Do spiritual things exist?

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That was the point. There are a lot of interesting questions that neuroscience could tackle, given enough time, but there are things that there is an actual concrete, visible return on to spend time studying. Therefore, it annoys me when some people say, "if neuroscience is so great, why can't it explain so-and-so?" and just wave their hands dismissively if you can't immediately pop out a ready-to-go answer, as if that just proves everything. And I agree with you on Phrygian, though my tastes tend toward Mixolydian, which I find has a cutesy adventurous ring to it, yet it's more light-hearted than Dorian, which has a similar appeal.

Tech, out for the weekend. Will pick up in a few days.

Oh, and you can get yourself into an interesting creative funk by mentally getting a simple three-layered rhythm going in your head, and think about various mechanical devices that are familiar to you. Just go through the gamut of them, and consider carefully how they work, what the mathematics are behind them are, etc.. Then you switch subjects slightly, moving from that to something vaguely related, such as architecture, perhaps. From there, switch subjects again. And what you do is you keep circulating through various things, connecting them together, until everything starts to get kind of scrambled. All the while, let the three-layered beat keep pounding away, and it might evolve in peculiar ways as you go through the other exercises. The best time to do this is when you are falling asleep. As you nod off, you ought to be in an unusually open state.

well said.

No part of my brain needs ancient fairy tales.

I do, however, need awe and wonder. Cogitating regarding the facts uncovered by the intellectual community provides me with continual awe and wonder.
Not to mention art and music.

I think that has just as much of a problem as the statement "I only tell lies". There's really no sign we have that there's any such thing as randomness. There's definitely complexity beyond what the human mind could comprehend even if that were nothing than the butterfly effect of trillions of trillions of material particles interacting; that makes complexity not randomness. 'Chance' is a similarly human term, and for as much as people like to wield probability or likelihoods as real things I can't escape the sense that those are also just as fixed, logical, and physically destined albeit again its simply a causal chain that's beyond our data collecting and processing capabilities.

"Spirituality" may be defined as an awareness of something greater than yourself, be it a family, society, humanity, universe, higher worlds and so on. But it must be something better or progressive. Something to strive towards, not rehashed old stuff like religions or shamanism.


But you guys want to define the practical spirituality, with immaterial beings, objects and so on. Well, I have a hypothesis. (and several studies here and there) Mostly untestable of course, but not really new (many people thought of that already even in this thread) and we can always compare it to whatever needed. The good side is, that it obeys and preserves all physical and logical laws, which I can't say about some other speculations in this thread. And it does not make a problem (or anything) of a God, timeline and so on.

This hypothesis is simple, it says that the material atoms and particles may exist in different varieties (supersymmetry) or even something as exotic as axion physics and who knows what else. So there is a lot stuff out there that is material, but almost doesn't interact with our matter or light. And maybe with exception of supersymmetric matter, it won't form solid objects. It will rather form worlds, items or even life forms of plasma and magnetic plasma, highly structured by other forces than weak-nuclear bond.
I am confident for now that cosmic dark matter, which outhweighs our universe several times, is supersymmetric, made of WIMPs, but also very similar to our matter and probably conversible back and forth, using right technology. I am not sure of what dark energy might be. Only that it must be something hell a lot more exotic.

It is a very simple thing to say, but it has enormous implications and ramifications and really demands to turn our thinking upside down in some aspects. That's what techstepgenr8tion here called "complete inversion of reductive materialism". Take that, professor Jack Occam Ripper!

Another part of this hypothesis is, that a very complex life form like us is a symbiosis and conscious interplay of several these material components. We may have this biologic body, but it is permeated and enveloped by supersymmetric body, further permeated and enveloped by a magnetic plasma body. Each higher body may serve as a scaffold to the lower body, with natural processes doing the rest. Basically, we are great concentrations of complex, structured, active (living) "exotic" matter, followed by animals, plants and minerals, preceded maybe by planets, suns and galaxies. If weird things happen with reality around us, it's no coincidence.

An indivisible implication of this hypothesis is, that the biologic level is the least durable, least permanent, least energetic. It gets grown last and it dies first, while the other components may pre-exist and exist after its death. The supersymmetric body may even serve as a scaffold for growth of tissues, for good or bad. And the magnetic plasma body is a better representation of how the universe really works, than what we physically see. Universe is not really stars and then nothing. That's just a tip of the iceberg and it's just as cold and distant, a fringe of the universe. The real universe of higher forms of matter may be a radiant, living place where entropy is considerably weaker, or where death is a technical impossibility. What we think of as the universe is therefore not representative of the reality at all. No darkness and emptiness.

