General Chat

Professor Stephen Hawking (author of A Brief History of Time) Britain’s world-renowned physicist and theorist on multi-dimensional space is to make and star in a film setting out his theories on the origins and fate of the universe. The film, "Beyond the Horizon", will be a vehicle for some of his views and the views of other cosmologists with some of their most daunting concepts including that there may be up to 11 dimensions.

Most of us can grasp 4 dimensions: length, breadth, depth and time. Perhaps spirituality is another – which I can cope with – but am baffled by the thought of 6 others and look forward to his exposition. Maybe the never-ending patterns, the random accumulation of coincidences into an overwhelming pattern may be a dimension if what he means by a dimension is what I mean i.e. a measurable extent, an aspect or a feature. The real star of Hawking's film will be the computer-generated images that will try to simplify some of cosmology’s most complex ideas.

Scientists are generally agreed that the universe came into being with a Big Bang about 15 billion years ago. The term was coined by Prof Fed Hoyle when he was disputing the now generally accepted theory in cosmology that the universe evolved from one super dense agglomeration of matter that suffered a cataclysmic explosion. In keeping with the laws of physics, matter was created in a cosmic explosion of concentrated matter and energy which had coalesced into a form that was unstable and insupportable with the inevitable transmutation of energy into other forms.

I once heard it said (by my Godmother who was a lecturer on the Scriptures and could read Greek, Latin and Hebrew), regarding the scriptures, that “In the beginning was the word” was a mistranslation which should have been “In the beginning was the sound”; the Big Bang, perhaps? She, of course, died long before the term Big Bang was coined. One of the myriad forms of energy resulting was light, the fastest moving of all known particles. It travels in tiny packets of energy called quanta (singular- quantum ) of photons (particles of energy). Before the Big Bang, therefore, there could only have been darkness. “And the earth was without form and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep” (Genesis 1.2) Whichever way we choose to look at it, there is much in common, these days, between science and theology. But the question “where did it all come from” remains. The question is no more answered by science than it is by the Bible/Torah/Koran.

The first act of God recorded in Genesis is the creation of the universe. But since God is eternal, and the universe has been in existence for a mere 15 billion years, what was he/she/it doing in the infinity of time before the Big Bang? Perhaps God is the essence of consciousness, creating universes without end. Perhaps the Big Bang was not the beginning but only a pause.

The year 2008 marks the start of a new era in physics with the start-up of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) - unless they again fall behind schedule - one of the most eagerly anticipated instruments in the history of the physical sciences. But the LCH is not the only upcoming discovery machine; another is the Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope. (GLAST) which will precisely measure the arival time of gamma pulses. Working together, these two machines may be able to identify dark matter, which together with dark energy,and other unidentified phenomena that make up over 95% of the cosmos. "Dark" matter is not really dark. The adjective expresses science's inability to comprehend it.
My simplistic mind asks "If they do not comprehend 95% of a subject, how can they claim to have any real knowledge at all?"

It all implies the present laws of science and theology are inadequate to explain the creation and we must postulate the existence of an over-riding dimension which, for lack of a definition we might as well call God. “Soul” may be a translation of the Hebrew “nephesh” and its derivation is uncertain but probably means “and man became a living being” which in turn suggests that something entered into a creature to give it the human spark. A common view today of a soul is that it is some form of spiritual essence; a consciousness that enters into a person some time after conception and before birth and leaves at death (it is becoming very doubtful as to whether this is exclusively a human property). It is an immortal component that is neither born nor dies and therefore exists independently of the body. All this is derived from ancient Greek thought and, in that sense, soul is synonymous with psyche or consciousness.

From the scientific angle there is no concrete evidence for the existence of soul (nor is there any evidence to the contrary) although there is a wealth of circumstantial evidence in that the body has an undoubted energy field (or aura) which can be measured and even photographed and there are recent and ongoing studies concerning out-of-body experiences in near-death experiences.

