h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Using the argument that there is no one Truth is using that statement as the Truth. You talk of truth as something that can be altered but then you say that there is no one Truth as an unalterable statement thereby creating a paradox. As I understand it, the main way to alter a truth is to create a situation to challenge the way a truth works. By creating a paradox in your statement I thereby prove that your Truth is alterable making it an non-Truth. Since your statement is not true in all circimstances, it creates an opening for the statement that there has to be one Truth to be presented. Therefore, your argument that there is no Truth is invalid because it is an opinion and by definition an opinion is not a truth.

I also add a few things to introduce myself. I am an American 8th grader and the youngest person on the thread. I enjoy music and debates. I will clarify my reasoning further if it is required.

Sir,

I have no intention of starting this whole discussion over every time someone pops in and reads my opening statement.

Congratulations, you have completely demolished me. (blah, blah, blah.)

Now go back and read everything that you skipped over including the message I posted to Elliot immediately before your celestial effulgence burst on the scene.

I'm tired. I'm not angry. I'm just tired.

Obviously, If I do not believe that there are such things as Absolute Truths, then I would be a complete non-thinking sub-cretin to present you all with an Absolute Truth saying so. I try to believe that I am moderately above that level.

You did not create a paradox in my argument. If anyone did, it was myself. What you did was point out that based on rules of logic that my statement could not be accurate and self-consistent. However your argument against my argument was based on an attempt to redefine the events of my argument into definitions which I did not bring to it. Thus your argument is not valid unless you can rephrase it in my terminology, which will still entail your reading everything that I have written here. I will NOT require you to read everything I have written nor even everything I have written on h2g2, merely everything I have written in this thread. And, while you are at it, you might care to read what other people wrote and I responded to. (It might also simplify things if you clicked on my name above and read what I wrote about Truth, Reality, and Honesty, though that would be for extra credit.

Then come back and attack me, if you still care to and I will respond. However, this is not a debate it is a discussion. I do not use Socratic method. It was stupid when Socrates, supposedly invented it. Rather, I expect you to present an argument and support it while at the same time disproving or displacing my previous points.

There are no score or time keepers and the whole thing is over whenever one or the other of us is dead (for which you have the advantage -- I am 53 years old.) or gives up (for which I have the advantage -- you undoubtedly lack my patience.)

You may feel free to take as much time as you like and I will do the same, both to answer and to prepare an answer. Be aware that if you choose to quote some source at me, I will first need to read it, if I haven't already, and then I will need to pick an equally weighty source to fling at you which you will then be obliged to read and so on and so on.

Let's not let it go that far. Let's just make it a nice discussion while we learn to be friends.

Onward:

Go back to your 'proof' and count the number of times you say or imply that I say that truths can change and the number of times that you say or imply that I say that truths can't change. Did you get at least one of each? Good, you're argument is too internally inconsistent to work.

I do not "talk of truth as something that can be altered." I talk of truth (small t) as being relative to the framework of the person who advocates it. Of course, so far as I have been able to determine, no one spends his entire life in the same frame of reference. So while truths cannot change, by definition, they can be abandoned. Given that fundamental alteration in your preface, would you like to alter your response?

Now, if there is no Truth because there are only truths, how would you now characterize my statement about there being no Truth? Could it be a truth? And being merely a truth and not a Truth, there is no potential paradox since truths are simply true within the framework of the person who espouses the truth (let's call him a truthholder.) and whom by implcation, since I hold that there are no Truths must be willing to admit that I might be wrong, if you can prove it. Your mission Mr.Phelps, should you choose to etc. is then to prove that I am inconsistent within my own truth structure and therefore what I have claimed to hold as truth is in fact not true even to me; which is to say that I do believe in Truth. QED? Well almost.

There's another problem. If change is possible, and change is manifestly impossible in a universe with even one Truth in it, unless you can prove that whatever change you contemplate cannot possibly conflict with that Truth (and I have an argument for that one too), then truth must also be changable, particularly if we share the same universe. Think about the thousands of paths that can lead us down.

Pick up when you care to.

