...come on John, can you be any more vague? I think that's an overload of senseless information, without any background for support.

The article didn't really have much to do with astrology as we know it, but...

Did you ever think about how the moon affects the water tides on Earth? Human beings are about 80% water, our brains probably somewhere in the 90% region (roughly); do you think the moon may have an affect on thought...? Maybe that sounds like a lunatic's question... or something; but it has lead me to better understand just how that 'astrology stuff' might work.

...I hear magnetism has a lot to do with how we think too.


Did you ever wonder why most 'psychics' ask their subjects for a birthdate? They use the birthdate in colaboration with their studied knowledge of astrology, a bit of intuition, and poof.... their 'psychic'!

...but I guess you're not into that 'astrology stuff'.

Ken Keye's sounds like a 'beginner' adept in true mysticism. I like his description of the seven centers of conscsiousness, I have seen it before. The seven 'centers' are also called the seven 'chakras' by many cultures.

You got me interested in his work; it sounds as though he makes mysticism quite comprehendable through his literature, and even acceptable to the average atheist...! I might end up picking up his book entitled, "The Guide to Higher Consciousness," if I manage to save up a couple bucks, I gotta be kinda cheap right now... it sucks!

I have to be honest with you John... I am learning more and more about just how natural this mysticism stuff is. You're right, there is nothing unusual about it. Mystical knowledge is something that is just not sought after or understood in todays (westernized/ messed up) world.

Why worry about mystical knowledge...? We have all this brilliant technology and entertainment at our finger tips (or inside our wrist watches, which are connected to the Internet) ...did somebody say mysticism??; sprinkled with seeds (people) of greed and politics, economic and social distortion of classes, war, poverty.... and religious confusion underneath it all.

We have no need for knowledge of true reality... or what life is! We need faster computers so that we can make more money with our stocks over the Internet, before we die and turn back into un-conscious atoms.

P.S. Did you look at the definition for mysticism?

[This message has been edited by Filip Sandor (edited April 20, 2001).]

Dictionary.com doesn't seem to be working properly at the moment...
But anyway...
mysticism:
Well I agree that intuition could provide people with deeper insights about how to be happy, etc, but I don't believe that you can just have a Truth revealed to you. If you could, how come systems of mysticism are different - even between sects of one type of mysticism (e.g. Buddhism).
But there is often a common theme - of unity and love - so perhaps there is truth in this.
As far as the influence of the moon goes - sure, it influences us - everything does - but to differing degrees. But do you really think that people's personalities can be divided into 12 catergories, where the difference of one minute (if they were born near midnight on certain days) majorly controls their personality? Randi.org offers a million dollars for anyone who can demonstrate a paranormal act. How come no-one has claimed it yet? Or paranormal people could at least show people the truth on TV. Uri Gellar did this, but Randi the magician showed that he can bend spoons with his mind too.
Mysticism is actually gaining widespread acceptance. Just start watching Oprah. Sometimes they have a new-age guy who speaks like a robot/Dr. Spock. His views are pretty much the same as Ken Keyes in the 70's. Oprah also has a counselling man who is half bald and has a moustache. His views are like Ken Keyes's were in the 90's.
And I think every show has the segment called "remembering your Spirit" which is kind of mystical.

Apparently, there are many different definitions for mysticism; from different perspectives.

Dictionary.com's defintion of the word is pretty clear as follows:

mys·ti·cism
n.

1. a. Immediate consciousness of the transcendent or ultimate reality or God.
b. The experience of such communion as described by mystics.

2. A belief in the existence of realities beyond perceptual or intellectual apprehension that are central to being and directly accessible by subjective experience.

3. Vague, groundless speculation.


I don't see how subjective experience, can have any 'ground' to it; #3 is a scientific definition for mysticism... which is pretty vague.

Anyway, I don't know about you, but I think that mystics who are adept in the art of living carry high wisdom that we just don't understand because it is too 'mystical' and 'magical' for us to even try.

John, what do you think of this. If a person was paralized from the neck down, at birth... and grew up (being fed and cared for physically) with no perception of the external, physical world, but fully conscious; they are probably much more in tune with their 'inner' awareness of self than most people around them, such as a deaf or blind persons other senses are heightened. What do you think they would be aware of...?

I believe they would have an awareness of something... and that whatever they would be aware of, would be totally real, since their awareness would be directly linked to the source. Remember, they only have emotional and mental awareness, none physical.

That is what deep meditation is about... clearing your mind of all *thoughts*, feelings, and physical awareness (distraction), in order to heighten your awareness so as to gain insight into higher consciousness; it's more than just 'relaxing'.

I know that sounds 'mystical' or 'magical', but I believe it can be done and I believe it is what adept mystics do when they are in a deep, meditative trance. Did Ken Keyes talk about meditation in his books??

