Fundamental or nearly fundamental energy and the origin of Intelligence?

[Dennis Tate]

Thank you for creating this forum because I've ran into information over the past decade or so that is nothing less than an Alternative Theory on how Intelligence...... and thought and even scientific research would likely begin.

Surely you have all read about The Law of Complexity Consciousness?

I do agree that this is indeed a Law......
not merely a theory.

Law of Complexity - Consciousness


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Doctress Neutopia explains the Law of Complexity/Consciousness:

"Pierre Teilhard de Chardin's Law of Complexity/Consciousness says that there is a tendency in matter "to complexify upon itself and at the same time to increase in consciousness." We see this complexity tendency in nature evolving from inanimate matter, to plant life, to animal life, to human life, moving in consciousness from the geosphere, to the biosphere, to the noosphere, the thinking-envelope around the world where brain waves are transmitted through our technology. In each stage, life increases in consciousness with the ability to reflect upon itself. Teilhard suggests that life has been on a spirally path that is moving toward a critical threshold what he termed the Omega Point where humanity reaches the highest point of complexification (socialization) and consciousness. In 1971, John David Garcia expanded the idea of Teilhard's Omega Point. He realized that to reach the Omega Point required not only increased intelligence, but more importantly, increased ethics.

Soleri calls this driving evolutionary movement of people into cities the Urban Effect which has now drawn most of the world's people into urban areas. When people live in densely populated areas the exchange of ideas and knowledge intensifies causing an acceleration of evolution. His formula for evolution is Miniaturization + Complexity = Duration, what he calls the MCD paradigm. I've added to his formula to make it more clear how intertwined our cultural evolution is to designing a new container allowing for greater social cooperation, synergy and interdependence.

https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Law_...ard de Chardin's Law,to human life, moving in

I am of the belief that The Law of Complexity Consciousness has been at work in whatever form of energy would exist in the first dimensions of space and "time" that would exist and has been compiling and compiling Super Strings and Super Waves into more and more and more complex forms of Intelligence / life!

 

[Dennis Tate]

Several of the most basic paragraphs that I ever read on String Theory left me with the impression that fundamental and /or nearly fundamental energy would exist for infinite time BEFORE the Big Bang event.

I got that impression from chapter thirteen of Stephen Hawking's Universe that was entitled The Anthropic Principle.

Stephen Hawking Ph. D. collaborated to some degree with the article that I found these statements in. The last paragraph is I would think the most important of all.

"It was not until 1920 that the idea of linking electromagnetism and
gravity resurfaced. At that time a new theory of gravitation had been proposed by Albert Einstein (1879-1955), called the general theory of relativity. It was a replacement of Newton's theory, which had stood unchallenged since 1687. Inspired by Einstein's work, a young German mathematician named Theodore Kaluza was seized by a curious idea. The theory of relativity links space an time together to form a four-dimensional space-time continuum. What would happen, mused Kaluza, if general relativity were formulated in five rather than four dimensions? This is what Kaluza did, and to everyone's astonishment it was discovered that five-dimensional gravity obeys the same laws as
four-dimensional gravity as well as Maxwell's laws for the electromagnetic field. In other words, gravitation and electromagnetism are automatically unified in five dimensions, where electromagnetism is merely a component of gravity!"

The only drawback of the theory concerns the extra dimension. Why
don't we see it? An ingenious answer was provided by Oskar Klein. A
hosepipe viewed from afar looks like a wiggly line, i.e. one- dimensional.
However, on closer inspection it can be seen as a narrow tube. It is, in fact,
two-dimensional, and what was taken to be a point on the line is actually a
little circle going around the tube. In the same way, reasoned Klein, what we normally regard as a point in three dimensional space could in reality be a little circle going around a fourth space dimension. Thus Kaluza's extra
dimension might well exist, but be impossible to detect because it is closed
(circular) and rolled up to a very small circumference. In spite of
these bizarre overtones, it seems probable that in future a "theory of everything" will make use of the idea of unseen higher dimensions."
....

"Although nature manifests four distinct forces, physicists believe that
each may be part of a smaller number of more primitive forces. At high energy, the electromagnetic and weak forces appear to merge into a single "electroweak" force. Some "grand unified theories" suggest that a further amalgamation takes place between the electroweak and strong forces at as yet unattained energies. The most ambitious unification schemes envisage an amalgamation of all four forces into a single "superforce" at ultra-high levels of energy."...