Plato regarded the soul as being like the brain but without the physical properties; a rational, free-floating eternal intelligence. He regarded God in the same light but omnipotent. Many cosmologists now concede that the universe cannot be explained by mathematics but can only be the product of a vast intelligence

The generic term for the energy that pervades life and the universe is Life Force. Some cosily think of it personified in the shape of a little old man, with a harp, sitting on a cloud. Sceptics and some scientists do not believe in it at all, particularly the Geneticist Prof. Richard Dawkins who has published a book disposing of God. Dawkins is one of those narrow minded souls. He may be offended by being referred to as a soul, but there you go. These people never seem to stray beyond the confines of their own particular discipline. He really should engage in conversation with a quantum physicist, engineer or even an astronaut who has returned from space. Professor H J Eysenck, who occupied the Chair in Psychology at London University and was Director of the Psychological Dept. at the Maudsley and Bethlem Royal Hospitals said "Scientists, especially when they leave the field in which they have specialised , are just as ordinary, pig-headed and unreasonable as anybody else, and their unusually high intelligence only makes their predudices all the more dangerous".

George Lucas the film director, in his Star Wars film was near the mark when he had his character Obi-Wan Kenobi describe life force as “The Force” or an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds and penetrates us and binds the galaxy together. Every culture on earth has a term for the concept of life force. Christian tradition dubs it “the soul”.

Each of us has a bio-electric field which can be detected and measured with instruments. The force-field or aura, extends beyond our physical bodies by about 18 inches - although, in water, a shark may detect it half a mile away. Moreover, we are constantly being bombarded and penetrated by particles from the sun or outer space. We could not survive without this constant stream of energy. Sufferers from S.A.D (Seasonal Affective Disorder) know only too well how they are plunged into gloom and depression by receiving insufficient of the particles of energy called photons. To Joe Soap in the street, that is sunlight. It produces vitamin D in our bodies and in all plants and surface-dwelling animals by photosynthesis. There are some creatures, deep underground or under the deepest oceans, who manage without. Other particles of matter pass clear through us and the earth without stopping. Take away the sunlight and we all die – as did the dinosaurs (or most of them). There are a number of therapies that use light (energy waves) to promote healing and a sense of well-being. Light, which is an energy form (that mostly travels in waves), whether natural or man-made affects the amount of hormones secreted by our pineal, hypothalamus and pituitary glands in the brain. The closer the light is to sunlight, the better. It is recommended for convalescing patients and is beneficial in the treatment of various disorders including those as different as skin conditions, jet lag, sleep disorder and dyslexia. In the same order of electro-mechanical rays are ultra-violet light and x-rays.

In my researches, I found a good friend in a Chartered Psychologist. I was an Accountant but we hit it off together as we were both investigative and inclined to scepticism. He is also a hypnotherapist and when he found that I was interested in past life, introduced me to a woman hypnotist in the Aylesbury area who specialised in regression. I made an appointment and was seen together with two other, independent researchers who I had never met before.
I thought, as so many do, that I could not be hypnotised. I was wrong though. I was 'put under' when my turn came whilst the other two people observed, made notes and operated a tape-recorder. Briefly, I was regressed to 1340 when my mind occupied the body of a monk, journeying on foot from a monastery near Kiev (where I had been since aged 8) to Milan University, making a living en route by distilling pain-killer from willow bark. My baggage train was a mule. I was astounded afterwards by my apparent knowledge of 14th century Russian and world politics. I had not studied the subject and had never realised that what we know as Russia was then about 15 independent republics. There was a war going on in Europe which made my journey rather difficult However, I'm aware that the conscious mind can forget a lot but the unconscious retains all at a very deep level and it is possible, though unlikely, that I had read all this at some time. There could be an alternative explanation for my experience.
The same thing may be said of the other two people, both “30-something” ladies who were also regressed at the same time as me. I say 'the same time' but actually, it was a three-day session with one of us undergoing hypnosis each day, the other two acting at witnesses and keeping independent notes.
Interestingly, one of the others was regressed to a South American people, the Olmecs about 800AD.

