4. P'(E)=P(E) / [P(E) + (Q(E) / M(E))], where P(E) is the normal probability of event E occurring, P'(E) is the probability as modified by magic, Q(E)=1-P(E) (i.e. it's the inverse probability or probability of not-E), and M(E) is the mana potential applied to impact the event. .
So, as magic goes to infinity, P’(E) goes to unity. Again, makes sense theoretically.
Any chance of this as an option: P'(E)=P(E) / [P(E) + Q(E)^M(E)],
If you like, play with these for a while. In particular, check out the limit conditions such as M= infinity or P(E) = 1 or 0.

As I said, these are curiosities more than anything else (the fourth law can be experimentally demonstrated in a roundabout way but the others cannot). But there are non-mathematical forms of each of them that are more practical.
These are fun, and you obviously have spent a lot of time thinking about magic to have wanted to develop them.
Have you been able to plot any points on a graph based on experience with magic?

[Tye]

I have no idea what any of this means. It looks neat, but other than that, I have no idea what it means.

[Deepwaters]

Can I assume that is due to your being able to generate the same amount of intention around an imaginary object as a real one? Or are you using the term imaginary in a purely mathematical sense?


Not a mathematical sense, as in "imaginary numbers," no. And I wouldn't put it quite the way you did about intention. Rather, mana is something different from energy. It isn't conserved, it doesn't "do work" in the classical sense, it is propagated and limited in association rather than in space-time. It's much more mental and much less physical than energy, although that's not a hard-and-fast distinction.

An imaginary object has no mass, is not located in space-time, and carries no energy; for purposes of physics, it is not "real." But for purposes of magic, whether something is physical or imaginary makes no difference at all. The only thing that matters is its raw mana potential from the start, together with its placement in association space, and those things can describe an imaginary entity, an emotion, or a cognitive thought, as readily as they can a physical object.


So, just sit in the presence of a master and …
LOL yes; or invoke the Gods; or otherwise associate yourself with powerful objects.


Any chance of this as an option: P'(E)=P(E) / [P(E) + Q(E)^M(E)]If you solve the first equation, you'll find that this one doesn't follow from it, so no I'm afraid not. Also, look at a hypothetical real case, say with M(E)=1 (i.e., null mana, no magic). Q(E)^1=Q(E), and P(E)+Q(E)=1, so you would have null magic raising P to 1 -- and that makes no sense; null magic should leave P unchanged.


Have you been able to plot any points on a graph based on experience with magic?As I said, the equations refer to unmeasurable quantities. What I did do, though, was to perform an experiment using multi-sided dice to generate an altered probability distribution. I found that if I ordered the results from the highest to the lowest occurring, and then plugged the sum of any results including the top N, the measured mana effect was a constant.

Tye: Sorry about that. :(

[Tye]

What are you guys even talking about? This is what I am mostly confused about.

[Deepwaters]

What are you guys even talking about? This is what I am mostly confused about.

We're talking about magic, Tye. The power of the mind, the power of ritual, the Arts, sorcery, enchantment, so on and so forth.

[Roman]

Ok, go to the Teaching Company web site (www.teach12.com (http://www.teach12.com)) and purchase the title: "No Excuses: Existentialism and the Meaning of Life". I have been watching that for several days. That ought to give you something to talk and think about (hopefully not in that order). Maybe I'll actually start reading this thread now.

[Rev]

Not a mathematical sense, as in "imaginary numbers," no. And I wouldn't put it quite the way you did about intention. Rather, mana is something different from energy. It isn't conserved, it doesn't "do work" in the classical sense, it is propagated and limited in association rather than in space-time. It's much more mental and much less physical than energy, although that's not a hard-and-fast distinction.

OK.

An imaginary object has no mass, is not located in space-time, and carries no energy; for purposes of physics, it is not "real." But for purposes of magic, whether something is physical or imaginary makes no difference at all. The only thing that matters is its raw mana potential from the start, together with its placement in association space, and those things can describe an imaginary entity, an emotion, or a cognitive thought, as readily as they can a physical object.

OK.

Although now you are jumping across layers (if you think of us as an onion – with the physical body in the middle). However there is no reason why mana can’t be multi-layer if that is how it is defined.

If you solve the first equation, you'll find that this one doesn't follow from it, so no I'm afraid not. Also, look at a hypothetical real case, say with M(E)=1 (i.e., null mana, no magic). Q(E)^1=Q(E), and P(E)+Q(E)=1, so you would have null magic raising P to 1 -- and that makes no sense; null magic should leave P unchanged.

RE: P'(E)=P(E) / [P(E) + (Q(E) / M(E))]

Doesn’t your equation also produce the same result for M(E)=1 Q(E)/1=Q(E), and therefore P(E)+Q(E)=1

Rev EDIT - WE are both forgetting that, for, M(E)=1, P'(E)=P(E)/1=P(E) not typically 1
For example, for P(E)=.7 P'(E)=.7/[.7+.3/1]=.7/(.7+.3)=.7/1=.7 not 1

As I said, the equations refer to unmeasurable quantities. What I did do, though, was to perform an experiment using multi-sided dice to generate an altered probability distribution. I found that if I ordered the results from the highest to the lowest occurring, and then plugged the sum of any results including the top N, the measured mana effect was a constant.

I knew what you said, but I had a hunch you had tested it in some way.
This is all very logical. Now… how to develop a mana sensor so the scientific method can be brought to bear?

[Deepwaters]

RE: P'(E)=P(E) / [P(E) + (Q(E) / M(E))]

Doesn’t your equation also produce the same result for M(E)=1 Q(E)/1=Q(E), and therefore P(E)+Q(E)=1


No. Using M(E)=1:

Q(E)/M(E)=Q(E)
P(E)+Q(E)=1
P(E)/1=P(E)

And so P(E) remains unchanged.


Now… how to develop a mana sensor so the scientific method can be brought to bear.

If you can think of a way, I would LOVE to hear it! :D

[Rev]

No. Using M(E)=1:

Q(E)/M(E)=Q(E)
P(E)+Q(E)=1
P(E)/1=P(E)

And so P(E) remains unchanged.

I'll repost this since I added it after your response (pity I didn't refresh the page).
Rev EDIT - WE are both forgetting that, for, M(E)=1, P'(E)=P(E)/1=P(E) not typically 1
For example, for P(E)=.7 P'(E)=.7/[.7+.3/1]=.7/(.7+.3)=.7/1=.7 not 1

I think both equations work in a similar way for M(E)=1

If you can think of a way, I would LOVE to hear it! :D

I'll have to open up to inspiration. Let's see... how do we develop a physical object to measure an essentially non-physical and non-energetic influence.

Aha, we can ask the ghost hunters.:D

Or, if you can't measure the cause, try to more scientifically measure the influenced object.

Good Luck! The only influenced objects I am aware of are people, and people are way to complex to be able to measure in this manner.

I guess we will have to wait until thoughtrons are discovered (in about 2000 years).

[Rev]

Ok, go to the Teaching Company web site (www.teach12.com (http://www.teach12.com)) and purchase the title: "No Excuses: Existentialism and the Meaning of Life". I have been watching that for several days. That ought to give you something to talk and think about (hopefully not in that order). Maybe I'll actually start reading this thread now.

What are you getting from it?

[Deepwaters]

I think both equations work in a similar way for M(E)=1


You are right, and also for M(E)=infinity. However, they don't work the same for M(E)=0, which is the other limit condition. That should result in P'=0, and with your equation it does not.


The only influenced objects I am aware of are people, and people are way to complex to be able to measure in this manner.


Well, according to my theory (and my experience), any events which are indeterminate on a macroscopic scale should be subject to magic. (I'm ruling out molecular and quantum scale events, although in theory those should be amenable as well -- if we could make the necessary associations.)

That includes not only people's minds, but also the processes of their bodies, the random events that occur in life, and chaotic processes such as the weather.

Unfortunately none of that solves the problem of measurement. :(

[Rev]

You are right, and also for M(E)=infinity. However, they don't work the same for M(E)=0, which is the other limit condition. That should result in P'=0, and with your equation it does not.

OK. I had thought this still applied:
"M(o) is a positive real number greater than or equal to 1. M=1 is the magical null value."

So P'(E) must = 0, no matter what the starting value of P, if M(E)=0?
(I had thought that P' would = P if Magic was null.)

Well, according to my theory (and my experience), any events which are indeterminate on a macroscopic scale should be subject to magic. (I'm ruling out molecular and quantum scale events, although in theory those should be amenable as well -- if we could make the necessary associations.)

That includes not only people's minds, but also the processes of their bodies, the random events that occur in life, and chaotic processes such as the weather.

So much breaks down at the quantum level. However I agree that this concept would likely still apply in some manner.

Unfortunately none of that solves the problem of measurement. :(

True.

[Deepwaters]

M=1 is the magical null. M=0 is negative infinity, reducing probability to 0.

M<1 is negative magic, reducing probabilities below normal. M>1 is positive magic, increasing probabilities above normal.

[Rev]

M=1 is the magical null. M=0 is negative infinity, reducing probability to 0.

M<1 is negative magic, reducing probabilities below normal. M>1 is positive magic, increasing probabilities above normal.

Aha (light goes on).

What if we made M=0 as null, so positive and negative values simply imply what they are - an increasing or diminishing effect?

[Urb4n]

Wow. deepwaters, i don't fully understand all the math however, this is what i understand from it:

Rarer objects are more imagination and thought and more common objects are less mana and therefore more "real". So for example, a tree is exactly the same to everyone who sees it because it is a common object and we accept its existence, but something such as an apparation or a ghost sighting, is more what we individually expect them to appear as because they are much rarer and more "magical" in a sense.

Am I right in my thinking? The idea is amazing, we could totally change our world depending on what we think but since the way a tree looks, for example, is so commonly accepted already it would be near impossible to uproot that idea and actually change something like that.

[marik]

whoa! this thread is very active! when i log in and notice this! i just ignore what was the replies here! lol! but greatly! i admit this thread is hilariuos!

[Deepwaters]

Aha (light goes on).

What if we made M=0 as null, so positive and negative values simply imply what they are - an increasing or diminishing effect?

I found no way to make that work mathematically. A lot flows from that fourth equation, and the concept of magic being an effect on probability. The effect being multiplicative, 1 is the identity (null factor) rather than 0 as it would be if the effect were additive.

[Deepwaters]

Am I right in my thinking? The idea is amazing, we could totally change our world depending on what we think but since the way a tree looks, for example, is so commonly accepted already it would be near impossible to uproot that idea and actually change something like that.

The fourth equation is the key for understanding how magic works, though. It's an impact on probability. To uproot a tree with it, we would have to be able to change the probabilities involved with the random motion of molecules within the tree trunk. If more of the tree's molecules were to exert their force of motion upward than downward, rather than having those two vectors cancel out as normally happens, then a net force upward would be created, and if the force were strong enough the tree would be uprooted.

The problem with this is that we can't, for some reason, affect probabilities of events below the macroscopic level. There are legends and rumors of people who could, but no solid evidence that I know of, and certainly it isn't something I can do.

[Roman]

Please pick the part of my post that you want to read. It's too frikkin long!
I don't know much about mathematics and such, but I have an infinite ability to bull shit! Fortunately, I choose not to use it for evil, but then judge for yourself...

...Whether you believe it was nature or a greater power that did this to us, something happened during the course of time that made humanity in the single most interesting thing in our universe...Well, ok, I imagine that other living beings do not find this to be true. I often find humans to be the most interesting thing in our universe, certain female humans in particular, sometimes a particular human female, but that only says something about me, not the universe. I'd apply that to all living entities. Kangaroos think they're hot shit, believe me on that one!

YOU CAN ONLY WORK FOR PEOPLE THAT YOU LIKE
Well, I don't know if that is true, but where I work now, I have been experiencing a change that seems to suggest it might be. I'd say that I must have respect for a person to work for them. Otherwise they just seem to get in the way of my work.

