Thank you Abra!

I don't appreciate how Creative attempts to cloud the issue with his non-specific general remarks about what has been said in this thread.

I feel at this point I am

oh well... each to his own.

In your dreams.

Besides, that wasn't even the original claim anyway.

The origin claim was that it's just as logical to begin with a premise that spirit exists as it is to begin with the premise that a quantum field exists. (neither can be proven to exist)

And that only came up in the face of your charge that to start with the premise of spirit is 'illogical' which we've clearly shown is to be a false charge.

No other correlations between spirit and quantum field were even required. Those connections were just a coincidental aside that I actually shared for Sky and JB. They weren't even part of my argument with your fallacous charges.

JB, Sky, and I, were having discussions about spirit between ourselves the whole time you were babbling and complaining in the background.

Perhaps you are James. Perhaps you are. I don't think so.

I wonder why you state things which are completely untrue regarding it?

Show me one peer-reviewed paper or reputable source which conforms to your claims regarding the so called property of omniscience which you falsely claim belongs to QFT.

Based upon what little I do know, it is evident that you mix up the facts with your opinion in such a way as to confuse an unwary reader into believing that you know what your talking about. I don't think you do. Non-locality does not have the same weight in QFT as it does in QM, yet you applies it as a so-called property as well. The mathematics is different in very important ways.

You confuse things within quantum mechanics and metaphysics all the time. Equivocation between completely unrelated concepts is detrimental to logical consistency. Your approaches are consistently invalid.

I have never claimed that a valid argument regarding spirit was impossible, you never gave one though. Validity does not equate to being true. A gave a Santa substitute which is the textbook means for de-bunking an illogical argument. You claimed that I could not equate two unproven things, but attempted to equate the unproven 'spirit' to quantum field...

Bottom line. I do not believe you. Can you support your claims with some peer-reviewed papers or some other reputable source?

I can.

How deep into this delusion shall we travel?

Well don't feel too frustrated. At least we can agree with him about leading a horse to water.

Besides you and Sky and I had some great and productive exchanges in this thread.

Sky posted that wonderful PDF link. A very interesting article I might add.

So I thank you both for your deep insights.

Naw Sky...

We are good!

Nothing is unrelated. In the end, science will explain everything and it will agree with QM and metaphysics. Truth is truth. We just have to keep looking.

A scientists is one who looks.

Support this...



#1. has the wrong definition.

#3. and #4. are the same thing.

Scientist huh?

Cool!

And I'm still looking forward to that reply.

I’ve been reading some of the P.E.A.R documents and ran across this. It doesn’t prove anything. I simply provide it as an example of how Quantum Mechanics can and has been applied to scientific research into “subjective consciousness.”

I’ve included the entire paragraph rather than take the one bolded quote out of context.



The full paper is available at http://www.princeton.edu/~pear/pdfs/jse_papers/PEARproposition.pdf

#1. Is perfectly correct.

And there are technical differences between #3 and #4. Non-locality is actually exhibited in phenomena that isn't necessarily entangled (such as the collapse of a wavefunction).

So there are technical reasons why they should be listed as different categories. (i.e. All quantum entanglement is non-local behavior, but not all non-local behavior involves quantum entanglement).

So yes, as a scientist I must consider these details.

By the way, I only stated that I'm a scientist to bring home the fact that science is not on your side as much as you would like to pretend that it is.

I didn't claim to be a scientist in the hopes that this would somehow convince someone that I have some sort of 'clout'. My purpose was very simple. All scientists are not atheists and non-spiritualists. In fact, most scientists actually do have spiritual beliefs (or like me, at least believe that it hasn't yet been ruled out).

Science does not support atheist or non-sprituality as you seem to be implying when you talk about it being 'illogical' to consider spirit. That's utter baloney.

If you think that science supports atheism or non-spirituality you are dead wrong.

That, my friend, is a total farce.

And that was the point I was making about being a scientist. I've been a scientist all my life and I still see no reason to rule out spirituality.

So for you to come along and claim that somehow atheism or non-spirituality is more 'logical' is hogwash. That conclusion certainly not supported by science!