I don't know about the one minute difference... but it is possible. The Earth spins at about 80k/s or something like that; one minute would add up to be quite the difference of positition in space relative to the influencial astro-bodies.

Do you understand how I see astrology? The stars (zodiac) are used to plot charts; they are just the 'grid' on which charts are made, but it is the planets and the sun that affect us on a psychological level and determine our psyche, when we are in the early developemental stage, in the woumb.

Like I said John, I don't believe in 'magical' things unless they have an explanation to them, then to me, they are real.

I think there are people who could convince Randi of 'paranormal' activity, but those people probably don't need the money bad enough to perform acts for stubborn charlatans like as Randi. I'm sure a few people have tried, but like you say, Randi can bend spoons with his mind too, apparently, so how could you convince a guy like that of anything?

There is this magician I saw on TV that approached people on the street and levitated several feet off the ground right before their (and the camera man's) eyes, I saw it on TV. I don't know how he did it, whether he really did it with mind power, but he did lift off the ground slowly, until he was about 5-6 feet up in the air, although, he wouldn't face the camera; what would Randi think of that eh...?! It was pretty amazing, considering he had nothing even close to him that he could have used as a means of lifting himself.

I've seen a few of her shows and they are good sometimes, although I don't watch regularly.

I want you to know John, that my vision of God is different than most peoples; I wish you would understand that I am not a "sheep," and that what I believe, I believe for logical reasons. Like the fact that we are not physical beings. I didn't just make that up because it gives me hope of life after death? I believe that because atoms are not conscious... and I am.

Atheists think that if atoms are arranged in a complex enough system, they actually become conscious. If you really think about without all the confusing 'complexities', it's obviously not possible for atoms to be conscious perceivers by how they are physically arranged.... they may act and re-act, but they are not conscious.

Anyway, I don't know how else to explain that in order for a brain of *atoms to be conscious*, each atom must be conscious.

How about the Laws of physics John; did you ever give it some hard thought? It sure is interesting, and peculiar, that the dynamic web of Energy we call the Universe has a defined order by which it works; it is not random. Not many people give that much thought, but if you do, you just might come to some interesting conclusions about the Omnipotent, 'Laws of physics'.

It is this way of thinking that has helped me to better understand the things that we don't normally know how to think about or understand.

[This message has been edited by Filip Sandor (edited April 21, 2001).]

I think the fundamental things about "transcendence", etc, can be understood by ordinary people, but people are more likely to understand things if they really want to. Ken Keyes does this by saying that this is the way to maximise your happiness - and he tries to use simple language. Mystics often have their own vocabulary and rules that make it hard for people to understand. What about "Chicken Soup for the Soul" though - that has things to "meditate" about, without getting too irrelevant.

If you mean that they can't feel or sense anything, then I'd say that their reasoning abilities would be extremely underdeveloped. It takes language for high-level reasoning, and visual or spacial skills to develop visual-spatial reasoning. Their brain activity would be extremely low. They would probably sense the occassional changes in blood nutrients due to them being fed but otherwise they wouldn't have much to work with. If they missed a meal, they'd probably get distressed but they can't do anything about it.

Their emotions are based on chemicals. BTW, the hunger drive is also controlled by chemicals. I think that they would feel distressed if someone forgets to feed them (they'd get used to the feeding times) and then feel relieved when their appetite is satisfied. Basically it would be an ongoing cycle of distress and relief which they have absolutely no control over.

I believe that higher awareness involves going about your normal life - with super-human mental abilities. Not sitting alone with your eyes closed. I have experience the former for several days (before they put me in a mental ward and my working memory has been at about 20% of what it was ever since and seems to be getting worse).

Ken Keyes talks about not only being happy, but improving the world at the same time. (e.g. "Planethood" is about the U.N.) It is a much better use of time to be living in a walking heaven on earth then to be alone doing it. When you are interacting with the world, you can make your intuitions directly transform the world, instead of just quietly meditating about doing it. Ken Keyes talked about some introspection, to try and free yourself of all emotion-backed demands - but these things all have an extremely practical real-world focus.

Well the days start and end at exactly midnight. And midnight isn't even exactly in between sunrise and sunset. The zodiacs say that for everyone born in the whole month, their personalities are very similar (and different from other people in other months) - then if you are born one minute too late, you suddenly have a completely different personality, like everyone in that next sign of the zodiac.

Why would they affect us in the womb? I think having a Dad who likes listening to loud music or a mum who likes to exercise a lot would affect the baby's personality than some big faraway balls of rock that aren't even visible most of the time.