The basis of the universe is energy, abundance of it. We think energy is scarce, because we're at the fringe of the universe, that is material fringe, not spatial. We even coined such nonsensical terms as nothingness, while the real basis of universe may be... "everythingness" instead. You just have to think a little bigger. It's not likely the universe will ever collapse back to the source, but it may be that every material particle is capable of ascending qualitatively "upwards" the seven string dimensions, therefore sidestepping the expanded space and abandoning the universe for good.

Some philosophy: The basis of the existence is an absolute "omnipotentce", metaphorically said. Imagine a "divine" material particle, that is capable of existing in all dimensions at once, as all conceivable states and parameters at once if you want, which is necessarily a form-less, or all-morphous existence, allowing no variation. An endless potential, but none of it manifested. For this potential to manifest, it must be destroyed.
We think of the world as a creation, but it is not a creation. It is restriction and limitation, destruction of the original beauty. Of course it must be describable strictly in mathemathical terms, but first time a theologian goes around, he'll call it a fall from grace or something, you can bet on that.

Ok, I'm at my best as long as nobody wants a material proof from me. Maybe someday a real mathemathician or a scientist will read such a text and will get poetically inspired to change his thinking and his science accordingly and maybe will discover something.
I hope any of it makes sense to you, it makes lots of sense to me and that doesn't even begin to describe my (personal/empirical) sensoric experience.

I'm like that but I recognize it for what it is, a psychological phenomena that's inherent to me, not to the external universe. I shake my fist at the trickster god, ask the moon to help me turn a new leaf, and such things, but I understand them all to be fantasy. I just let that part of my mind a bit of slack on the leash, I never let go of the leash.

I like to let go of the leash. I think that spirituality is a personal experience - that you can't verify it, you just have to know it. It does come down to brain chemistry, but what's causing the chemistry? I don't know, but I'm pretty sure there are greater forces at work than I can explain.

I have to ask, have you read Kybalion or Corpus Hermeticum? If not I think you'd be stunned by the similarities between what you're suggesting and what you'd find there.

Let's call the world that we're conscious of - that we can see and experience - the physical; and that which we can only experience subconsciously, instinctively and intuitively - the spiritual. Scientists tell us that the degree of subconscious influence is at least 95%. This would suggest that the predominant reality is spiritual rather than physical. I think it's wrong for scientists to disregard the reality of the spiritual simply because it cannot be observed and measured.

I believe the spiritual is just as physical as what you consider this physical world to be. The subconscious is simply the interface that connects these separate physical realities together; an interface to your soul which is your collective self. Whether a world / realm is spiritual or physical is simply a matter of perspective. From our perspective here, any other realm out there is spiritual; but from the perspective of a world / realm out there, our world / realm here is spiritual. Because if you're distant from it, it can only be imagined. But just because something can only be imagined from here doesn't mean it cannot actually physically exist somewhere.

So, for me, the spiritual definitely exists. I don't even think of it in a religious context anymore.

i thought that everyone, spiritualists included, agreed that spiritual things are hallucinations?

This very neatly sums up my own thoughts on the matter.

Your personal experience is a kind of observation. Verification depends on observation. I may not be able to independently verify your experience, nor you mine, but what we both have in common is that we have experiences at all, and the nature of the nuanced expression of those is something that we do share. We know that SOMETHING is going on, even if we cannot readily explain it.

I like using the analogy of "dark matter". Astronomers know that gravitation is the sort of glue that holds the universe together. But there are also vast distances of space between galaxies and even between star systems within galaxies. So what keeps galaxies together without just flying apart? In other words, what is the unseen source of gravitation that has enough mass to reign it all in? Thus the idea of "dark matter" was born. You can't see it. Nobody knows beyond speculation what it is. The only "proof" that it exists is mere inference from the structures of galaxies. It also supposedly plays a significant role in an optical illusion in which the appearance of a galaxy is reproduced, bent, or stretched around another galaxy or cluster of galaxies.

That's science for you. And I think something like the spirit or soul can be inferred the same way. SOMETHING drives our brain chemistry, and thoughts/feelings are entirely too nuanced to be relegated to a simple matter of biology.