In fact, you always try to keep spiritualists on the defensive by accusing them of being 'illogical'. But in truth, it's precisely illogical to believe there is such thing as spirit.

Of course, our very brilliant Jeanniebean has already pointed out that TRUTH.

So you have nothing but a bunch of hot air. You're accusations that spiritualists are illogical is nothing more than a display of your own lack of respect for the views and considerations other people. That's all it truly amounts to.

Why am I not surprised?

I wish that everyone who studies psychic phenomena was also highly educated in quantum physics. I'm sure they would find it very useful indeed.

Like I say, it provides actual mathematical equations that describe the properties that they are seaching for.

One of the reasons that we don't see a lot of correlation between these two fields is most likely due to the ignorance of the different subject and non-communication between the scientists working in these different fields.

If all scientists who were working with psychic phenomena genuinely understood what Quantum Mechanics is saying mathematically, they'd all be jumping on it like a new suit I'm sure.

They will eventually. It's inevitable.

In context with the above discussion. I'm truly not concerned with any personal traits or beliefs of CreativeSoul. I make no personal assumptions about him at all despite what he may have convinced himself of.

My entire argument (with him) in this thread has been to defend against his accusation that it is 'illogical' to begin with the premise that spirit exists.

That is a false accusation regardless what his personal beliefs might be. As Jeanniebean had suggested it tends to imply that he believe just the opposite (that starting with the premise that spriit does not exist is therefore logical). Either that or we must conclude that he believe any approach is illogical.

I truly don't care what his position is. His claim was wrong irrespective of what he may, or may not, personally believe.

He even pointed to a web page that actually contained a statement that shows that his claim is false.

He pointed to the following web site:

http://instruct.westvalley.edu/lafave/LogAnalogy.htm

Which begins with the following statement:



Premises don't need to be true for an argument to be true. Therefore there is nothing illogical about starting with false premises. The logic is still sound. The only thing that remains to be proved is the premise.

Well, this is precisely the very same thing that would occur if one started with the premise that there is no spirit. That premises is also unproven.

I used the quantum field as an example of how science proceeds in quite some depth using premises that have no yet been proven to be true.

Any connection between the quantum field and spirit is totally beside the point. I do personally make those connections too, but for my argument that was a totally unnecessary connection to make.

My example of the quantum field was made simply to show a concrete example of a logical system that starts with an unproven premise. It could have been anything.

Or abstractly I could have just stated the fact (like the web site stated in the above quote). But then creative would have demanded some sort of example or proof of that. So quantum physics is just an example that is used in science all the time.

Also in regard to what Creative might personally believe:

It's not so much whether or not he actually believes it, but what his accusations and assertions imply.

He seems to be implying that science does not support the concept of spirit and therefore it is illogical use such a concept as a premise.

However, that implies that science does support that there is no spiritual element to human essence. But that's not true either!

And that's really the bottom line.

Science doesn't support the idea that there is no such thing as spirit. That idea is equally unproven. So to suggest that it would be any more logical to begin with that premise is unsupportable.

So it truly doesn't matter what Creative believes or not on a personal basis. His accusation about the logical validity of how other people approach the topic doesn't hold water.

But no matter what he may or may not believe on a personal level, his arguments imply that he is arguing that it makes more logical sense to premise that there is no spirit than to premise that spirit exists.

So the bottom line is that either of those premises are equally unprovable and therefore equally valid.

Like the web site he pointed to, and like modern science does all the time (not only in quantum physics, but in many fields of study actually), it is not necessary to prove a premise before logically sound arugments can be made around it.

In fact, this brings me to some concepts in mathematics.

In mathematics there are things called 'theorems'. A theorem is a proof that is considered to be "TRUE". A mathematical theorem must be based on proven premises (at least proven within the confines of mathematical formalism). The formalism of mathematics actually stands on some basic unprovable premises called "Axioms" but those are accepted as 'true' within the formalism of mathematics.

So if we were claiming to be constructing a 'theorem' then YES, our premises would indeed need to be shown to be true.

But no one ever made any such claim. "Theories" on the other hand do not need to begin with proven premises. That's why they are called "Theories" rather than "Theorems".

A theory does not need to prove it's premises. It simply begins with premises stating, "IF these premises are true, THEN, blah, blah, blah".