Randi has had TV shows where he meets paranormal people who are up to the challenge. I think he said how to bend the spoons. Basically you let the spoon see-saw up and down in your fingers, and it bends in half. I forgot what he said - but maybe he said it is all in the hands. He's explained other tricks in detail so I assume he did that one too.

I think the only way you can do that is with wires.

Same with me. I mainly watch because my mum likes it.

This is about awareness which is about seeing - and reacting. Gas molecules do this - they are affected by collisions. Insects are more complicated - they find food and mates, etc, and have short term memory and can learn. So they are more "aware" because of the better developed reasoning skills. Mammals and birds have substantially better reasoning skills - the best being primates. Language allows even higher level reasoning - being aware of your reasoning and reasoning about it.
Awareness is just about the quality of reasoning. If you were talking about a senile person who can't really talk or understand what you're saying, you might say that they're "not all there". But someone with a "sharp" that understands the world is said to be very aware.

If there wasn't order and consistency, we wouldn't have relatively stable information - and that is required for DNA and the knowledge base that makes up an advanced brain. There is still "chaos" though. Chaos is basically things that are unexpected. You are unable to predict what will happen when you roll a dice, etc.

(deleted due to drunken rambling in the wrong post - Koy)

[This message has been edited by Koyaanisqatsi (edited April 22, 2001).]

I believe mystics genereally carry the same message of love and compassion for all life, leading to true spiritual fullfilment, happiness and eventually transcendance and liberation from the cycle of rebirth and suffering.

I guess that was a bad example, but I am just trying to point out that consciousness itself can be a source of knowledge; as it is during proper meditation.

Meditation, if done improperly, can leave the person succeptable to their own astral 'demons'; their own obsessions, psychological disorders, etc. It is not the meditation that lead you to disturbance, it is what was already a part of you that came out and enveloped your awareness, to a higher degree... I know what it's like.

I don't believe that proper meditation is about disconnecting yourself from other people, but a means of connecting with yourself in order to better yourself and your relationship with others.


The personality change is there, but it is not that drastic. There needs to be a transition between the personalities that 'fits'. I believe there are thresh-hold points at which the change does occur, although I don't see it as a leap into a different dimension of personality; there is a transition and probably what we could call a 'transition' personality (for someone who is born right in between.

[quote]<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">[b]Why would they affect us in the womb? I think having a Dad who likes listening to loud music or a mum who likes to exercise a lot would affect the baby's personality than some big faraway balls of rock that aren't even visible most of the time.[b]

The difference of the effects on the baby between the activities of the parents as compared to the activities of the planets is that the parents activities are more physical where as the planets are magnetic/gravitational.

The intricacy of the brain, I believe is a stable, subtle 'chaos', where slight adjustments in things like gravitational/magnetic influence has specific alteration on the patterns of the psyche.

Well like I said, the more serious adepts would not bother to convince Randi; maybe they just wouldn't know exactly where to put the money... I dont' know.

John, are you telling me that gas molecules are conscious because they react to their environment?

Yes, true. Did you ever wonder what defines that order to be the way it is and not 'permit' anything to be otherwise?!

By the "first person experience" I take that to mean the "first conscious experience" so when matter reaches a critical level on complexity, and the human brain of a per cubic centimeter basis is the most complex concentration of known matter in the observable universe, so it is not surprising that the brain is the seat of our consciousness or qualia and not your stomach spleen or kneecap. I like to refer to the first conscious experience as the first conscious event because I feel it is an event of cosmic importance because without it, there would in fact be world full zombies and no matter how advanced like evolves or how intelligently life appears to behave there is really nobody home inside the heads of those "intelligent" individuals nothing but complex eating machines, and not being at all conscious of their behavior it would subjective make no difference to them if they were alive of dead.

What I believe makes consciousness inevitable is its accompanying perception of time as there may well of been somewhere in the order of 12 billion years from first event in the universe the big bang and the first conscious event as life reached such a critical level of complexity.

Time and consciousness was not until recently given much serious consideration until intensive research by John Gibbon and Rae Silver of Columbia University brought the whole subject to the fore with research into circadian rhythms and an inbuilt stop watch inside out brains gave us the ability to estimate lengths of intervals of time.

Soon after the time when life evolved to of just behaving in accordance to a genetically instinctive behavior like the migration of migratory like the short tailed shearwater and the instinctive dam building skills of beavers. So behavior was purely behaving in accordance to a genetically encoded instinct, was there anyone really home inside the skulls of the short tailed shearwater? Are they just little programmed machines, I can never be absolutely certain, but I am inclined believe that they are just flying zombies, and I am pretty sure that in the not too distant future some Japanese manufacturer will be building toys to do much the same job as those short tailed shearwaters, but they will not be conscious, not by a long shot. One may land in a backyard near you.