Barton

I re-read the thread and now fully realise that I was just repeating a thourougly discussed point. I can understand being tired of repeating myself just to prove my point. By exposing my blaring ignorance I have managed to make myself an ass. I always seem to think that I have an insight while forgetting something recently discussed. I guess it's just the time of life I'm in. Oh well. Hopefully no harm done. You are probably more well read then I will be for a long while. As for there being one Truth, I still have hope that there are truths that I will keep for my whole life as you hopefully have in yours.

Bye the way, you van call me Pander.

Pander,

Yes you did.

Did you learn anything?

Don't feel too bad. Other people seemed to think it was a good point to. So, there was nothing wrong with your thought process, just with checking the water before you jumped in.

And, don't feel bad about that either. I still do it and I've landed head first in the shallow end more times than I'll ever admit to.

Please, believe me when I say that the last thing I want to do is discourage you from having your own thoughts and expressing them.

So, don't hesitate any more than is proper for self-preservation. Make your point, make it well, and jump back just far enough to dodge.

I look forward to your participation.

Barton

Barton & Elliot;

First of all I apologize for my lack of participation. AP exams and finals had me pressed for time.

Second I would like to re-emphasize my first response to "The Death of Truth." What it boils down to is one's own philosophy. The Absolute Truth is all perception. It is all a great big giant hoax. It is a lie; Truth is a liar. We try to prove that there is an Absolute Truth through our mathematics, logic, and science. What in turn are these three things? Why, they are only "safety nets." They provide us with security and "help" us live life to a set of standards. Barton uses a sort of existential view of Truth in his last response; there is no Truth. To the existential, Truth, or *truth* in general, does not exist. Therefore, the existential believes in what he or she deems as the Truth or 'truth'. No matter what philosophy one lives their life by, I agree with Barton, in that, he or she will probably never find the universal Absolute Truth. I strongly believe that there is no Truth in the universe. Barton says that Einstein could have been wrong. True, but he was such a renown and incredible thinker that society believed him. He told the 'truth'.
I propose that there can only be one thing that can define the Absolute Truth: a black hole. What is a black hole? A black hole is nothing, it contains nothing. No matter, no photons, nothing. It is complete emptiness, therefore, this leads me to my conclusion that Truth doesn't exist in the universe and Truth doens't always tell the 'truth'.

-Thomas(my real name)

Thomas,

Thanks for the support. It is clear your truth is that the Truth is that there is no Truth. I have no objection or problem with that. The only thing that might make your Truth a truth (upper to lower case) is that you attempt to prove it using the example of the Black Hole.

Unfortunately, from my point of view, you have a view of black holes which does not hold with current thinking in Astronomy and physics.

A black hole has mass, it distorts space which causes it to exert gravitational effects on and to be effected by other masses in the universe.

What distinguishes a black hole is simply that it has sufficient mass that the escape velocity from its sphere of influence would be faster than the speed of light. This is why it is both black and a hole. Things fall into it and cannot get out once they have crossed the point in space where the escape velocity exceeds the thrust available to the object in order to escape. Light can't even get out past that light speed boundary.

There are literally thousands of interesting things about black holes but I have read nothing to suggest that 'a black hole is nothing.'

If you can find a source for this idea, I would be glad to read it.

Barton

I had to but in here and ask a question, and as I don't know anyone else to answer this question, I'll fire it off to you Barton.

If a black hole has such a strong pull that light cannot escape its reach, then how is it that we know that they are there? I thought that sight was totally light dependant, so therefore we can't see them. How did we find them?

We locate them by what they affect and by related phenomena.

Gravity is a condition of space caused by mass. It is possible to see light being bent as it passes near a black hose but outside the event horizon. In this way a black hole serves as a lens that focuses light around it. This would have the effect of displacing stars behind the black hole and, I imagine, creating a certain amount of spherical and chromatic aberration but I'm guessing there.

When mass falls into a black hole it normally does not fall straight down but rather spirals in creating a cyclotron effect as the gravity accelerates the falling mass near the event horizon. That motion generates Cherenkov radiation (if I am remembering to use the correct term -- radiation in any case) that can be detected.

