Synchronicity surrounding schizoprenia/mystical/psychedelic/religious experiences.

[blue triangle]

The side with the evidence.

That would be our side then, since we have the evidence for the reality of God which you lack (believing is seeing).

 

[marplots]

That would be our side then, since we have the evidence for the reality of God which you lack (believing is seeing).

Indeed. The believer side has all the evidence for the reality of God. I just wish they weren't so stingy about showing it.

 

[blue triangle]

No they did not. As I said, they used energy in the camera and the switch to achieve this.

Here's a quote from the article.

"But here’s the curious thing. There is no conventional transfer of energy into the system: no heating or accelerating of molecules or some such. Instead, information itself seems to be the medium through which energy is transferred.

That kind of thinking has been a theoretical curiosity, until now. Toyabe and friends’ have actually done it, the first experimental demonstration of this kind of energy transmission. In effect they’ve converted information into energy in this system."

But you have yet to show that the meaning of the event is encoded into the event, and not just something that you interpret into the event.

All I'm trying to show you here is that it can happen in a way that does not violate physical law.

there an organising force in the universe, then you are into magic anyway, so you do not need to look for laws of physics to enable synchronicities.

Well the article gives the lie to that statement, although it doesn't indicate how synchronicities are created. It seems to me though that it would have to be a source that had a lot of information at its disposal.

Well, the Japanese experiment is not converting information directly into energy, and the opposite is too trivial to be interesting: in the Japanese experiment, you could simply switch off the electricity, and the potential energy of the ball (representing information) becomes kinetic energy.

It is converting information into energy. That's what all the excitement was about!

 

[blue triangle]

Indeed. The believer side has all the evidence for the reality of God. I just wish they weren't so stingy about showing it.

It can't be shown to outsiders. You have to join the club first, the club for believers.

 

[Pup]

That would be our side then, since we have the evidence for the reality of God which you lack (believing is seeing).

What is the conclusion from your side? That there is one true god, Allah? Or God, or Jesus, or one of the Hindu gods, or a first nations god? How will you reconcile the evidence that makes believers know that other believers are wrong, sometimes so wrong they'll be tortured eternally for it? Makes peer review sound like a piece of cake.

 

[Resume]

That would be our side then, since we have the evidence for the reality of God which you lack (believing is seeing).

No, your side has bare assertions, unevidenced anecdotes, and wish-thinking, all cloaked in apologetic and the sort of deepities that should make you blush, but don't.

 

[blue triangle]

Where do you get the idea I want rare events to go away? I think it's cool to be lucky enough to see or find rare things in nature. I just dont think they're purposely orchestrated for my benefit by some supernatural entity, nor are they designed to be human communication. Wild animal behavior is about animals, not about us (barring obvious exceptions like training with food).

It is about us - all of us in fact, animals included. Nearly all the time, what you see around you when you walk in nature isn't for you. But that does not mean a synchronicity will never happen. It may happen only once or twice in your life in fact, and I don't think one or two synchronicities are too much to ask for in a life.

Neither do I think every interaction I've had in nature is for me. Another direct interaction I had with an animal was when I was hill walking with a friend. A lamb came up to us, bleating, very animated and obviously wanting something from us. It was backing away from us at times, as if it wanted us to follow it, so we followed it, more out of curiosity than anything else. It turned out that its mother was trapped in a wire fence, so we released the sheep and they both went happily on their way. I didn't think there was anything in it for me on that occasion, but I did have a new respect for the intelligence of sheep.

Would you feel upset, alone or abandoned to live in a world where a god doesn't send you messages? Doesn't bother me, and yet you say people like me are cowardly.

It didn't bother me either when I was an atheist: I fully accepted it. But God did come knocking on the door and I did answer, in my own stumbling way. The word 'cowardly' is a bit harsh and I retract it. It does take a little courage to follow where God leads though, because we get comfortable in our little ruts and fearful of change: following God feels at times like jumping into an abyss.

 

[blue triangle]

What is the conclusion from your side? That there is one true god, Allah? Or God, or Jesus, or one of the Hindu gods, or a first nations god? How will you reconcile the evidence that makes believers know that other believers are wrong, sometimes so wrong they'll be tortured eternally for it? Makes peer review sound like a piece of cake.

I don't defend any of that. It belongs to the realm of exoteric religion, of which most members of faiths are members. The esoteric part - and all religions have it - is the beating heart of all religions, and you find that they disagree on much less. The Dali Lama once visited a Catholic monastery in the south of France and spoke to the monks there, each holed up in a little cell carved out of rock. Then he told the Abbot that either there was some hidden cnnection between Buddhism and Catholicism or his monks and the abbots were reporting the same experiences.

 

[blue triangle]

No, your side has bare assertions, unevidenced anecdotes, and wish-thinking, all cloaked in apologetic and the sort of deepities that should make you blush, but don't.

The unevidenced anecdotes you speak of are personal, life-changing experiences. Did you ever have an epiphany? I've had two, the first when I gave up Christianity at the age of 11 and embraced naturalism, the second when I gave up naturalism and embraced a spiritual worldview.

 

[Resume]

The unevidenced anecdotes you speak of are personal, life-changing experiences.

I'm sure. People change their lives for all sorts of reasons good and bad.

Did you ever have an epiphany? I've had two, the first when I gave up Christianity at the age of 11 and embraced naturalism, the second when I gave up naturalism and embraced a spiritual worldview.

