Yes, the billiard ball model is completely inadequate, and gives people the completely wrong idea of what we know about matter on that scale.

Is that all you mean by "no solidity"? Phrases like that can be misleading to some people if not carefully examined. Even the 'aggregate of vibrating components' model is not 'truth', but it help to show how inadequate the billiard ball model is.

Now, saying that the entire universe 'is' a 'hologram' - there's another thing which can be misleading if not examined. Think of all the ways people interpret the word 'hologram', many diverge widely from what you probably really mean by that phrase - and many laymen will falsely believe that modern physicist actually support their interpretation of that word.

>> All just consciousness Abra? That is what makes sense to me...

Thats part of what I'm getting at here - if you want to believe that the universe is just consciousness, then believe so. I think thats a wonderful belief, and I don't think any scientist could come remotely close to proving it wrong.

But sometimes people reach too far to anchor their beliefs in physics - and lose many degrees of accuracy and rigor along the way. Sometimes this leads to misrepresenting the beliefs of modern physics to match the particulars of their worldview.

There is so much we do not know, so much which -might- be, its wonderful when people simply accept their beliefs as beliefs.

BTW, the last few posts of mine have were not at all when what I had in mind when I started this thread - I'm simply responding to some things Abra said - hijacking my own thread.

“Now, saying that the entire universe 'is' a 'hologram' - there's another thing which can be misleading if not examined. Think of all the ways people interpret the word 'hologram', many diverge widely from what you probably really mean by that phrase - and many laymen will falsely believe that modern physicist actually support their interpretation of that word.”

Well this is true. Technically the term “hologram” refers to images produced by light interference which is electromagnetic in nature.

The universe is not produced by an electromagnetic field, but rather by a quantum field which is technically differnet. It has differnet properties and more “weirdness”. By “weirdness” I simple mean that it does things that defy logic as we know it.

However, it has been proven that the quantum field indeed does defy logic as we know it. This isn’t just a matter of not being able to figure it out, it’s actually has properties that defy logic. They can be observed by not explained by any physicists living on earth today. At least not in what would be considered a normal “rational” way. All explanation invoke irrational concepts.

But none of that is really important. It doesn’t really matter what the universe is made from. The point it that we are it. We came from it, we are made of it, and we are intimately connected to it.

Our sense of individualism is the real illusion. We think that because it “appears” that our bodies stop at our skin that this somehow defines a boundary that separates us from everything else. It gives us an illusion of being individual and separate.



That is the ultimate illusion. You believe that you are your body and that when your body dies then you must die. But it’s not true. There is no separation between you and the rest of the universe. Your body is an insignificant illusion. You are not separate. You are one with the universe. There is no boundary where you stop and the rest of the universe begins. You are this universe in its entirety. You are a fluctuation in a continuous quantum field (or energy field or spirit).

I’m just telling how I perceive the universe. This is what I believe to be “truth”. If you prefer to believe something else that’s cool. I can’t prove that what I believe is true. But I do feel that modern physics certainly supports this view in a very profound way.

Religious people will just say, "OK no problem, so God uses a hologram to create the universe, big deal".

Whatever.

And that's the point. Whatever you wish to believe to be true is fine. Who can prove otherwise? You can support any idea no matter how outlandish.

I just prefer to believe that all spirit is one rather than having a single egotistical judgmental godhead running the whole show for a bunch of individual egotists. That whole picture is just too egocentric. It has fallen prey the illusion that everything is separate. I just don’t see everything being separate. To me it’s pretty evident that all is one.

I might add that my view is not my own. It's basically the view of all pantheistic religions. Perhaps not to the nitty-gritty level of the quantum description, but they see everything as one. Which means that there is no separation between us and god. There is only spirit and we are all it. No separate judgmental top dog.

It's just my view. What I perceive to be "truth". It's my truth. I offer it up for whatever it's worth.

I'm not trying to sell it. I'm not a salesman. ;o)

I honestly don't care what other people believe as long as they don't try to force their beliefs onto me via legislation, etc.

Although I do confess that I think this would be a beautiful world if everyone realized that we are all one.

I agree with you Abra ... it has been my view all along ... it is what makes sense to me

It is the notion of separate that I find quite puzzling.