Another possible way might come from the fact that tidal stresses on mass as it approaches the event horizon would have the effect of pulverizing the mass into finer and finer particles which whould jostle aganinst each other at higher and higher velocities which could create light much like you see when you rub two sugar cubes toether in the dark.

It is important to remember that gravitational effects fall off quickly according to the square of the distance. An object passing near a black hole is not necessarily trapped by it.

Barton

Barton,

But isn't research for black holes all sort of theoretical? I mean, has anyone actually sent a sort of probing device into or near one. I understand how we may detect them by the radiation emitted from them, but I am no astrophysicist. I just believe it is all theretical.
I will refer back to my main standpoint: Truth is not the truth. I strongly think that we cannot determine the Truth of the universe because all of the laws we base truth on are perceived from our own scientific/rational/logical/interperative thought.
Look at it in this perspective. If you were a savage then truth would rest in nature; if you were a businessman then truth would be the true value and monetary base of something; if you were a computer you would base all of your truth on validity of code and syntax. The savage is shaped by nature, and in turn his truths are shaped by nature; the businessman and his truths are told to him by the economy; the CPU's truths are created in code. So see, we have created and shaped everything according to our own perception of truth, so in essence, truth is altered by none other than mankind. According to my principle here, which is about as reliable as a non-renewable resource, if mankind shapes creation according to his/her truths, then, in essence, the whole Truth is missed by a mile or not even obtained.
OK, let's talk scientific. I must reiterate my point on black holes. I must make a correction to my argument, in that, black holes prove our truth wrong which in turn prove any Truth of the universe invalid(our truth being science).
Black holes. I have done a little research and have concluded this. They do exist. That is where I kinda went wrong. They exist but they contradict one of the most important theories of quantum physics and thermodynamics(to mention a couple, I am sure there are still more, but I have not done extensive research). First off, these laws are violated when something reaches the event horizon. "Hawking Radiation" is a theory where there are particles and anti-particle pairs outside the event horizon and there is a possibility of 3 things that could happen to them: 1)both are pulled into the black hole; 2) both escape the black hole; 3) one escapes and the other is pulled in. Now at the event horizon, or "the point of no return", those 3 things can happen. It is stated that the event horizon destroys all matter and particles and all their traceable parts. In #3 of the situation, where both pairs go into the event horizon, matter is destroyed. Here is the problem, one of the major fundamental truths of quantum physics is the Conservation of Matter(you know that one). So at the point of no return, one law is violated or contradicted. Another important law of science is invalidated by black holes. The 1st Law of Thermodynamics(you know that one too I'm sure) is nullified due to the fact that light is destroyed when it reaches event horizon. I was not entirely wrong in stating that Truth in the universe is like that of a black hole. I just mislead my audience. Truth is like a black hole. We base everything on our own truths and some of our own truths are contradicted. The Truth is non conflicting with the universe, you see, black holes prove that man's truths aren't entirely the truth. The similie with Truth and black hole is that the black hole contradicts man's perceived science, and Truth, if found, would contradict truth. I am sorry if this is not coherent, but it is a quick shot of science to support my argument that we are idiots and that we shouldn't even worry about Truth because if you really think about it, what in this universe is true?

-Thoms

Barton,

If you have not already figured it out, I am more of a philosophical point of view person. I try to stay away from all of the logical/scientific/mathematical laws. It is like arguing to different standpoints, but I throughly enjoy the conversation. It is fun to learn from others, and I would indulge upon any corrections or helpful hints, being that I am only 16 I have so much more to learn in life. Although I don't really think that it is a big deal to try and learn everything because I am a firm believer of Confucious and his saying, "The more we learn, the more we learn how little we know."

-Thomas

You dont' give me much to say except that I started this thread saying that there is no Truth (upper case T) there are only truths (lower case t) We are in complete agreement on that.

However, after making your argument based on a non-scientific misunderstanding of the physics of a black hole you then say that you don't want to talk about the scientific stuff.

STOP IT!