My epiphany came when I figured out the campfire stories religions promote were merely useful yarns men used to keep the women, children and livestock in line. Spiritualism is smoke, and not even useful smoke.

 

[Pup]

I don't defend any of that. It belongs to the realm of exoteric religion, of which most members of faiths are members. The esoteric part - and all religions have it - is the beating heart of all religions, and you find that they disagree on much less. The Dali Lama once visited a Catholic monastery in the south of France and spoke to the monks there, each holed up in a little cell carved out of rock. Then he told the Abbot that either there was some hidden cnnection between Buddhism and Catholicism or his monks and the abbots were reporting the same experiences.

But many believers believe the differences are true and important, and they have evidence just as strong as the Dali Lama's. There are some who are willing to agree with the Dali Lama, but others who believe only they have true experiences. If one's personal experience is the strongest evidence, their evidence is as strong as yours.

Personally, I do think all religious people are sharing the same attributes, stronger or weaker in individuals, as not everyone will see visions and such. But as humans, we have similar brains that will react in similar ways to similar stimuli. Religious/superstitious people just interpret these sensations as coming from or arranged by something supernatural.

 

[turingtest]

It can't be shown to outsiders. You have to join the club first, the club for believers.

...

It didn't bother me either when I was an atheist: I fully accepted it. But God did come knocking on the door and I did answer, in my own stumbling way. The word 'cowardly' is a bit harsh and I retract it. It does take a little courage to follow where God leads though, because we get comfortable in our little ruts and fearful of change: following God feels at times like jumping into an abyss.

This seems a little chicken-or-the-egg-ish to me; how did you come to accept god, to join the club, before you were in a position, by your own account, to be shown what it took to accept god and join the club? Either the evidence is for everybody, shareable regardless of membership, or it's only for believers, in which case it's not evidence, but simply a faith which you never really shed.

 

[blue triangle]

This seems a little chicken-or-the-egg-ish to me; how did you come to accept god, to join the club, before you were in a position, by your own account, to be shown what it took to accept god and join the club? Either the evidence is for everybody, shareable regardless of membership, or it's only for believers, in which case it's not evidence, but simply a faith which you never really shed.

Ha! You're right. It is chicken and eggish and I noticed that too. I'm too tired now to answer but I'll get to it tomorrow.

 

[steenkh]

Here's a quote from the article.



"But here’s the curious thing. There is no conventional transfer of energy into the system: no heating or accelerating of molecules or some such. Instead, information itself seems to be the medium through which energy is transferred.

Then how do they explain the need for a camera and electric switches? Are they somehow exempt from the energy household? Maxwell's original demon was a magical being that could do work without using energy, and that is the only reason it could do its work. Unless the Japanese have used a magical camera and setup.

All I'm trying to show you here is that it can happen in a way that does not violate physical law.

OK. As I said, it seems like they ignored a part of the energy calculation, but I am not an expert. What do real experts say?

 

[blue triangle]

This seems a little chicken-or-the-egg-ish to me; how did you come to accept god, to join the club, before you were in a position, by your own account, to be shown what it took to accept god and join the club? Either the evidence is for everybody, shareable regardless of membership, or it's only for believers, in which case it's not evidence, but simply a faith which you never really shed.

For me it was a slow process of waking up, a gradual unfolding, related to my reading of non-fiction books (Lila and Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, by Robert Pirsig, had a remarkable effect on me, particularly his notion of Dynamic Quality, leaving behind various levels of Static Quality (matter, life, society, mind) in its wake) and also to a gradual feeling that my atheism and scientific materialism were incomplete. The more I opened up the more I received.

 

[blue triangle]

Then how do they explain the need for a camera and electric switches? Are they somehow exempt from the energy household? Maxwell's original demon was a magical being that could do work without using energy, and that is the only reason it could do its work. Unless the Japanese have used a magical camera and setup.

OK. As I said, it seems like they ignored a part of the energy calculation, but I am not an expert. What do real experts say?

Here's another article on it (the discussion underneath is interesting), and one on Maxwell's demon.

http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2010/nov/19/information-converted-to-energy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxwell's_demon

 

[marplots]

OK. As I said, it seems like they ignored a part of the energy calculation, but I am not an expert. What do real experts say?

I'm not a "real" expert, but think of it this way:

Say you have two set-ups, one that changes things randomly (but does all the other stuff, including the camera), and one that does the pattern-matching required. The first will not produce the same potential energy in the ball as the second, so the question is why? What is the difference between the two set-ups if it isn't about information (by way of pattern matching)?*

One objection might be that even with the random setup, there is some probability that the ball will end up in the same higher energy state as with "peeking." In that case, we have used no information at all to obtain the same result as claimed by the one using information - how could that be if information is the essential ingredient?

Another might be that summing all the steps is misleading, since the ball has already been lifted (previous steps) and should no longer be compared to a ball in the original state. I'm not sure how the Markov chain element messes up the entire argument, but it ought to be in there somewhere. Certainly, by summing, you get a more dramatic overall outcome.

ETA: * The difference has to be the energy cost of analyzing the information you get. But the argument is not about energy per se, but the medium through which the energy is transferred to another part of the system. Hence the idea that information transfers (and is thereby a type of) energy.

 

[stanfr]

It's 6 am...and time for your crow to SWIM: