Gee wrote:Greylorn;
You can not put the word "soul" in the title of your book, "Digital Universe -- Analog Soul", and still expect that people will not see the relationship between "beon" and "soul". The problem with dealing with people who think, is that they do.
Nice observation and thoughtful comeuppance!
Dealing with people who think can be briefly humbling and often challenging, but is consistently rewarding.
Gee wrote:Your demands are unreasonable.
Of all the bad and wrong things I've been justifiably accused of, this is the first appearance of
unreasonable demands. Would you mind enumerating some specific demands?
Gee wrote:In your book, you compare digital and analog to two buckets, one full of sand the other full of water. The "digital" bucket full of sand can be counted, because grains of sand can be counted; but the "analog" bucket of water can not be counted, it can only be weighed or measured because it is fluid.
I hope that I also mentioned that the analogy is imperfect, because at the molecular level the water consists of a finite number of molecules. Theoretically an apparatus can be devised to count them, but in practice a reasonably approximate count can be calculated by weighing the bucket. I'm delighted that you understand the analogy as it was intended.
Gee wrote:This actually makes a great deal of sense to me because I would equate the digital bucket to my first division of consciousness, the thoughts, knowledge, and memory, division. Knowledge can be broken into specific pieces, traced back to its source, and, although internal, knowledge can be shared through thoughts and words, because knowledge is divisible.
I would equate the analog bucket to my second division of consciousness, the awareness, feeling, and emotion, division. This division does not break up into pieces very well at all, as it is too fluid. But this is where our thinking diverges, as I continue to define the fluid aspect of consciousness, and so far, you do not seem to. You seem to treat it with a wholeness, beon, that mimics religious teachings regarding the "soul" and science's ideas regarding the human brain.
We appear to have entirely different takes on nitty-gritty components of consciousness. I'd find it helpful to know what chapter you've finished.
I noted long ago that I was looking forward to your read, because you have explored consciousness from an entirely different perspective than mine. I'm hoping that in time you will be able to detail your concepts that I might better understand them.
We are not ready for a full discussion yet, but I must correct some of your notions about Beon Theory. Remember, I approach the subject in terms of mechanisms first. The brain is clearly digitized, in that its neurons, axons, and connections are finite and theoretically countable at any given point in time.
However, the flow of electricity through any digital device produces extraneous analog signals. An improperly shielded digital computer will interfere with an analog TV set. The brain's extraneous analog signals (brain waves) can be picked up by detectors placed at the skull's surface.
Some neurological research has demonstrated that analog signals within the brain can carry information, and are therefore not extraneous. Beon Theory proposes that beon is a completely analog kind of entity, operating in the conventional physical universe via waves and fields-- the analog components of our atomically digitized universe.
I understand what you mean by the digitization of thoughts via language. This is an interesting and valid perspective that had not occurred to me.
It fits rather nicely into my perspectives about the digitization of the physical universe, in this sense.
Information that is transferred in waves of energy (or anything else) tends to be more easily interfered with and distorted than digitized information, especially when the wave energy is low, as it is for human thought. Digitization, or digital encoding of information, renders the information more stable.
Language, then, is the digital representation of analog thought. That is why we must express new ideas with words, images, or mathematics to prevent them from returning to the aether, forever lost, and to convey them to others.
It is essential to avoid confusing the digitization or encoding of thoughts with the actual thoughts themselves. Ultimately the only thing that language can do is to guide an individual from words that try to describe a concept, to the actual concept itself. The effectiveness of this method of thought transference is subject to many variables, and usually produces an inaccurate transfer of concept. Not only must the language of the explanation be clear, the recipient must be prepared to understand it. What good would Richard Feynman's superb physics lectures be to someone whose big interest and major curiosity was, why does his cat use his bed when it has the runs?
I was intent on inviting you to read DUAS because of your intense interest and insights into the nature of consciousness. Making the connections between consciousness and thermodynamics might be a few miles down the road, but your curiosity could make it happen, and your anticipated insights have already made their first appearance. With contributions from interested others we can crack the mystery of consciousness.
Gee wrote:Whereas I consider that although a bucket of water can not be counted, it has different properties -- it can evaporate. So the water can appear to be gone, although we know that it is not gone -- just dispersed. Then it can condense into many different drops that take the original liquid form, so what was once one bucket of water can instead be many drops over a large expanse of land. It is a cycle, and I suspect that consciousness cycles in this same way.
So what you would see as beon attaching to a human, I would see as beons, more like water molecules, combining, or condensing, in all life. What you would see as reincarnation for humans, I would see as reincarnation for all life. If anyone bothered to read Dr. Ian Stevenson's information and "evidence" from the link that I provided 20 or so pages ago, they would realize that reincarnation has the ability to affect the new life -- physically. If reincarnating can physically affect the new life, and we lose our arrogance about being human and therefore above and distinct from all other life, then the "natural selection" part of Darwin's theory becomes feasible -- reincarnated consciousness being the natural selector.
Your ideas would sit nicely with a mathematician friend with whom I've been exchanging ideas since he discovered B.T. several years ago. He is essentially a New Ager at heart, and has given my ideas about the inherent individuality of beon nothing better than lip service. You and he would get along wonderfully and I would be outnumbered. Before that dreadful day, let me clarify a few misconceptions on your part.