IF YOU HAVE A CHOICE NEVER HAVE A JOB
Ha ha! Of course. Actually I have been in a situation many years ago; I was looking for a job, but was out of a job for a few months. During some weeks, especially at first, I was not really trying that hard to find a job. I found that it was strange at first, but then after a while it was really great! To have some money to live and then the ability to just pursue whatever I want to do with my life is really must more fun than going to work. Though, I did not do that for many years. What I wanted to do at the time was support a certain web site and become involved with supporting whatever it was about. I don't remember now. I just remember that I have certain interests that are not the same as those of the place where I work now. I'd like to be able to pursue my own interests and contribute to a related community. Of course, that's not really what this guy was talking about. I don't think I really agree with what his point seemed to be.

SOME PEOPLE ARE TOXIC AVOID THEM
Hmmm. I'll have to think more on this one. My immediate thought was to agree, but I had not quite thought about that particular test, for example.

LESS IS MORE - that type of statement only becomes a problem when it is overused...when people start applying it without proper discrimination...it does become a paradox of itself. Less use of that term makes it more meaningful in general.


STYLE IS NOT TO BE TRUSTED
Wow. There was a lot of meaning there attached to that statement.

HOW YOU LIVE CHANGES YOUR BRAIN - Alizée makes me pay attention to what I'm looking at.:p Brain studies are intensely facinating because of the idea that we can learn how we humans function and in doing so we think that might lead us to ways in which we can improve that were formerly impossible. I would certainly like to shed all my hang ups, bad habits, anxieties, etc. and become more intelligent, more "aware", more physically dexterous and coordinated, etc. All of this ties into how our central organ, the brain, works. What some people can do that we can't amazes us.

DOUBT IS BETTER THAN CERTAINTY - this is interesting. What he's talking about is my style. There are limits to openness too, though. Sometimes I have found that it is better to just take a position and decide to be confident about it. It feels good too, to think that I am so right. But yes, people who don't even realize they are doing that can be scary.

Tell the truth - What's there to say?

...we don't need to learn how to do things (so to speak), we can be told...That is a very good point. Let me throw something out to make people think for a minute. We seem to have this idea that humans are very successful as a species. Often people assume that we are the most successful species in a way, but are we? Well, if you look at proliferation across the earth and likelyhood of surviving disasters, I think it is pretty clear that animals like ants, some microscopic worms, etc. are much more successful than humans. But, the problem with that type of analysis is that when we go forth in life, it is not so much survival that we think of as success. It is largely personal satisfaction. So, what is the deal with evolution, with nature, that it has created such a creature? How important is survival? How important is personal satisfaction?
Here comes the nerd conversation....HA HA:D Now, I really can't deny that for a second!
tell the true zack u are too lazy for read all those posts :PHe he. Yah! Well, actually, instead of lazy I'd just say that some people have different priorities in life. Zack will not read my post! There's lazy and then there's CRAZY!

...
My own opinion is that there is no hard-and-fast line dividing humans from other animals. Every capacity possessed by H. sapiens is possessed in embryonic form by a number of other species among the apes, whales, bears, raccoons, parrots, crows, ravens, and/or other highly intelligent species of mammal or bird. To the extent we show traits which are not found in other animals at all, these represent emergent properties which arise from intelligence which is not fundamentally different from that of other species, merely greater...I'm with Deep on that one. The recently popular concept of emergence is in a sense the next step in understanding. My personal pet concepts are thresholds and balance. If I were trying to get a Doctorate in physics, or anything else probably, I'd try to make my thesis on thresholds and what my be their direct by-product, balance.

I'll have to paraphrase a friend of mine when i talk about EC - "Even a blind squirrel can find a nut sometimes".
Well, let me put it this way, I have seen/heard enough claims of supernatural kinds of stuff to think that there must be something to it; however, beyond that I can't say much. If you think you have the ability to see the future in a "supernatural" type of way, go ahead and try to develop it. Go to or start a group or a school to study it and see what results you can come up with. See if you can learn more, teach others, or develop beneficial results from it. That's what the military did with their psychic "remote viewing" efforts. Of course, remote viewers still don't seem to run the world, the military gave up the effort and mostly when talking about metaphysics and such I hear people calling small crystals things like tachyons and claiming that can heal - that suggests that while these people have no understanding of particle physics, they are quite willing to adopt "catchy" terms for promotion of their confused swirl of thoughts and emotions. For me, all this stuff hasn't much substance. I don't really experience it. So, I can't really do anything with it, even if somewhere there is some truth to it. That's why I'll have to continue to ignore it.