I will have to look up the correspondence but I think it was in 1983 that I wrote to Carl Sagan, then Professor of Astronomy and Space Sciences at Cornell University about a book he had written “The Dragons of Eden” about the evolution of human intelligence. I asked about his views, if he had any, on hypnosis also the phenomenon of gazing at the back of a person’s head and that person suddenly turning and making eye-contact. I remarked that I was able to do this at will and often, at work, contacted people to whom I wished to speak, sometimes over a considerable distance in. say, a crowded banking hall.

I raised with him the subject of "distant intentionality" as it is now called. Had a reply from his "First Personal Assistant" Pearl Druyen (who I later found out was Mrs Sagan) to the effect that she believed - but Carl was too busy saving the human race to look at the question just yet - but she would tackle him about it. when he had more time

She quoted an instance when she had been at the window on the 16th floor of an hotel in Seoul, observing the ground level with binoculars. She focused on a man sitting on a bench when the man suddenly looked up, Although she was behind a screen they had “eyeball to eyeball contact”

Had he beaten Dr Schmidt to it by a quarter of a century Sagan now might have been hailed as an Einstein.

Got to be something in it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIW8R41F5Cs&NR=1

Len, I am so pleased this is still on-going. It is so interesting.
I don't know anything about your obviously well-educated background as opposed to my very ordinary one, but there are so many things you talk about that I can relate to.
When I was P.A. to the then current Professor of Psychology at our Uni here, I used to have to write to Hanz Eysenck, sometimes even composing a letter on behalf of my boss!
But - this knowing when someone is watching you, I have proven for myself.
On our last tour in Malta, we had a house with a flat roof, and a rather large telescope that my Dad had bought for Mum some years before.
We set this up on our roof mainly to star gaze.
However, there were a lot of houses across the bay from us - with lots of open windows.
Being of a nosey disposition, I have to admit that I spent quite a lot of time long-distance people-watching.
There was one particular window with one particular man, and after probably about five minutes of watching this poor chap get more and more fidgety, he would then get up and close the wooden shutters across his window. He did look out to see if he could spot what was making him uncomfortable, but of course, I was miles away, usually in the dark.
i used to take my pals up onto our roof and bet them I could get this chap to pull his shutters across. I won again and again.
I hope I did not give this poor man a complex!

Jo

I have actually taken some time to read your stuff (threads). Are you a scientist of some description or very interested in this stuff. (I use the word stuff, nicely, because I am confused as to what subject heading it could go under).

Although there is a great deal to read through so only the more serious reader would take the time, I think everyone has experience many of the points in your thread.

For myself I am very sun motivated. Wet, cloudy and cold weather does not naturally motivate me I would prefer to hibenate. But at the age of 21 year and 300 months i have built up a get on with it attitude.

Its good reading.

Jo, you are a naughty girl, where would this poor chap have been living lol?

Sparrow, that took me a bit of working out, lol Must be getting near my bedtime!

Will try to read this thread another time, my head isn't clear today.
Lizx

As with every anecdotal account, there is a counter.

I must have carried out close quarter surveillance on criminal subjects scores of times, many of them being extremely surveillance conscious and on occasions being almost within touching distance of the target. I have taken photographs and video film and comprehensive notes. At all times there were two of us, although both would not necessarily be looking at the target.

At no time - not one single occasion - did the subject give any indication at all that they were aware of being observed. And I'm not talking about CCTV surveillance here - although why should that be different - I am talking about direct line of sight, often with intense concentration.

With regards to the youtube clip of Derren Brown making a woman stop in her tracks, a total stranger walking along a street.....I can't explain it. I don't know anyone who can. But Derren Brown does not claim any paranormal abilities.......I wish he would, it would make it easier to understand!

Imagine you are talking to one of your ancestors from the 18th century.Tell him how you light and heat your house,and how the power you use is produced.
That electricity and that nuclear power were always there,even in the 18c but would he believe you if you told him that?