Mater is not destroyed or lost past the event horizon, that is why a black hole has mass. The matter is all in there. It is not infinitessimal a black hole can and does have a size. The mysterious things are the quantum black holes which theory says could have been created during the big bang. The whole hole problem past the event horizon is where our understanding breaks down. We don't have any clear idea of what goes on inside a black hole. No one says it goes away, just that we can't talk about it.

Yes there is speculation about the posiblity that when paired and opposite events happen that would normally be be balanced and one of those pairs goes into the hole and the other doesn't then there is, theoretically, an imbalance but only if what goes in is in fact out of our universe. There is nothing, however. that says that if such an event happens AND if the rule of the universe is that everything must ballance out that an equal and opposite event does not happen automatically some place else. WE DON'T KNOW. Stephen Hawkings says he dosn't know he's just asking what if. Quantum events are the area where we are currently speculating that we might have something to speculate about what to speculate about.

This sort of gedenkens experiment is every bit as wierd as Schroedinger's cat or Maxwell's daemon. They are interesting to think about but you have to remember that unless you have read and understood the math, you are dealing with analogues, attempts to test the apparent truth of mathematics against the real world, or, worse, attempts to help us mere mortals understand enough to fund the next round of bigger and better experiments to test the possibility that they might be right.

I can, for instance, talk to you about how the closer you travel to the speed of light the slower your time runs, relative to me and the greater your mass in the dimension of the direction you are travelling. I can do that because those formulae are pretty darn obvious.

Now, you, on the other hand, being the accelerated person from my point of view would see things completely differently from your point of view.

To you I have speeded up, my clack is spinning way to fast. Your dimensions are perfectly normal as you can tell by the yard stick you brought along. To you I have elongated along with the whole universe. You are rushing at light so fast that you are seeing things bluer in front of you and redder behind you.

So what color is the light coming out of your flashlight as you point it forward and backward and to the side. Light has no mass so it cannot be affected by inertia yet it is bent by gravity. Your mass is going up and up as is your density which means that your gravity is getting greater . . . doesn't it? Or does it.

If you're not getting confused I certainly am.

You are correct, you cannot properly observe a system you are part of. So, just because you think you have a truth, doesn't mean you're right. It also doesn't mean you are wrong. The only thing I can offer is the paradox saying that anything that doesn't admit of degrees of truth is imaginary.

Please, if you want to philosphize, go right ahead. I love this stuff. Just don't make the mistake of trying to prove absolutely that there are no absolutes -- and worse, do it by assuming that logic is an absolute tool to do it with.

My point from the beginning, with all the flim flam and window dressing striped away is that there doesn't seem to be any way to prove anything without starting with some sort of arbitrary postulate of a standard of Truth, which I have characterized as an act of faith.
Once you face up to that, and locate your postulates, then you know what you need to do to test your truth -- try to find a way to prove your truth is false or true without using your truth or something that depends on your truth.

I have spouted all these physics at you that I have picked up from all the fun reading I've done. Every time I or you says that something is so, that we have not and cannot verify ourselves then we are commiting an act of faith, like waving Hawking around like a Holy Grail or using Einstein as the Ark of the Covenant.or Jesus as the Savior and Son of God.

All of that cannot be challenged because it can't be disproved, at least, not yet. In fact, any logician will tell you that there is no way to prove any negative proposition which is, of course, a negative proposition.

What are you going to do? What *I* do is sit back and wait for someone to say something that seems to make sense or clearly doesn't make sense, or if I'm bored, I'll throw out something, and pull it apart till I find the root postulates. If I like them, I keep them, if I don't like them, I set them up on shelves like kewpie dolls and throw rocks at them. So far every one I have hit has at least got a crack in it. And since truths cannot be subdivided and remain truths, just as fundamental particles cannot be split and remain fundamental, then, just like George William Bulkhead (obscure reference warning) I throw them on the great heap in my back yard and leave nothing but what I have chosen not to test.

There they are, glittering and glowing and even if you think I'm some sort of antidisestablishmentarian fool clutching foolsgold to my heart, it doesn't matter. Those are the truths that *I* live by.

