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

The notion of pure consciousness, free from any physical manifestation.
Appealing, and not, to me, particularly troublesome.

"I've never met anybody who could explain to me what they mean by this [a being without a physical body], or even offer anything that would suggest that *they* had any clear idea what they meant."

I will admit, first, that this isn't something I've spent much time thinking about. It's not a problem which it had yet occurred to me to question (though I have certainly questioned many other things, and am continuing to actively do so). I have been attempting to give it some consideration.

I suppose the idea is, vaguely, that we and all we know of are made of matter. Matter and the interactions between matter (the four fundamental forces (charm, bloodymindedness, ... ). But this is not to say that there may not be another set of rules, overlayed with our own, in which different substances interact according to different rules.

This is beginning to sound uncomfortably like parallel universes, which is not at all what I had in mind.

I'll start again.

A spirit being, if such exist, is one without a physical body. That is to say, it does not operate according to the rules so far discovered by physicists. Whether such a being could be said, with any degree of accuracy, to be in a certain physical position in our world, is unlikely. They are certainly aware of our world and may, at times, focus their attentions on a certain point therein. Or may look at the world as a whole. Or may go away and concern themeselves about their own affairs.

I think I'm beginning to see what you mean about my not understanding my own thoughts.


"In the absence of a body that interacts with the physical what would this being be or do?"

Well, for a start, it could certainly interact with other spirit beings.

Now we're back to the parallel universes situation, whereby the physical and spirit worlds are entierly disconnected, but they can see us whereas we can't see them. Spooky.

But did I anywhere say that they could not interact with the physical? I suppose that that's what I meant by 'higher plane'. They can intrude on our world while we cannot intrude on theirs.

Let's sound really sci-fi for a moment, and say that they can extrude manifestations of themeselves into our dimension. Or move stuff around. Or give people spooky feelings. Or communicate directly.

Don't dismantle this all at once, as I'm not sure whether I myself believe all, or indeed any, of it. You've got me thinking now, Noggin.

TRiG.

Oh, and what are the other two forces?

This is all very interesting, TRiG!

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This is exactly how I see it... there's no reason to think that any spiritual being is confined to our physical universe, in fact, probably it's the reverse. I theorise that they're about their own business most of the time, and take part in our world seldom if at all... Except perhaps for s, whose job is to come here...

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This is really the nub of the matter. Rules are rules for interacting. This requires that the rules that constitute the objects in question must form part of the same global set.

If you are going to categorise some things as spiritual, and others as physical, you must have criteria for doing so. Ability to interact doesn't seem to be the right one.

Noggin

I'll come back to this. That's a promise.

TRiG.

A promise I failed to keep.

And I've changed my mind on so many things since then that I'm not at all sure what I would now have to say.

Rereading conversations from when I used to be religious (or questioning) is an odd experience.

TRiG.

Hi TRiG, how's tricks?

Not around much these days, but I spotted this and was curious.

Noggin

Tricks aren't bad.

Looking back at earlier postings, I almost feel I grew up on h2g2. I learned so much on this place. Let no one tell you that the ever-circular religious debate convos are pointless! They did a lot for me.

Of course, I would probably have found a lot of this stuff anyway. And I wouldn't even have participated in them if I hadn't already been questioning something. My posts about the "spirit plane" in this conversation were made by a guy who wasn't at all sure what he believed. Some of my earlier posts in "the God thread", where I spent a lot of time when I first joined h2g2, were made by a guy who was far more sure of himself. Already questioning a little, but hiding it well, even from himself, most of the time.



I joined CARM, the fundamentalist Calivinst messageboard, as a decided atheist (and was later thrown out, along with some other atheists and many of the decent Christians, for being a troublemaker). I've been reading and occasionally commenting on Pharyngula, Jesus & Mo, and Greta Christina's Weblog for some time. And I discovered feminist blogging at Shapely Prose.

But I keep coming back to hootoo. It's my home on the net.



How are you? I've not been keeping up with your blog. (I've not been reading casa az much either, recently.)

TRiG.

You haven't been reading my blog???

So is there still time for you to get a last-minute flight?

http://azahar.wordpress.com/sevilla-meet/

az

I just haven't kept up with it as much as I used to. I've done that before, and then gone back to where I left off and read all the backlog in one sitting. I'll do that again soon.

How's things?

TRiG.