I imagine Derren Brown makes much more money by claiming to be a hard-line disbeliever in the paranormal. He has won over an enormous audience eager savour his "tricks" and I imagine he would be viewed with disfavour by many of his followers should he admit to anything supernatural.
A very clever and astute man.

Sharon I would love to talk to some of my dead family tree members clear up a few tangle branches.

Sparrow. I suppose I would describe myself as a second-rate philosopher.

I did creditably well in the sciences but my dad ( some 67 years ago when things were viewed quite differently) thought I ought to enter a "respectable" profession and pressured me into entering the City of London College (now Uni,) and become an accountant or banker. I subsequently qualified as an accountant but never liked it much although the pay was reasonable. In fact I loathed it but, by then, had a small family to support.

When I could afford it I enrolled at the LSE and did a three year course Philosophy, Logic and Semantics - which had a severe effect on my mind as you can see from the stuff I write..

Yes reality in income earning hits us all. Glad your able to persue your passion.

I had my tarot cards read once, some of it was true but predictable considering the job i was in. What is your views on the cards.

Sparrow. In my travels I have met many people with unusual gifts (animals too).
I learned that many scientists (including Einstein) who have made major breakthroughs had an inkling of something and slaved away at their maths trying to prove their point but finally gave up. Then, when they shut down their conscious minds and went into a reverie, or meditaional state, inspiration suddenly came to them. Arthur Koestler did a study and came up with some 600 scientists who seemed to have solved major problems by "letting go". It has happened to me. I slogged away at a problem (at work) for about three weeks but finally threw in the towel and gave up. I went and sat on the loo and let my mind go blank ....then the truth hit me. My subconscious knew the answer and gave it to me but only when I shut off my conscious brain.

I believe that readers of tea-leaves, tarot cards, crystal-ball gazers and users of many other devices are using these things as a means of shutting down the conscious, thinking brain and becoming receptive at a sub-conscious level.
Len

Sparrow. Re your post of 23rd, perhaps a suitable, overall subject heading would be "metaphysics"?

Coincience: A remarkable concurrence of events or circumstances without apparent causal connection.

Possibly, by coincidence, you have recently experienced and marveled over a coincidence.
Arthur Köestler, the science-writer and philosopher, in his book “The Roots of Coincidence” observed that coincidences happen too frequently for them to be coincidences. .

Doctor and scientist, visionary and thinker Carl Jung’ one of the greatest intellects of the 20th century called coincidences “acts of creation”. He preferred the name synchronicity though.

Possibly no normal person has yet been born who has not experience this phenomenon. We respond so positively to accounts of coincidences because, as well as making good stories, they have overtones of the paranormal. There is a ritualistic quality to them because of their realistic narrative. A good coincidence story has the manner of a Greek drama about it, with overtones of the supernatural – except that it is not Greek drama but reality.

Coincidences can emerge at any moment. A friend of mine related to me a string of coincidences she experienced just as I was pondering the nature of coincidences and if they are governed by any laws of physics. They certainly fly in the face of statistics in that they occur many times more often than is permitted by chance alone. A major survey in the 1990s asked people to describe spiritual or religious-like experiences that they may have had. A large majority quoted extraordinary coincidences.

A researcher at the University of Manitoba, who spent several years studying coincidences experienced by university students, found that those who experienced “high” on the measure of synchronicity were alert to meaningful coincidences but also scored higher on a self-related measure of psychological health and generally adapted well to university life He concluded that people who are alert to coincidences in their lives, generally see the Universe as a friendly, ordered place and consequently develop an overall sense of well-being.

The one and only recorded time in my life when I walked in my sleep was when I was about 10. I had been asleep in bed when I got up, negotiated down two unlit flights of stairs and was woken up to find myself very disturbed, with my arms round my 18-year-old sister who was about to leave the house. I was saying good-bye to her. She was a nurse at a nearby hospital and she was going back to do her shift on duty. She was killed by a hit and run driver as she walked to the hospital. Coincidence?

Regarding Eldrick's comment that for every anecdotal account there is a counter, could not the same be said for most things that are accepted as fact ?