I'm glad you seem to share some of my truths, that makes us members of the same clown's college and borther masons of the same crooked wall.

If you want to consider physics as a proof that the universe has no rules then look up the recently discovered change in Planck's Constant. If our key constants are inconstant, then the whole structure of physics may turn out to be a local phenominon.

Consdier one more thing, by definition, a black whole is a mass which has a center of gravity from which the escape velocity is greater than the speed of light. If we look about us and in the skys we see galaxies fleeing from us at uniformly high speeds approaching the speed of light and if the theory holds that the mass of the universe is such all of the mass we now see expanding must eventually fall back on itself into another monoblock which will then explode again and that the only way we could ever escape this universe would be to outrun the explosion at greater than the speed of light, THEN we are living in a black hole which undoubtedly does contain other black holes about which we know nothing more than that they are there, just as Einstein's formulae indicated they should be. If you want to test this hypothesis all you need to do is figure backwards from the 'known' size of the galaxie and what the effective mass of the universe would have to be inorder to have an escape velocity greater than the speed of light. Then figure out if the universe could have that much mass. That's two speculations that need to be answered before we can know.

(In any case, if you prove that the second law of thermodynaics has been broken, all you have proven is sthat *it* was wrong, not that the universe is. The map is not the territory (unless the map IS the territory)

Take care.

Barton

I seem to remember reading somewhere that objects that seem to be coming closer to us have a blue shift and objects going away have a red shift. This observation that objects moving away seem to have a red shift was the parent for the big bang theory. I've have yet to come across a theory/belief that described the blue shift that was later observed. Hat's off to your theory of black hole (or at least qualities resembling black hole in relation to escape velocity) of the universe. I read the reply and spent the better part of the day thinking about it.

If something were to escape, thereby breaking the parameters set by the black hole universe idea, then wouldn't an incredible amount of energy be released? In some form, wether it were light, or heat, or whatever?

This reminds me of what happens when an atom moves out of its shell. Energy is released. I think that is an interesting point to ponder. As I'm thinking about this again, it occurs to me that if matter did escape than it would no longer be a black hole.

Crap, foiled again.

Again, keeping in mind that the map is not the territory, it we are in a black hole or not, if something can escape from a black hole, and that after all is the basis for the idea of a white hole, then maybe it's still a black hole and our definition needs to be re-defined.

Barton

To All:

A previous experience has brought forth a revelation to my measly pathetic existence: Death. Not the Death of Truth, but just plain Death. There is one Absolute Truth and it is Death. It is proven by science by Modern Biology. Every organic compound is 1) Created 2) Lives and 3) Dies. It is that simple. There might be an energy release of some sort, but in essence when something organic dies it no longer exists by our standards of existence. In all, we are governed by one Absolute Truth...Death. It is a natural phenomenon that happens to us all and to the rest of the living world. If there is an equation or a scientific law that states otherwise, let me know, but I do know as a 'truth'(lower case t) that Death cannot destroyed only posponed. I am reminded of a poem and the very first line of that poem by Emily Dickenson. It goes:
"I could not stop for Death / but Death kindly stopped for me"

Seize Life by it's Hand,

Thomas

Not to be overly picky, but not all organic compounds are living and so can not be said to die. When the decompose, which is to say break down into lesser compounds, that is all that they have done.

Just as not all orgainic compounds are not living, not all compounds are organic. Science does not have any definite definition of life, but my favorite one defines life as negative entropy. This is to say that while non-living matter tends toward greater positive entropy (or lack of organization), living matter tends toward less entropy (or greater organization).

When a living organiam stop living, or dies, it decomposes, which is to say that it, being, now, non-living, moves toward greater entropy. It is a law of the universe, according to thermodynamics, that entropy tends to increase. (Please note: not 'must' increase, but 'tends' to increase.) Thus, one possible theory, called the Heat Death of the Universe, for how it will all end results with the maximum even distribution of heat and the maximum entropy (or a warm/hot soup of homogenious soup of atoms/particles).