Hmm, all very good points. I had forgotten about the communication of animals such as dolphins. This brings me to another thought. Think about bees, ants, termite. Ect. They are social creature and have a language that is made of body movements, or touch or sound signals. It would seem that we are very closely linked to them in that respect. I wonder where the link is.The Teaching Company (www.teach12.com (http://www.teach12.com)) has a good one for that too. Well he doesn't talk much about bees, only mentions it briefly, but for learning about human language in general, this is a really great course: The Story of Human Language taught by Professor John McWhorter. He's also a funny entertaining guy. It was a real pleasure to watch this series. They put all of their products on sale at one time of the year or other; so, look for those sales unless you really want to get something right away. And no, I don't get any kick-backs from them.:)

LANGUAGE
I would like to join this thread with something I have been wondering.

#1. Scientists believe that it is impossible for the average human to remember things before the age of 2 or 3 years old. This is about the time speach patterns such as babble and noises begin to take a premitive shape. Does this mean that memory and our entire brain function relies on language?

#2. Have you ever tried to think without using any words? We use words to form thought processes so how does a baby think that doesn't know a language? Does the human brain lose the ability to think without words at a certain age, or is it simply impossible to think words?

#3. How does an animal think that can't use words? Do they think using their communication system or do they run purely based on instincts.

These are just a few things I have been wondering.
Aha! I was just thinking about this the other day. Well, anecdotally, what I was thinking about was that I remember one day when I was probably like 5 or something that I learned to think words silently in my head. It was a revelation. I guess before that I would mouth words or just talk to myself or something (when thinking with words), but eventually I learned to do this thing that I can't seem to stop now. John McWhorter made an interesting point about language. He says there are around 6000 languages in the world today, but only around 200 are written in any real regular sense. So, most people in the world speak languages that are only spoken, though they probably also know and use one or more of the more commonly known languages. There is no sense of spelling for those people when they are using those languages. When someone says the word for dog, they do not think D-O-G or whatever the equivalent is. We don't always do that either, but to some extent we do; so, to compare those things I think is similar to comparing this to someone who does not think with words at all. It gives us some tiny bit of concept.
I think we think in words because of the logical structure that it gives our thoughts. We are able to better remember things in a narative sense if we think in words and also it is the way we communicate with others. If it is instinctual for humans to think in the language that they learn, it might be subconsciously to keep the blade sharp, so to speak - to practice so that we don't forget how. After stopping to think about it, I find that language is a rather difficult thing to do at a certain level. I'm always looking up the spelling and meanings of words, yes even in English. I also occassionally have a hard time remembering a particular word that I want at the moment to describe something.
I'd be willing to bet that what we call thinking using our communication system is something that other animals do not do.
As to what I was saying before, it may be that our ability to act in accordance with what we have learned in the past through experience is somewhat linked with our ability to naratively remember the past. Remembering comes up for us all the time. If you try to apply for a new job, you are probably going to have to list previous jobs. If you don't write down details about those, how long are you going to remember? I remember working 8 years ago for a company I was at for 3 years. I vaguely remember working for companies I was working at for a few weeks or months before that. Probably if I had written up a narative about the situation or had thought one up with words and memorized it, I would be able to remember even better than I do now. Now, imagine living the life of another kind of animal. Especially if you are a wild animal, probably things don't change much your whole life and no one is ever demanding that you remember anything. You don't have any kind of narative. How well are you going to remember your past and apply lessons learned after a long stretch of time?

EMOTIONS
...I truly do not believe animals have emotion... Wowey! That whole thing strikes me as spectacularly ignorant and self deceptive. I don't mean to be insulting to you, but it's almost unbelieveable to me that anyone who has spent any time with OTHER animals or thought about human evolution could actually think that. We ARE animals. I believe that emotions are more primitive than language and hence the obviousness that other similar animals are even more likely to have emotions similar to ours. No, not quite the same as we tend to experience it, but very similar and sometimes the same. Is it a strange quirk of human thought, of over analysis that makes a person think things like other animals don't have emotions? Or, is it an abstraction of reality designed to override simple sensibilities in order to promote one's own ego?