And that's precisely how most theories go.

So it's equally valid to start with a premise that states that no spirit exists, as it is to start with a premise that states that spirit exists.

In fact, in all honesty, the fact that Creative isn't aware of these very basic facts about logic makes me wonder if he ever took a course in logic in his entire life.

These principles are typically taught in Logic 101.

Yet here he is proclaiming that it's illogical to start with unproven premises.

Even the web sites that he himself points to don't even agree with him on that point.

So I have no clue what he may or may not personally believe, but I have very serious doubts concerning his knowledge of logic in general. He's simply arguing for things that logic doesn't even remotely support.

perhaps we write to frame our thinking...have you considered that....thoughts in the mind are intangible...we cant touch them, feel them, smell them, taste them, see them...so often they are floating around in the ether...all colliding with each other...and none of them real...when you start to put it down on paper they materialise and become part of history and experience....how often do you hit the delete button? edit? insert?....in these examples aren't the words in fact guiding the thinking...???

That is a very good way to look at it. Some thoughts have no boundaries and need framing. Just like the artist who sits down in front of a scene with the intention of painting a picture on a canvas. The scene before the artist goes on in many directions in 360 degrees. The artist has to pick a point of interest and frame it and put that on the canvas,

Some artists actually bring with them two sides of a card board frame and actually hold them up and view the scene through them, framing the area they want to paint.

Ok, I confess to using poor semantics for number 1. I sould have said it's omnipresent, rather than omniscient.

However, after having given this some thought I've come to the realization that the quantum field is indeed omniscient as well. Of course, I fully understand that such a claim would be open to opinionated controversy over the very term "omniscient".

If we allow "omniscient" to simply mean, "Containing all knowledge of truth" then the quantum field could be said to possess this trait in a very real sense.

How so? Well, everything that is manifest in the physical world arises from the quantum field. The quantum field therefore contains the absolute knowledge of how to manifest everything, for nothing can be manifest without it.

So in this sense (which would actually make logical sense in physics) the quantum field is both omnipresent and omniscient. Whether the quantum field is consciously aware is another story. However, in this scenario we actually can know that the quantum field necessarily must possess the trait of conscious awareness.

How so? Because the idea is that the quantum field is all that truly exists. Everything arises from the quantum field and therefore is part of the quantum field. Therefore if any part of the quantum field possesses conscious awareness then this property too must also belong to the quantum field.

In this sense the quantum field would be omniscient in the sense of being consciously aware of everything that is going on since the quantum field is every single conscious being that exists.

This is quite interesting. Owl have to expand my list to include both omnipresence and omniscience. So thank you for bringing my attention to that semantic detail.

So now we have:

1. Omnipresent (it's everywhere)
2. Omniscience (it contains all knowledge and experiences all awareness)
3. Randomness (freedom from and tracable cause and affect)
4. Non-locality (the ability to defy time and space as we know it)
5. Entanglement (the ability to act as a unified whole across large distances)
6. Quantum Foam - The ability for a non-physical medium (the quantum field itself) to directly have a causal affect on a physical medium (atoms).

This is a nice refinement.

Support it with something other than your opinion, because your opinion has been proven to be unreliable.

Got any reputable evidence or a logical syllogism?

Sky, I will address the earlier post for you today or tonight...

I have no need or desire to provide you with any such thing.

I wasn't even addressing you originally when I made that particular post. I was simply sharing those observations with Sky and JB.

You keep forgetting that everyone isn't out to prove things like you seem to be.

Most people are just sharing food for thought for consideration by intelligent minds.

Your personal and continuous slandering of everyone's opinions as being either 'illogical' or 'unreliable' is truly rude.

If you feel that you can offer additional information that might suggest alternatives to what I've offered, then by all means please offer it.

Otherwise, you have nothing to offer but empty hot air and totally ungrounded slanderous accusations.

No one is obligated to convince you of anything. You're free to form whatever opinions you so desire. I couldn't care less what you believe or don't believe to be perfectly honest about it. I wouldn't waste my time trying to convince you of anything.

Something... anything other than ad hominem?

(Anyway, opinions are not "unreliable," they are just opinions.)