"The real burden in the next three centuries will not be the development of fancy mathematics, but the experimental testing of these ambitious theories. All current thinking about total unification assumes that the effects of linking all the forces and particles together will only become manifest at energies that are some trillion times greater than those currently attainable in particle accelerators. Probably we shall never reach such energies directly" ( A Theory of Everything" Volume 21 of "The World of Science)​

 

[Dennis Tate]

There may be better writings out there somewhere on Wave Theory and how the most fundamental energies seem to behave like living matter.....
but I don't know of any writings better than this......
This is not Spam to repeat this here because I know of no other writings anywhere quite like this.....
I certainly have not found them yet anyway........

If you can link me to something better than this... that would be wonderful.

ttp://www.grandunifiedtheory.org.il/book/life1.htm

"The essential matter from which our universe is created is energetic matter. It behaves like living matter, creating every known entity, including living objects and even thought (which occurs through energetic matter–wave interaction). The essential structure of energetic matter is high-energy (concentrated energetic matter) electro-magnetic waves (picture above). This simple structure is the basis of everything: every energetic formation and the universe. In picture 2, we see that the DNA (double helix) of all living formations has the same structure as waves: two loops of the same energetic matter, behaving according to the same rules." (Dr. Chaim Tejman)

 

[Dennis Tate]

Does anybody here believe that the first intelligence would originate less than five billion years ago on earth?

It seems obvious to me that the first Intelligence would originate in the form of energy that would predate the Big Bang and frankly...... the Cyclic Model of the Universe / Multiverse which is a theoretically infinite series of Big Bang or Big Bang like events.... the first ones would almost certainly be smaller and less complex in many ways than the latest one.... I think that that should be obvious?!

 

[Steve Klinko]

Thank you for creating this forum because I've ran into information over the past decade or so that is nothing less than an Alternative Theory on how Intelligence...... and thought and even scientific research would likely begin.

Surely you have all read about The Law of Complexity Consciousness?

I do agree that this is indeed a Law......
not merely a theory.



https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Law_of_Complexity_-_Consciousness#:~:text="Pierre Teilhard de Chardin's Law,to human life, moving in

I am of the belief that The Law of Complexity Consciousness has been at work in whatever form of energy would exist in the first dimensions of space and "time" that would exist and has been compiling and compiling Super Strings and Super Waves into more and more and more complex forms of Intelligence / life!

I have tried to understand the connection of Complexity to Consciousness and have never seen a coherent explanation of it. It always starts with the premise that Complexity is Consciousness so more Complexity means more Consciousness or maybe more sophisticated Consciousness. I don't study Consciousness as a general Phenomenon because I think it is not well defined and I don't really know how to define it even after years of thinking about it. So to me, linking a Phenomenon called Consciousness to a Concept like Complexity makes no sense on the face of it. Rather than a generalized Consciousness, I study Conscious Experience (the Qualia from Philosophy). So I am interested in things like Redness, the Standard A Tone, and the Salty Taste as internal Conscious Phenomena. I think these things can be more tightly defined with most people. Even though we cannot know what other people are Experiencing we must agree that for purposes of study that there is much commonality of Experience among people. But anyway, the point is that I don't see that the Experience of these things can have any connection to Complexity, or as other people claim to Computations. These things are Conscious Phenomena that have an existence as things in some sort of Mind concept.

 

[origin]

It seems obvious to me that the first Intelligence would originate in the form of energy that would predate the Big Bang and frankly.

Well that seems to be obvious woo-woo to me. How could could energy possibly be an intelligence? You must not know what energy is or what intelligence is.

 

[RainbowSingularity]

"fundermental energy"
= non complex energy
basic singular elemental properties.
you may have used the wrong word (?)