The fact that you or I must die (and there are many who are not ready to admit that that is a necessary condition or, for that matter, that death is, in fact, an end for us.) does not make it a necessity that the universe must die, which is why there are theories of the universe that state that there is no end, that at some point all of the tendency toward maximum entropy will be overcome by the other forces of the universe and everything will begin to contract into a huge monoblock which will explode and begin the cycle all over again.

This is the Repeating Big Bang theory which depends on how much mass there really is in the universe and ties in directly with our previous discussion of whether we might be living inside a black hole.

I do not pretend to know if your concept of Death being the Absolute Truth that defines us all is real or not. But, it is plain that it to is based on an act of faith on your part that your death and those of others matters in some significant way. I cannot question your faith, but I cannot prove it either.

Certainly, it appears that life in general need not be organic, but that is a minor flaw in your argument. But, if Death is some Truth, then it seems that Life might be another such Truth. And there does not seem to be any way that I know, short of waiting to find out, which is the greater and everlasting Truth.

It seems clear that Life must give way to Death in order for there to be room for more Life which must give way to Death, etc. What also seems clear is that there can be no Death till there is Life and that after there is no Life there can be no Death. Therefore, Death is only a temporary Truth, if Truth it is at all.

By my definition a temporary Truth cannot be Absolute. Therefore, by definition death is only a truth.

Incidentally, death eternally postponed is known as eternal life. I'm going to set aside issues raised by various religions that say that death was brought into 'the world' as part of the acts of creation, your statement that death is natural seems to indicate that those stories are not part of your faith structure.

Your concept of death seems to be more akin to saying that everything wears out. Your concept also seems to say that the individual is the only unit that matters. So, for you it is more important that you will die than than mankind may live on.

You also seem to overlook the paradox that the line of poetry you quote is the *first* line of poem, not the last. Ms. Dickenson knows no more about what happens after death than do any of us, yet she chose to start *her* poem with death rather than end it, as you would seem to have us do.

Of course, if we are all dead, and there is nothing after death, which so far we cannot prove either, then my having 'won' *by definition* is a hollow victory indeed since I may well be dead before you are. And if, by chance, you should die before I do and there is nothing after life, you will not even be able to laugh at me and say that you have won after all.

Barton

I know I'm gonna have to go and find the audio again, but I can't help but bring it up here. I heard it on
[URL removed by moderator]
but I can't remember the guest that she had on the air that day. At any rate there is a group of scientists that were performing a test with DNA from a skin samples taken from different subjects. The samples were sent to a lab where they were observed. The subjects were exposed to various visual aides designed to induce certain emotions, fear, anger, happiness, love, depression, etc. It was noted that as the subject experienced the negative emotions, fear, anger, etc the coils of the DNA wound tighter. As the subject expierenced the positive emotions, the coil relaxed. The point that the speaker was making was that not only did the human DNA react to the expierences that the subject was having, but it also happened instantly. There was no delay, and he pointed out that the subjects were not on the same side of the country.

My point is this, Barton had made the statement that life tends toward less entropy, and that made me think of this article that seemed to suggest that there is something that is not bound by known laws of distance and time. There was no delay.

And all of this would seem to suggest that Death is not an absolute truth, and Death is a change in state. Who is to say that this unseen force that was brought out in the tests, dissolves into entropy at death. Perhaps the beginings of the proof for the soul has been started.

I'll get back to you with the author

Please do.

This is akin to what is called Lysenkoism, which was the Soviet answer to Darwinism. Darwin maintained that traits are passed from generation to generation by way of mixing fixed genetic material. This is a very objective viewpoint that supports the concept of evolution.

Lysenko maintained that the genes are altered by our life experiences and thus things learned by an organism can be passed immediately to the children of an organism.

During the '60s drug scares, the newspapers reported that LSD had been shown to cause genetic damage. A few days later, on the back pages, similar results were shown to occur from the use of such common drugs as coffee, asprin, and Coca Cola.

The point here is that both viewpoints, Darwinism and Lysenkoism have some validity. The genes are passed and the genes are responsive to life experience.

