Jangchub wrote:
On 28 Aug 2006 20:56:07 -0700, "Mike" wrote:

The pseudo-scientific community draws all kinds of idiotic conclusions
of this type. If you are a big fan of this kind of New Age fluff you
should check out the crackbrain theory of the ``morphogenic field" and
other such absurdities. The world is full of idiots who dabble in
quantum mechanics and other au courant fields of physics and draw
preposterous philosophical and even spiritual conclusions from what
they think they understand about physics. BE WARNED: Charlatans
abound in these areas.

I understand what you think, but I am growing tired of terms like,
idiotic, and crackbrain. Here is the link for Mind Science
Conference. Hardly a group of new age idiots.

http://www.investigatingthemind.org/

I you have a reference to any of these studies and if you think that
any of them qualify as science, let me know.

http://www.enabling.org/ia/vipassana...ndScience.html
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...toryId=4770779
http://www.crystalinks.com/medbrain.html
http://www.twis.org/science/science_...nd_science.htm

OK. This is not what I had in mind when I cautioned you about "idiotic
crackbrain charlatans". These sites are arguing the case that
meditation techniques can have physical and psychological benefits of
various kinds and are attempting to study why. I am willing to believe
that. But if the people who are studying these phenomena use the word
"energy" I still insist that this is a very different usage of the word
energy than the physical sense of the word. There is only, at best, an
analogy between whatever mental phenomena they are studying and the
physical concept of energy. I still maintain that confusion would be
avoided by using a different word than energy. In your previous post
you seemed to be arguing a case for reincarnation by using a principle
of "conservation of energy" that I insisted and still insist it is an
invalid inference based on an analogy. If there is some kind of
conservation of "mind energy", that has to be independently
established.



These sites may still not give you any evidence of how the mind is
pure energy, but I'm not trying to convince you. Nor do I get duped
by chalatans easily. Naive I am not. I think a person can believe in
Buddhist ideals, even be a practitioner complete with holy images of
Buddha's (which, by the way means fully awake).

If Einstein was alive, he'd have finished the Theory of Everything.
He was right on the cusp and possibly had the equation, but he died
before he wrote it down somewhere.

Careful, careful. Einstein was not working on the Theory of Everything
when he died. He was working on cosmological ramifications of general
relativity. The Theory of Everything , if and when we find it, would
be a unification of quantum chromodynamics and the so called standard
model with general relativity. Einstein was not working on that,
though he obviously had thought about the question.

I think string theory is a parallel system to the beliefs in Buddhism.

You should understand that the physics community has gotten rather
sceptical about string theory. String theory seemed to have promise
for a while, but work in that field has gotten bogged down and
physicists are mostly trying other approaches these days. The basic
issue is this: We have two theories (1. QCD and the standard model 2.
general relativity) that have both been verified to extraordinary
degrees of precision, but yet they can't both be exactly right because
their fundamental ontologies are incompatible. General theory cannot
work unless spacetime is a smooth manifold. On the other hand, quantum
theory says that spacetime CAN'T be a smooth manifold due to quantum
fluctuations at the Planck scale. What is needed is a theory of
quantum gravity that will yield QCD and general relativity as limiting
cases, but that will subsume both theories and unify them somehow.
String theory is one of many attempted approaches that, as I said,
seemed to show great promise but has gotten rather bogged down. It may
yet be the case that the correct answer, if and when we find it, is
some kind of variant of string theory, but maybe not. Maybe an
entirely different approach is needed.



Then again, I don't know your working knowledge of the philosophy of
Buddhism. That would help. It's odd to me when someone poopoos
something they may not have fully examined.

I did not exactly poopoo Buddhism. I have the highest respect for
Buddhism as an ethical system. As for reincarnation, well, like all
atheists I take the attitude "where's the evidence"? I have long ago
read Buddhist scriptures and books about Buddhist philosophy. I take
it that you follow the Tibetan variant of Mahayana Buddhism.


Clearly, I have said I am
not qualified in either case, but I hope to be able to stand up to any
challenge the more I learn about my own mind. Maybe by then I won't
bother. It's an incredible waste of energy.

I can give very strong evidence (short of proof) to those I love by
simply being good to them. I have a naive idea that if a person
practices good will and generous conduct to others than it is
reasonable to believe that this is a loving person. This is not the
kind of "proof" that would satisfy a mathematician but, to borrow a
lovely phrase from Anglo-Saxon law, it is "proof beyond a reasonable
doubt".

Translation: You cannot prove you love anyone.

And I specifically agreed that I cannot prove that in the sense that I
prove mathematical theorems. Who would ever maintain otherwise?

We can assert you
love them because you want to be good to them, but that would imply
anyone you are good to is someone you love.

Of course. How can anyone seperate love from the impulse to be good to
someone? Aren't they pretty much the same thing? That does not mean
that my love is restricted to family and a tiny circle of friends. I
am personally not a bodhisattva and I do not claim to feel enormous
amounts of love for a random stranger. But the small amount of love I
can spontaneously feel for a stranger is entirely adequate reason to
feel regard for his/her well-being and to have occasional generous
impulses.

Good will and generous
conduct is what Buddhists call Bodhisattva, right view, skillful
means, etc.

I offer the same evidence to you (short of proof) and when I tell you
about studies being conducted using the adept meditator as the subject
you say prove it. You can't prove you love someone.


But friend, others on this thread have called you "idiot, moron, jerk".
Go back and read my post and you will see that I did not.

Yes, I should have qualified that more clearly Our discussion has
been very decent. Maybe one day there will be a universal answer to
everything, as Einistein was working his entire career to prove. He
got close and I am very interested in string theory as it closely
looks like Buddhist conclusions regarding emptiness. There are many
scientists representing both sides of string theory and the debate is
ongoing. I find it all so interesting and wish I'd have paid more
attention to my physics professor instead of vodka.

Vodka has its merits.

By the way, in case you aren't sure, I am a woman. I've seen some
refer to me as him/her.

Regards