I do agree that this is indeed a Law......
not merely a theory.

animism is the religion where they believe that all things are living.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animism

Animism
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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For other uses, see Animism (disambiguation).
Animism (from Latin: anima, 'breath, spirit, life')[1][2] is the belief that objects, places, and creatures all possess a distinct spiritual essence

are you a believer in animism ?

the word "fundamental" has specific application
like toilet paper
or bathroom sink handle
it is specific

Fundermentalist/energy
Fundamental
Fundamentalist
Fundament

I am of the belief that The Law of Complexity Consciousness has been at work in whatever form of energy would exist in the first dimensions of space and "time"

you may want to lead with that because your inherently defining yourself as an animist

i had assumed you were christian
i know some Christians define themselves as being animists by proxy to gods authority system.

animism has been around as a belief system for many thousands of years.
it crosses into & through most religions except those obsessed purely with fascism

re working your assertions of personal belief into a question
i shall give you my answer without the question
i believe it is possible that intelligent life can exist without what humans know as a biological body.
do i think that goes as far as "without a biological brain" ?
i don't know enough to answer that question.
there is no examples to show that to be scientifically provable.

i have no interest in debating theology
ask yourself this as a question around your own thread subject
is a holy relic a living soul ?
what does your answer to that question mean to you and your belief system ?

do you seek proof or belief ?
seeking belief is a religious act
seeking proof is a scientific act

 

[Dennis Tate]

"fundermental energy"
= non complex energy
basic singular elemental properties.
you may have used the wrong word (?)



animism is the religion where they believe that all things are living.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animism


are you a believer in animism ?

the word "fundamental" has specific application
like toilet paper
or bathroom sink handle
it is specific

Fundermentalist/energy
Fundamental
Fundamentalist
Fundament



you may want to lead with that because your inherently defining yourself as an animist

i had assumed you were christian
i know some Christians define themselves as being animists by proxy to gods authority system.

animism has been around as a belief system for many thousands of years.
it crosses into & through most religions except those obsessed purely with fascism

re working your assertions of personal belief into a question
i shall give you my answer without the question
i believe it is possible that intelligent life can exist without what humans know as a biological body.
do i think that goes as far as "without a biological brain" ?
i don't know enough to answer that question.
there is no examples to show that to be scientifically provable.

i have no interest in debating theology
ask yourself this as a question around your own thread subject
is a holy relic a living soul ?
what does your answer to that question mean to you and your belief system ?

do you seek proof or belief ?
seeking belief is a religious act
seeking proof is a scientific act

All that I know is that many near death experiencers report that the grass, flowers and trees in the higher invisible dimensions have a
level of consciousness and feel joy.....
I found it intriguing that several studies indicated that even here on the earth plants have much more of
a fear response than anybody would have guessed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_Life_of_Plants

I suspect that the animists may turn out to know certain things that the majority of Christians like myself would not have guessed.

 

[Dennis Tate]

I have tried to understand the connection of Complexity to Consciousness and have never seen a coherent explanation of it. It always starts with the premise that Complexity is Consciousness so more Complexity means more Consciousness or maybe more sophisticated Consciousness. I don't study Consciousness as a general Phenomenon because I think it is not well defined and I don't really know how to define it even after years of thinking about it. So to me, linking a Phenomenon called Consciousness to a Concept like Complexity makes no sense on the face of it. Rather than a generalized Consciousness, I study Conscious Experience (the Qualia from Philosophy). So I am interested in things like Redness, the Standard A Tone, and the Salty Taste as internal Conscious Phenomena. I think these things can be more tightly defined with most people. Even though we cannot know what other people are Experiencing we must agree that for purposes of study that there is much commonality of Experience among people. But anyway, the point is that I don't see that the Experience of these things can have any connection to Complexity, or as other people claim to Computations. These things are Conscious Phenomena that have an existence as things in some sort of Mind concept.

Have you given any thought to out of the body experiences and how the ability of somebody to be conscious......
seemingly outside their bodies..... could be possible?

I've been reading those accounts since 1990 from many different angles and I am convinced that a part of our consciousness does not depend on our brain. Some studies link the out of the body experience to the right temporal lobe. Electrical stimulation of that part of the brain can produce an out of the body experience.

 

[Dennis Tate]

Well that seems to be obvious woo-woo to me. How could could energy possibly be an intelligence? You must not know what energy is or what intelligence is.

Computers work because electricity is zipping around in circuitry....
to what degree is human consciousness comparable to what is happening in computers that makes them work?

String Theory implies types of energy that operate at levels vastly beyond mere electricity.