Beon does not naturally attach to a human unless it is badly confused or fundamentally evil, and those guys typically attach to human brains whose designated beon cannot remain in charge, or who relinquishes control of its brain. You seem to have borrowed some science-channel image of a virus attaching itself to a human cell or sperm cells attacking an egg, and substituted these parasitical biological images with some bizarre notion of beons connecting to brains. Beon is not inherently parasitic, although some of them, like union members, welfare recipients, and our President, learn that insidious adaptation. B.T. proposes that the human brain contains circuitry that attracts beon about six months into pregnancy, and maintains that connection until it dies or can no longer abide the connections, resulting in some forms of madness.
Gee wrote:Of course, no one is going to even consider this because we are all locked into our biases. There was a riddle that was popular in the 70's, and it goes like this: A man was on his way to work, and had his son with him because he was taking the child to school on the way. There was a terrible accident, the man was killed, the boy was horribly injured and taken to the nearest hospital. Was then rushed through Emergency straight up to surgery where the surgeon took one look at him and announced, "I can't operate on him. That is my son!" So who was the surgeon?
I must have asked 50 different people this question, and no one got it right. They would guess the father, who was dead, the step-father, a grandfather, one even stated that it had to be a priest, but no one could figure out the obvious answer. Why? Because we are so influenced by our biases, that sometimes we can not see a simple truth that is right in front of us. In the 70's almost all surgeons were male, so people could not see the simple truth that if the child's father was dead, the surgeon had to be the child's Mother.
I recall that riddle, and failed to solve it. Riddles have never engaged my interest, because the answer is already known to whomever constructed the riddle. The only problems that engage my long term interest are those for which no living humans know the answer. The next level of interesting problems are those for which alien beings from Arcturus who have mastered hyperspace travel and are currently profiting by conducting tours of a primitive planet on the verge of actually figuring things out, have no better answer.
I am as influenced by preconditioned bias as anyone else who has a brain. If I differ from others in any functional respect, it is in terms of persistence. Beon Theory came to be because I believed absolutely in the inherent independence of my conscious mind, nevermind how puny, how young, and how ignorant it was (and is). Science tried to deny me the reality of my own mind, and my ignorant religion demanded that I believe that such a mind, a stupid, ignorant, and confused piece of shit had been created by an Omnipotent God so as to become one of his worshipers.
I would suffer the perils of a million hells before accepting such dreadful bullshit as the Creators' own truth. (Easy enough to say with a roof over my head and a working swamp cooler keeping the temperature below 80 degrees F.)
The development of Beon Theory required that I think outside of two boxes, simultaneously. It also represented my escape from both boxes. Of course Beon Theory, although it did not have any name at the time, became another thought-box from which I've since had to escape on several occasions.
While I value and appreciate your reminders about biased thinking, mainly because they might connect with a few others perusing this thread who seem to treat science like religious dogma, I'm about as unbiased as they come, but in a peculiar way that few people understand. I'm obviously not an agnostic sort of fence-straddler. I take positions, and defend them to the best of my ability. But when logic or evidence shows my positions to be false, I abandon them immediately.
I've been in many arguments. Noticed that after I won an argument, I was never acknowledged for having done so., or even for making a good point. The conversation just kind of petered out. But about six months later my position would be taken by the very person who had vehemently opposed it, without acknowledgement, as if it was his very own. That is how most minds work, as Beon Theory now explains.
However, when I am proven wrong in an argument I acknowledge it immediately (or as soon as I figure out that I had my head up my ass), so that we can get on with the topic at hand. Often this approach seems to confuse and even irritate those who mounted the convincing arguments, as if my capitulation to their superior logic/evidence has somehow robbed them of a victory.
I do not understand people. Are 97% of them really that nuts?
Gee wrote:So, Greylorn, you asked me what I am trying to do in this thread. Mostly I am trying to tear down false assumptions and expose bias. Consciousness is not pure, it is complex, it has aspects, it has properties, it can be broken down and reformed. It does not come from the human brain, nor does it come from a "being". It works through cause and effect just like everything else.
This paragraph is self-contradictory and does not inform anyone about the nature of consciousness. It is a hand-waving kind of statement, reminiscent of the garbage we see on "Down the Wormhole" TV documentaries, hinting at deep insights but providing no useful information. You will do better when you are not pissed off at me and do not feel a need to assert your intellectual prowess. Give up that need. You've already shown that you know how to shoot, so there's no need to brandish a firearm. Everyone who's paid any attention figures that you're packing magnum heat, tucked away amid some unobtrusive or flagrantly obtrusive garments.
BTW I neglected to follow up on Stevenson when you mentioned him some 20 pages back, but checked him out today. Fascinating! Had I known of his research it would have been referenced in DUAS. It will be referenced in my rewrite. Thank you for repeating the information and stressing its value. For others here who may be interested, this
http://reluctant-messenger.com/reincarnation-proof.htm link includes an old
Omni Magazine interview that is informative with respect to the man and his research. I will be getting several of his books.
Gee wrote:You have a clue that consciousness works through cause and effect, and you also realize that there are two divisions, so this is the reason that I put up with your bad temper, your impulsive behavior, and your attitude. You are light years ahead of most.
G
"Most?"