I always use the analogy of a wave in the ocean. I am part of the ocean but individualized for a time as this personality which is known as Sherrie ... I cannot be separate from the ocean and I will sink back down into it whan my run is done.

When there is only one thing there can be no experiencing - for that requires at least the notion of separate - something to lap up against ... to interract with ... and it requires a way to experience - that is our senses.

I love your descriptions and am enjoying the perspectives in this thread.

Abra,

That is a wonderful message. And I believe that made understandings from modern physics can rightfully be used to question other notions, like you illustrate with the 'body stopping at the skin' example.

>> There is no separation between you and the rest of the universe. Your body is an insignificant illusion.

Looking at the matter of the body, you are right. There is a constant exchange of matter between the body and universe, and on a small enough scale, one cannot even define a boundary.

One -could- argue that 'you' are not the body, but something else altogether - something whose relationship with the body is influenced by the metabolic process of the body, and that the dramatic change in nature of those process at 'death' -could- have some implication for 'you' - I think both POVs (and others) are equally justifiable from the physics point of view.

I'm not arguing for that perspective, I'm just seeking to establish boundaries between what is actually claimed by modern physicists, and what is an interpretation which dovetails nicely with a particular worldview.

>> I honestly don't care what other people believe as long as they don't try to force their beliefs onto me via legislation,

Here, here!

"believe that made" == > "believe that many"

'Our scientific ability to observe today (nuclear particle accelerators) has come to the conclusion that no solid matter can be detected, and that is through the use of the most sophisticated ‘viewing’ instruments available today.

If no solid matter can be detected, than what was observed?

...only empty space (by deduction, no solid matter)!

A WHOLE BUNCH OF INFINITE NOTHING!!! laced with a form of flashing (intermittent) energy, or light, which appears in this dimension of ours (where we can observe it), and disappears somewhere, no one knows where, only to reappear in a 'flashing' continuum.

The direct connection to this discussion could be said to be a modern day ‘flat earth’ truth, thus perspective of the world dilemma.

For the longest time, what we have all held as ‘absolute verifiable (eye) truth’, is that we were all existing in separate, solid entities we call our bodies. By extension, we have held the qualities of those bodies, tangible (tall, fast, strong, pretty, etc,), and not so tangible (smart, funny, gentle, considerate), to be just as separate from others as the body parts themselves. We have referred to it mostly as the ‘uniqueness’ factor of each and everyone of us.

Philosophers have long disagreed with the concept of separation, and now science adds its weight in the balance.

How can we, human beings as a big family, access the truth of ‘WE - US - UNIVERSE’ as ‘one unified and connected entity’, if we keep coming from a perspective and personal reality (false as it is) that we are individuals, unique solid states, and separate, and keep arguing to death, literally, that that is an absolute truth foR us???

“Everyone is unique”, from a perspective of separate, is rapidly becoming a ‘flat earthed’ kind of falsehood. Isn’t it fun to watch, as it is happening in our own lifetime ?!?!?

>>> 'Our scientific ability to observe today (nuclear particle accelerators) has come to the conclusion that no solid matter can be detected,



What is it that people think they are going to detect?

When I pick up a piece of wood, the electric fields comprising the outermost parts of the components of my hand interact with the electric fields of the outermost parts of the components of the wood, preventing the vibrating components of each from passing through each other, and the hand experiences the wood as 'solid'. We lack the senses to directly perceive what is really happening at the hand/wood boundary of interaction.

Now that our understanding has been refined (and continues to be refined) through physics, we can throw away old models and adapt new ones.

But what -is- this solidness which you claim to not exist?

Its a good thing to destroy false illusions, but replacing them with other illusions isn't progress. The electric field interaction which we have -experienced- as solidness is -still there-.

To me, the very definition of 'solid matter' is "has a network of interwoven electric fields, preventing it from passing through other networks of electric fields".

This is as real as anything.

Personal separateness may be an illusion, and the illusion of our body being truly separate, self-contained entities may have helped encourage that first illusion - due to questionable assumptions (identifying oneself too strongly with the body).

But we did not need quantum mechanics to destroy that idea.