"Although nature manifests four distinct forces, physicists believe that
each may be part of a smaller number of more primitive forces. At high energy, the electromagnetic and weak forces appear to merge into a single "electroweak" force. Some "grand unified theories" suggest that a further amalgamation takes place between the electroweak and strong forces at as yet unattained energies. The most ambitious unification schemes envisage an amalgamation of all four forces into a single "superforce" at ultra-high levels of energy."...
"The real burden in the next three centuries will not be the development of fancy mathematics, but the experimental testing of these ambitious theories. All current thinking about total unification assumes that the effects of linking all the forces and particles together will only become manifest at energies that are some trillion times greater than those currently attainable in particle accelerators. Probably we shall never reach such energies directly" ( A Theory of Everything" Volume 21 of "The World of Science)

 

[RainbowSingularity]

I suspect that the animists may turn out to know certain things that the majority of Christians like myself would not have guessed.

animists don't have cell phones satellites laptops & the internet
they also dont have cars, machines or motors.

there is an offset process in play
animist society is unable to develop technology.

thats the way it is

the belief inhibits a certain type of development

re-asserting that morality over the top to hand it control of complex high intellect working models is suicide

but suicide is quite common in human culture & sold wholesale by many religions

suicide is dictated as compulsory by many religions.

what use is complex technology to a suicidal preaching war loving culture ?
it only ensures greater destruction & more sadistic persecution

 

[Dennis Tate]

animists don't have cell phones satellites laptops & the internet
they also dont have cars, machines or motors.

there is an offset process in play
animist society is unable to develop technology.

thats the way it is

the belief inhibits a certain type of development

re-asserting that morality over the top to hand it control of complex high intellect working models is suicide

but suicide is quite common in human culture & sold wholesale by many religions

suicide is dictated as compulsory by many religions.

what use is complex technology to a suicidal preaching war loving culture ?
it only ensures greater destruction & more sadistic persecution

I am sure that now in 2021 there would be some animists or partial animists who have purchased all of those devices.

It seems to me that all across the philosophical spectrum there is at least some understanding of some higher level truths.

Chapter thirteen of "Stephen Hawking's Universe" left me with a number of impressions.....
this is how I worded it a few years ago.

"I actually do believe in evolution but I think that anybody who would dogmatically limit evolution to our four dimensional space time continuum lacks basic mathematical aptitude.

Back in the 1990's I read several articles on GUT and string theory. Later on I read Stephen Hawking's Universe. in his chapter The Anthropic Principle he speculated that perhaps there were an infinite number of unsuccessful universes out there somewhere in which was no life due to the fact that electromagnetism, gravity, weak and strong nuclear force were not properly tuned for life as we know it. It seems obvious to me that another possibility is that the first intelligent life form might be composed of energy. Probably a fundamental energy such as SuperForce or Super Energetic Matter which may be the common denominator for all four forces active in our fourth space time dimensional continuum.

13.72 billion years is roughly equal to ZERO time when compared with eternity. If fundamental energy would always have existed, as I assume Dr. Hawking seems to believe due to his suspicion of their having been an infinite number of unsuccessful universes and probably Big Bang + Grand Collapses, then if evolutionary theory could be expanded to have occurred within infinite time as opposed to limiting abiogenesis and evolution to about 4.5 billion years than you increase the probability of evolution being possible by essentially an infinite factor! I do believe in evolution occurring, but I suspect that perhaps 99% of evolution probably occurred before our Big Bang which was probably planned and choreographed by the Life Form/life forms that would probably be composed of fundamental energy.

Is evolution more probable to have occurred within 13 billion years or within eternity?"



....... Those impressions of mine from a few years ago are still valid......
There also seems to be a connection between the higher energy dimensions postulated by String Theory with the idea of
Energy from Quantum Vacuum.

http://www.theorionproject.org/en/quantumvacuum.html

Quantum Vacuum (or Zero Point) Electromagnetic Generators

These are new-generation generators that tap into the so-called Quantum Vacuum electromagnetic potential of the space around us. It is estimated that every cubic centimeter of space has enough potential energy to run the world’s energy needs for one day, if it could be properly tapped. These innovative generators perturb, or stimulate, this environmental electromagnetic energy to run the generator and supply power to a home, business or car.