Regarding Eldrick's comment that for every anecdotal account there is a counter, could not the same be said for most things that are accepted as fact ?

I fully 100% agree, Len.

Which is why anecdotes alone are of such little value when considering the veracity of anything.

Anecdotal evidence can be overwhelming if from from various quarters and respected sources. It is acceptable in law, if not physics. Chris Lintott freely admitted on tv recently that science is very often found to be wrong even though having earlier proven their case.

I used to listen to and tape the BBC Reith Lectures. One of the lectures was given by one of the world's leading neuro-surgeons and, in conclusion, he said that if he had to ascribe properties to man there would be three: One physical, one chemical and the third he could only call spiritual. I still have the tapes but unfortunately, my old reel-to-reel tape recorder has died.

On another tack, I do have a VHS video recording of a Canadian documentary concerning the carrying out tests on a Spiritual Healer. Briefly, volunteers had almost identical damage inflicted to their forearms. A piece of skin and tissue of a given diameter and depth was surgically removed. They were divided into two groups and sat in cubicles with only the damaged area of skin visible. Their arms protruded through a screen and rested on a bench the other side. None knew into which category they had been placed. The control group was left to heal as best they could although unaware of being in any particular group. The second was medically treated with vaporized medicaments and antibiotics whilst the third group received the attention of the Healer. Treatment was (or not) administered over 16 days after which they were examined by dermatologists. The Healer had the highest success rate and the medical treatment came second followed by the control group..
Moreover, whilst doing his stuff the healer was monitored by an electroencephalograph and the technical report stated that an area of his brain was active during the sessions where, normally, no activity would have been expected.

Professor Ian Stevenson, the psychiatrist whose study of personality led to him becoming a world authority on reincarnation died on 8th February 2007. He was born in Montreal, Canada, in 1918 and studied medicine at St Andrews University in Scotland and McGill University, Montreal.

Probably the best known, if not most respected, collection of scientific data that appears to provide scientific proof that reincarnation is real, is the life's work of Dr. Ian Stevenson. Instead of relying on hypnosis to verify that an individual has had a previous life, he instead chose to collect thousands of cases of children who spontaneously (without hypnosis) remember a past life. Dr.Stevenson used this approach because spontaneous past-life memories in a child can be investigated using strict scientific protocols. Hypnosis, while useful in researching into past lives, is less reliable from a purely scientific perspective.

In order to collect his data, Dr. Stevenson methodically documented the child's statements of a previous life. Then he identified the deceased person the child remembers being, and verified the facts of the deceased person's life that match the child's memory. He even matched birthmarks and birth defects to wounds and scars on the deceased, verified by medical records. His strict methods systematically ruled out all possible "normal" explanations for the child’s memories.

Dr. Stevenson devoted the last forty years to the scientific documentation of past life memories of children from all over the world. There are over 3000 cases in his files. Many people, including sceptics and scholars, agree that these cases offer the best evidence yet for reincarnation. His credentials were impeccable. He was a medical doctor and was the author of more than 200 scholarly papers before he began paranormal research. He was the former head of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Virginia, and Director of the Division of Personality Studies at the University of Virginia.

Don't quite agree with what you say about anecdotal evidence being acceptable in law. It may be admissable but unless backed up, it carries as much weight as the jury may put on it - no more than that. For instance, if someone were to say to a jury ' I saw a ghost appear from the wall', and there is no other evidence to support it, such as a photograph or CCTV, the jury are entitled to believe or disbelieve as they think fit. So it may be admissable, as most evidence is. That is not quite the same as being acceptable. Science needs a little more than that.

Dr Ian Stevenson never produced conclusive proof but he was a respected academic. Some of his colleagues dismissed his research, others were ambivalent and some showed interest. However, Dr. Stevenson himself recognized one glaring flaw in his case for reincarnation: the absence of any evidence of a physical process by which a personality could survive death and transfer to another body.

It is extremely intersting, I admit, but a whole lot more work needs to be done before anyone can claim that these things are for real.