A few years ago, I was obsessed with how the immune system and central nervous system interacted and worked together. The reason for the confusion in this area is that have, for too long, borne the false assumption that the brain and the body are two very different systems, distinct from one another. This is one of the negative consequences of dualistic thinking...the assumption that mind and body are essentially different.

In fact, you could probably make a lot of progress in using meditation to control cancer. Norepinephrine, which is a neurotransmitter you could easily control by mood regulation, is a nasty culprit in metastasis. Also, normal cortisol rhythms have a strong protective effect in cancer patients, which could be controlled by mood regulation. It could be controlled by normal sleep rhythms. Night-time melatonin, which can be controlled through good sleep hygiene, can help control cancer. All of this can be approached through simple, straightforward meditation.

We judge a scientist by his methods, not by his conclusions. A scientist does not control his conclusions and shouldn't. He controls his methods. A person who tries to control his conclusions is not practicing good science.

Try putting yourself immediately through a stretch routine upon waking up. And try using vocalizations to get your lungs going and clear your airway. Trying to get out of bed immediately upon waking is like taking a jog without warming up. It's dumb. You stretch before getting out of bed just like you stretch before running a footrace.

And it's a myth that you ought to do strenuous exercise in the early morning: the best thing to do upon waking up is to step outside, walk around for a bit, and calmly look at things in your area. Think about what needs to be done. Think to yourself, "it is time to rake the leaves." Think to yourself, "it is time to mow the lawn." Review needs like this. Thinking about needs is important in the morning. Thinking about what is urgent and necessary is important in the morning. It's the time of day when it is appropriate and slightly pleasant to remind yourself, "I can feel concerned about things and aware of needs. I am human. I am moral." The time to feel unconcerned is later on, after you have gotten yourself into a good rhythm.

I'm seeing one of the best guys in the state for it, actually. Before that, though, I had already gotten good at controlling my autism and Tourettes myself, and I had reigned in my depression to the point that it was almost nonexistent. It still was interfering with me getting where I wanted to with my life, though. I still couldn't stay focused on one subject, and I kept expanding on ideas in such a way that they would inflate beyond my ability to devote any amount of time to them at all.

Heh, I like to tell people, "I am crazy enough without religion, thank you."

Or behind the simple.

Every time I let go of the leash (in this or anything else) things end in complete disaster, or at least that's how it seems. I don't trust my instinctual/emotional side; it's performance record is extremely poor. I let it loose but within sharp constraints.

Whether you call it spirituality or the unconscious, your experience of it is indeed personal to you, and looking at it as the unconscious from a Jungian standpoint (I'm not a pro only a layperson, mind you), it's a healthy thing to not let go of the leash. The ego needs to maintain some level of control.

We shouldn't go off the deep end in either direction - too much irrationality or too much rationality.

Last edited by SpiritBlooms on 26 Jun 2012, 4:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.

My instinctual side has been pretty good to me over the long run.

Balance is important though between emotion and rationality - either, unchecked by the other, can lead to bad decisions.

Sometimes I think my AS leads me to assign more power to incidents or things like inanimate objects than they probably deserve, but that's how I process things.

I have heard of Kybalion. I know of a few untrustworthy spiritualists who use this book, one is Doreen Virtue and the others are local. I recognize the basic principles, they're quite universal. Principles of vibration, cause and effect, rhythm, polarity and so on.

But I prefer some more modern sources, like Alice Bailey's books on Theosophy. One of interesting points there is... a kind of panpsychism idea. The higher layers or dimensions of the universe let grow the emotional and mental body, so objects and energies on that level are perceived by us as thoughts and emotions. In this way there is - as far as we are concerned- a world of emotion, world of thought and so on. An activity of the mental and emotional body then must be reflected in the brain, if there should be any conscious benefit from it on the solid level.

We already heard of the law of correspondence. Maybe it makes the world tick, but it also makes things diffcult. For example, how are we supposed to test spiritual things properly, when there's correspondence everywhere? How to separate cause from the effect? I don't really perform prayers, but let's say for example if I pray for success on exams, do I invoke an increased flow of mental "energy" for a particular time/place/situation? Or do I keep a momentary heightened state of awareness and associate it within my neuron connections with an imagined future situation of the exams? Or both?

That depends if we can find a medical problem that causes the hallucinations.