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Re: Beware telepathic communication!
A few thoughts for Eldritch:
One can usefully separate experiences and perceptions into two categories:
1. Objective, consensual reality. Things that are verifiable by any observer fall into this category. Anyone can test the effects of gravity, for instance, or the melting point of ice. And all honest testers will find that their observations agree quite well.
2. Subjective, internal reality. Concepts like beauty and experiences like dreams are subjective. They're internal. Everyone does not agree about what is beautiful, and as for your dreams, I cannot perceive them at all. The are not verifiable for all observers.
I suggest that your experiences with lucid dreaming and astral projection are subjective. But what many people mean when they say something is "real" is that it exists in objective, consensual reality. This is a loose, general term, but a useful one. In this sense astral projection "is not real."
(One can logically claim that nothing is objectively real, since my only perception of other observers must itself come into my mind, and hence could be purely subjective. I could be dreaming that other people exist, and that their tests of the melting point of ice agree with mine. In that sense everything could be a dream. But we don't act that way, and we don't really believe that way.)
Now, as far as telekinesis, what is being claimed is that the mind is capable of generating real -- that is, objectively observable, scientifically verifiable -- forces similar to the kinetic forces generated by muscles or by electromagnetic coils. I have whopping big problems with this.
First, there have been no convincing scientific verification of any such a thing. James Randi has offered a large prize for anyone who can demonstrate it, and no one has claimed the prize.
Second, there is no physical mechanism in the brain that suggests it can generate such forces. This kind of thing is not all that mysterious. Just about the only physical force that could plausibly produce telekinesis is electromagnetism, and the human brain is simply not set up to produce external electromagnetic fields capable of moving large objects.
There's nothing to suggest that telekinesis has ever worked, and nothing to suggest our minds could produce the kind of force to make it work. It may be fun to imagine, but I think it will forever remain imaginary -- in the realm of the subjective, internal, dreaming reality.
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The LORD GOD is the sole worker of miracles! NOTHING that is supernatural cometh from any source but His mighty and INSCRUTABLE provenance.
It is HE who stirs the squid, and troubles the sea through which whales ferry their vast unhuman souls. It is HIS miraculous touch which makes the duck to molt, and turns the season to the Day of the Locust.
If there be dearth in the land, if there be pestilence, if there be blasting, or mildew, locusts, or caterpillers; if their enemies besiege them in the cities of their land; whatsoever sore or whatsoever sickness there be:
Then hear thou from the heavens, even from thy dwelling place, and do according to all that the stranger calleth to thee for; that all people of the earth may know thy name, and fear thee, as doth thy people Israel, and may know that this house which I have built is called by thy name. 2 Chronicles 6:29,33
His alone is the power to turn pure thought to thunderbolts, or -- by merely willing it be so -- to cause a mighty pangolin to ravage a breadfruit. Doth not the sloth in its time conceive His wonders, and the hyrax portend His glory? Verily!
Amen! AMEN!
~~ OEJ
A few thoughts for Eldritch:
One can usefully separate experiences and perceptions into two categories:
1. Objective, consensual reality. Things that are verifiable by any observer fall into this category. Anyone can test the effects of gravity, for instance, or the melting point of ice. And all honest testers will find that their observations agree quite well.
2. Subjective, internal reality. Concepts like beauty and experiences like dreams are subjective. They're internal. Everyone does not agree about what is beautiful, and as for your dreams, I cannot perceive them at all. The are not verifiable for all observers.
I suggest that your experiences with lucid dreaming and astral projection are subjective. But what many people mean when they say something is "real" is that it exists in objective, consensual reality. This is a loose, general term, but a useful one. In this sense astral projection "is not real."
(One can logically claim that nothing is objectively real, since my only perception of other observers must itself come into my mind, and hence could be purely subjective. I could be dreaming that other people exist, and that their tests of the melting point of ice agree with mine. In that sense everything could be a dream. But we don't act that way, and we don't really believe that way.)
Now, as far as telekinesis, what is being claimed is that the mind is capable of generating real -- that is, objectively observable, scientifically verifiable -- forces similar to the kinetic forces generated by muscles or by electromagnetic coils. I have whopping big problems with this.
First, there have been no convincing scientific verification of any such a thing. James Randi has offered a large prize for anyone who can demonstrate it, and no one has claimed the prize.
Second, there is no physical mechanism in the brain that suggests it can generate such forces. This kind of thing is not all that mysterious. Just about the only physical force that could plausibly produce telekinesis is electromagnetism, and the human brain is simply not set up to produce external electromagnetic fields capable of moving large objects.
There's nothing to suggest that telekinesis has ever worked, and nothing to suggest our minds could produce the kind of force to make it work. It may be fun to imagine, but I think it will forever remain imaginary -- in the realm of the subjective, internal, dreaming reality.
----
The LORD GOD is the sole worker of miracles! NOTHING that is supernatural cometh from any source but His mighty and INSCRUTABLE provenance.
It is HE who stirs the squid, and troubles the sea through which whales ferry their vast unhuman souls. It is HIS miraculous touch which makes the duck to molt, and turns the season to the Day of the Locust.
If there be dearth in the land, if there be pestilence, if there be blasting, or mildew, locusts, or caterpillers; if their enemies besiege them in the cities of their land; whatsoever sore or whatsoever sickness there be:
Then hear thou from the heavens, even from thy dwelling place, and do according to all that the stranger calleth to thee for; that all people of the earth may know thy name, and fear thee, as doth thy people Israel, and may know that this house which I have built is called by thy name. 2 Chronicles 6:29,33
His alone is the power to turn pure thought to thunderbolts, or -- by merely willing it be so -- to cause a mighty pangolin to ravage a breadfruit. Doth not the sloth in its time conceive His wonders, and the hyrax portend His glory? Verily!
Amen! AMEN!
~~ OEJ
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