I'm not sure that the experiments you report can be taken as proof that there is life after death or the opposite, but it is clear that there is still much for us to learn about the nature of life.

There should be no surprise that there are methods of communication that do not seem to obey the inverse square law of radiation. Years of scientific research into ESP and related paranormal abilities have not established how they work but have established and recorded that results are real and to a certain extent repeatable with statistical results that far exceed the levels at which we would normally assign a judgment of certainty equivalent to a judgement that the sun will 'rise' the next day and that other physical events are taken to be inevitable.

It is the very quality of not being subject to inverse square laws that has caused so much controversy and outright rejection in the scientific community.

Something as simple and repeatable as proving that plants experience what we can only interpret as fear is still treated as exotic information some thirty years after it was first demonstrated. That plants can seem to learn from the experiences of other plants which they are not connected to is even less well known.

If a strand of DNA from one individual is essetially identical to another strand from the same individual it is not that strange to accept that the two are able to experience and react to stimuli even if they are physically separated. We had long ago recognized that identical twins seem to show the ability to experience the same events to a certain extent. We simply haven't been able to demonstrate the mechanism by which it works.

One of the speculations is that there is something called 'soul' that is part of or a result of life. This soul may or may not be independant of the living organism. We won't be able to tell till we can find a way to 'view' souls and determine how they react to death.

The whole issue of Strong AI is ultimately to be resolved by issues such as whether souls exist and if they react with life or are something different from mind.

When we speak of man being self aware we are obviously positing the existence of a 'self' which is capable of being aware of itself. If that self is independent of the body, the result of the body, or simply, the sum and total of body with no possible separation is an issue that has been only occasionaly addressed by science.

One interesting experiment involved putting the beds of terminal patients on scales. It was observed that when a patient died that there was a loss of weight that could be measured and was similar in magnetude from patient to patient. Science records this information but it cannot explain it, yet.

So it goes.

Barton

There simply are no words. As before in this forum you have shocked me et again. I did not know about the dying patients and the wieght change.

Fascinating.

And also, I don't know if it is proof of a soul or not either. I'm speculating, and trying to offer a little condolence to someone who has quite obviously lost someone dear to them.

I'd never heard the term Lysenkoism. I'd always heard that concept called the collective unconscious, and refered to the Akashic Record from there.

The plant studies are new to me also. Seems to be a lot like what James Redfield wrote about in the Celestine Prophecy.

I've bounced the idea off a few people I know and the reaction is always the same. They are almost always struck by fear. "That is really scary," they'll say. That strikes me as bizzare. I don't see what is so scary about it, and I think that this is the reason science hasn't done much more than dabble in this area.

At any rate, off to find that author/speaker.

Here is a link to the archive page. In case is is removed by the moderators however, look for Laura Lee, and then an obligatory dot com.

Then name of the audio was Experimental Evidence for the Quantum Hologram, the author-Gregg Braden. He wrote the Isiah Effect, and I have not yet read any of his books.

I'm going to listen to it again later on today to see if that is really the one that I heard about all this, but the title rang a bell in the old noggin, and so did the description so I'm 99% sure this is the one.

enjoy
Lucien

[URL removed by moderator]

I've listened to part of the audio through the mention of dna experiment you mentioned.

I guess I'll have to see if I can find the actual reports mentioned, because what this man is discussing is pitched at so low a level of understanding that what he says is merely anecdotal.

The first expermient in particular talks about 'particles' of light as if they were static and just hanging about in the vacuum tube. The implications of that experiment are therefore interesting but suspect because of the lack of actual data and nature of the measurements.

The same is true of the second experiment in that no description of the actual events being measured is given nor of the type of equipment being used to take the measurements. Also, mention was made of simultaneity without establishing how it was measured and how it was established when the stimulus occured and when the response happened at the two different locations. No mention was made of signal strength at the increasing distances which would have been even more significant if there was no effect due to distance. This leads me to think that this person has been editing what he saw to support his own understandable wonder and to keep things moving for the radio audience. To much showmanship and not enough science. The original source material should be available. I will look for it, but let me know if you find it.

Barton