Complexity is related to how much meaningful information it contains. The particles that make up the Sun contain more information, but it isn't very meaningful (it is pretty random).

You need to have a voice inside your head (from language) to store memories that can be consciously recalled. Otherwise memories are just unconsciously retrieved in the the form of intuitions. Conscious memories allow us to relive the past but that separates us from living in the here and now. So some would argue that people are more alive when they're living exclusively in the present, although they wouldn't be good at creating new technology, etc.

We have a sense of time because our working memory contains time-related information. This allows us to reason about cause and effect. But artificial neural networks usually don't worry about time - they only associate things together - they can't deal with cause and effect reasoning. But I'm sure that they will soon be able to do time-based reasoning, just like traditional programmed (as opposed to neural net) AI can do.

Mind Rhythms - this article is about the clock in the brain. It agrees very well with my computer-like model of the working memory. The circadian rhythm is just about the sleeping pattern (I think) - I read somewhere that we naturally go to sleep in 25 hour intervals if you're kept in a cave with no clocks, TV, radio, etc.

Insects are pretty much programmed zombies - though they can learn to some degree. Mammals have much better reasoning skills, but it is still somewhat deterministic. Human reasoning is still deterministic (so we are "zombies" to some degree), but we are much less limited.

I doubt all mystics believe in never-ending reincarnation, but they would be concerned about our earthly rollercoaster ride between pleasure and pain.

Knowledge can come from reasoning, but you need past experience to base this reasoning on, otherwise it is pretty meaningless and untestable.

Well I guess meditation is where you thought about your past experiences and came to some new conclusions. It is basically about associating things together. A lot of this is done during dreaming too where the brain searches for connections in your experiences.

Ok. Well Ken Keyes would agree with that, but he would be against those that spend too much time meditating unproductively. I mean I am sort of thinking about things ("meditating") when just sitting around having a rest or daydreaming or doing things that don't require much concentration.

Do you know of any scientific studies that show a significant correlation between people's personalities and their sign of the zodiac?

Well the money could be used to help the world's starving. I think it is convenient that these genuine paranormals only like to do their tricks under the circumstances they choose (as opposed to doing it in a lab). It is only convenient that they are only interested in telling laypeople about their talents - they don't seem too interested in getting scientists to verify that they really do have paranormal talents.

I'm saying they have some level of "awareness". They are just obeying the laws of physics. So are insects and mammals - although animals behave much more complexly.

Well I think that there are many other universes out there which have different rules. The ones who don't even have any order wouldn't have any coherent life in it. We are living, so we live in a universe with order. I don't think there is any reason why the universe exists at all. If I were a Christian, I'd say the universe exists because God wanted it to. But I wouldn't have a reason as to why God exists. And if you were a Buddhist, why does the endless cycle of rebirth and suffering exist? Why not some other type of universe, or no universe at all?

Yes I agree Complexity does relate to something more meaningful that the volume of information, which may well be largely totally meaningless, I like to liken complexity as a transition from transition from the monotony to chaos.
I can give you an example:

• iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii
• I had written him a letter I had written a letter him I had written him a letter I had written him a letter I had written him a letter I had written him a letter I had written him a letter I had written him a letter
• I had written him a letter which I had for want of better Knowledge, sent to where I met him down the Lachlan years ago, He was shearing when I knew him, so I sent the letter to him, Just 'on spec' addressed as follows "Clancy, of the Overflow"
• I had written hid w letter whwch I har for want of betder Knowledge, sent ro where y meh him down the Laehlan yeads ego, H wrs shearing ween kiew him, so I sent tswe letter eo hem, Just 'on sprec' addeessed aew follows "Clkncy, of the Ovewflow"
• i bdey fhjitrb ria q fjiant weotu e xei epa orha oqnz prenmu orurairw, wor wo woic z wpf gos qor bot ropawwj wos ort, qo qoth qoiwhtnzd qop q pt aopt, awo t woph iyt penvcx opu poiu, oput 'op piryh' opynearin ou urnthnl "pionts, ou qin qountsnt"

The first one is just boring repetition and conveys no meaningful message.
The second one is also boring repetition like as scratch on an old vinyl record, but a few people interested in poetry in Australia make cotton on that it repeats first five words of Clancey of the Overflow
The third one is a verse from Banjo Patterson's "Clancey of the Overflow" for most people this is the only one that makes any sense
The forth I backspaced a few letters and hit any letter on the keyboard one and as a result is almost descending into chaos and it is just barely makes any meaningful sense.
The final one I did the same, but this time substituted every letter in the verse, and the result, total chaos.
The human mind is both intolerant of both error an monotony. But to escape the monotony the mind has to turn to the direction of chaos and to reach optimum complexity. The mind has to finely balanced between the two. I believe the human is right on the edge of chaos.