"Perhaps it is because we are not seeing the present as it actually is, but rather a model we built up in our mind. Therfore, we see only the past, and therefore do not see reality as it actually is in this moment." Ha ha. That reminds me of an extremely funny line from the Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy. You really should read the book. I'd quote the line, but you really need it in context.

SENSIBLE IDEAS
We no longer have an empty world to fill up by maximizing birthrates and spreading civilization. We have a full-to-capacity (probably beyond capacity) world and we must adopt a more responsible attitude towards it. This requires changes in our view of ourselves.
Ok, finally someone says something that might actually be useful.

MAGIC
Wow. deepwaters, i don't fully understand all the math however, this is what i understand from it: Thanks Urb4n, I like your concise analysis there (whether or not it's accurate).
As for magic, a very entertaining series of books about it was written by Carlos Castaneda about his supposed experiences with magic. If you have the patience for such things and are willing to be open minded, at least for the sake of entertainment, I highly recommend them.

PHYSICS?
The fourth equation is the key for understanding how magic works, though. It's an impact on probability. To uproot a tree with it, we would have to be able to change the probabilities involved with the random motion of molecules within the tree trunk. If more of the tree's molecules were to exert their force of motion upward than downward, rather than having those two vectors cancel out as normally happens, then a net force upward would be created, and if the force were strong enough the tree would be uprooted.

The problem with this is that we can't, for some reason, affect probabilities of events below the macroscopic level. There are legends and rumors of people who could, but no solid evidence that I know of, and certainly it isn't something I can do.
I have a sense that the reason we can't calculate or affect "probabilities" of such "particles" as they become smaller is because we are reaching a threshold of existence. Take for example, water. If we have warm water, we can be very certain that cooling it a little bit will not cause it to freeze. The closer we come to the point where water does freeze, the more difficult it is going to be to judge whether or not cooling it "a little bit more" will cause it to freeze. An electron orbiting around an atomic neucleous barely exists in the first place and so quickly moves from one place to the next (if that can actually even be said at all) that trying to determine what direction it is going at any point in "time" is extremely difficult. Ok, perhaps impossible at this point. Well, I don't really know how this idea fits in with the quantum uncertainty principal, but hey, whatever.

[Rev]

Please pick the part of my post that you want to read. It's too frikkin long!
I don't know much about mathematics and such, but I have an infinite ability to bull shit! Fortunately, I choose not to use it for evil, but then judge for yourself...


Read this much so far. I should finish the rest by... Sarturday. :blink:

[Rev]

I found no way to make that work mathematically. A lot flows from that fourth equation, and the concept of magic being an effect on probability. The effect being multiplicative, 1 is the identity (null factor) rather than 0 as it would be if the effect were additive.


OK. This has been a good discussion.

How about remote magic? When and how does distance matter? Are there situations where distance is irrelevant?

[Deepwaters]

OK. This has been a good discussion.


Thanks; I think so, too. :)


How about remote magic? When and how does distance matter? Are there situations where distance is irrelevant?

Proximity is a form of association; other than that, distance makes no difference whatsoever. A mage can make telepathic contact with someone, or influence events, or work the weather, on the other side of the world, as long as he can create the associations to do it.

[Tye]

LANGUAGE

Aha! I was just thinking about this the other day. Well, anecdotally, what I was thinking about was that I remember one day when I was probably like 5 or something that I learned to think words silently in my head. It was a revelation. I guess before that I would mouth words or just talk to myself or something (when thinking with words), but eventually I learned to do this thing that I can't seem to stop now.



I also remember a moment when I realized I was thinking completely in my head silently without saying anything out loud. It is kind of like a slap in the face. I had been doing it, and then I realized what I was doing, and I was like "awsome!".:)

[Rev]

Thanks; I think so, too. :)



Proximity is a form of association; other than that, distance makes no difference whatsoever. A mage can make telepathic contact with someone, or influence events, or work the weather, on the other side of the world, as long as he can create the associations to do it.

I agree. I was wondering how you would answer this (if your perspective would be different than mine).

I have always believed that distance did not matter, until I bumped into an experience that was clearly dependant on distance. Now I realize that both can be true depending on exactly what is going on.

However, proximity can be very powerful.