Have you heard the story about the woman who had a suitor who expressed his love for her by praising her body? She said: "Come back in a three days, I will give you that which you love so much." She didn't eat or drink, but she saved her excrement, urine, and such in a pot. When he returned, she was mildy emaciated. He asked what is wrong, she said she had saved for him that which he loved, pointing to the pot of collected material.

I think variations of that story have been around for a very long time, and wise people have seen the folly of identifying a person with their body for a long time. On one level, the same underlying premise applies - an awareness of the -movement/exchange- of material with the universe.

truth is a word constructed to make things " certain," when in reality everyones truth is different, there is no way to know that something is 100% true ... at least not theologically speaking.

Oh yeah! The questions which started this thread...

message thta story sounds like something out of the buddhist tradition, which mysoginistic tendacies can easily arise from

Abra,

I really liked your refinement of the 'no solid matter' statement into the 'billiard ball model is wrong' statement. It gives us something more specific to work with - something which I agree on, and something which prevents misunderstandings. Laypeople hear the phrase "no solid matter" and think the -craziest- things are implied by that statement. The statement "the billiard ball model is false" is not nearly as likely to lead laypeople into falsely thinking that their worldviews have a definitive scientific foundation. Mind you, I think the scientist could always be wrong, and many worldviews are not strictly incompatible with the beliefs of scientist, but thats different than people falsely believing their beliefs are -substantiated- by scientific beliefs.

truth is relative.
there is no such thing as universal truth
that is just a fallacy.

>> message thta story sounds like something out of the buddhist tradition, which mysoginistic tendacies can easily arise from

But...but...she was speaking out against the objectification of women!

okay so i just feel like going off on a rant,

first i have a large problem with most organized traditions, but at the moement we're speaking on buddhism, the buddshist monks, well first of all the buddha never even wanted tthe nuns to come in, but didn't want his main guy to get to .. worried over it so he did it, then that supposedly shortened his teachings by 500 yrs! ... then the fact that we have no soul yet, there is the concept of karma, i think its to complex to say that we are reborn and karma is attached to us, but that it is attached to nothing... not to mention that karma its self is really .. in my mind hard to understand the fact that if a 10 yr old girl or boy gets raped that that is their karma from a past life , not to mention the rapist also receives bad karma

then the sangha which is suppose to be so great, the monks if they have temptations of the flesh, can meditate on what the body is made out of , there are no stories .. your welcomed to look i'd like to read one ona nun meditating on the male body and making it into nothing more than blood urine feces, skin, bones, but there are plenty on monks doing it which for some monks has caused a mysoginistic view of women, not to mention the other stores are about women coming ont o monks in the middle of the woods and trying to seduce them
then the nun order itself has 100 extra rules, and some of which are very very ridiculous
lets not forget about pure land buddhism where when you go to the purelane you're body is automatically male... so yeah.. i have no idea what you guys were tlaking about but .. i didn't like the story

OK 'massagetrade',

Let's walk through this one slowly.

Take a part of your hand, and take a chunck ot of that piece of wood, and examine both to find the common particles of 'solid'.

While we Newtonian physics, suspected the atom to be solid, it was subsequently verified that it wasn't. It was then suspected that smaller sub-atomic paticles might be solid.

Now back to examining parts of your hand and chunck of wood for solid matter. Since you claim the experience of 'solid' form when bringing the two together, there has to be a common sourcing particle of some sort, however microscopically small, that must be the'solid' constituting matter.

Well, you've guessed it, no solid particles. Not only that, but all that can be observed that infinitismally small scale, is empty space, void, nothing. No solid atoms, no solid protons, no solid neutrons, no solid paticles of any sort.

So how can we keep arguing for 'solid' as a true reality, without any 'solid' raw material, or constituing matter to support it. On what basis then, does 'solid' exist???

And back to your question: 'What is true?'

Yay Rant!

Sorority, I don't think we were -really- talking about Buddhism until you definitely put the focus on Buddhism. You are right, that there are many interpretations of that story, many -uses- for the story, and I see how it -can- be used to encourage a misogynistic attitude.

i didnt' really read yalls earlier post, its just the focus on urine, and the bodily " matters" is some of the stories i read in the pratimoksha.. i think that was what it was in! but yeah anyways twas just a moody rant