Many scientists have proven the existence of this field of energy and various inventors have achieved such ‘free environmental energy’ results. These important scientific achievements need to be properly funded and supported so that a robust system can be commercially available as soon as possible. Such a system will completely replace the current creaky electric power grid and power supply system, which is largely based on coal, oil, natural gas and nuclear power. Moreover, these generators can eventually be placed in cars, trucks and ships to replace the power plants used in vehicles today.

I have tried to understand the connection of Complexity to Consciousness and have never seen a coherent explanation of it. It always starts with the premise that Complexity is Consciousness so more Complexity means more Consciousness or maybe more sophisticated Consciousness. I don't study Consciousness as a general Phenomenon because I think it is not well defined and I don't really know how to define it even after years of thinking about it. So to me, linking a Phenomenon called Consciousness to a Concept like Complexity makes no sense on the face of it. Rather than a generalized Consciousness, I study Conscious Experience (the Qualia from Philosophy). So I am interested in things like Redness, the Standard A Tone, and the Salty Taste as internal Conscious Phenomena. I think these things can be more tightly defined with most people. Even though we cannot know what other people are Experiencing we must agree that for purposes of study that there is much commonality of Experience among people. But anyway, the point is that I don't see that the Experience of these things can have any connection to Complexity, or as other people claim to Computations. These things are Conscious Phenomena that have an existence as things in some sort of Mind concept.

Thank you for commenting in this discussion Steve.

Have you read chapter thirteen of "Stephen Hawking's Universe?"

If so, did that chapter leave you with an impression at all like what I attempted to explain here?

 

[Dennis Tate]

My impression of chapter thirteen of "Stephen Hawking's Universe" is that the following
idea on a Cyclic Model of the Universe from a near death experiencer is perfectly logical and to my thinking.....
much more logical than Dr. Stephen Hawking's idea of their being a nearly infinite number of "Unsuccessful Universes" out there somewhere in which there
was no life in them... .due to electromagnetism, gravity, weak and strong nuclear force being at levels / magnitudes that were not
conducive for the existence of "life.???"

https://www.near-death.com/experiences/exceptional/mellen-thomas-benedict.html#a05

At this point of my near-death experience, I found myself in a profound stillness, beyond all silence. I could see or perceive FOREVER, beyond Infinity. I was in the Void.



I was in pre creation, before the Big Bang. I had crossed over the beginning of time / the First Word / the First vibration. I was in the Eye of Creation. I felt as if I was touching the Face of God. It was not a religious feeling. Simply, I was at one with Absolute Life and Consciousness. When I say that I could see or perceive forever, I mean that I could experience all of creation generating itself. It was without beginning and without end. That’s a mind-expanding thought, isn’t it? Scientists perceive the Big Bang as a single event that created the Universe. I saw during my life after death experience that the Big Bang is only one of an infinite number of Big Bangs creating Universes endlessly and simultaneously. The only images that even come close in human terms would be those created by super computers using fractal geometry equations.

The ancients knew of this. They said God had periodically created new Universes by breathing out, and recreated other Universes by breathing in. These epochs were called Yugas. Modern science called this the Big Bang. I was in absolute, pure consciousness. I could see or perceive all the Big Bangs or Yugas creating and recreating themselves. Instantly I entered into them all simultaneously. I saw that each and every little piece of creation has the power to create. It is very difficult to try to explain this. I am still speechless about this.

It took me years after I returned from my near-death experience to assimilate any words at all for the Void experience. I can tell you this now: the Void is less than nothing, yet more than everything that is! The Void is absolute zero; chaos forming all possibilities. It is Absolute Consciousness; much more than even Universal Intelligence. The Void is the vacuum or nothingness between all physical manifestations. The SPACE between atoms and their components. Modern science has begun to study this space between everything. They call it Zero point. Whenever they try to measure it, their instruments go off the scale, or to infinity, so to speak. They have no way, as of yet, to measure infinity accurately. There is more of the zero space in your own body and the Universe than anything else!

What mystics call the Void is not a void. It is so full of energy, a different kind of energy that has created everything that we are. Everything since the Big Bang is vibration, from the first Word, which is the first vibration. The biblical "I am" really has a question mark after it. "I am -- What am I?" So creation is God exploring God’s Self through every way imaginable, in an ongoing, infinite exploration through every one of us. I began to see during my near-death experience that everything that is, is the Self, literally, your Self, my Self. Everything is the great Self. That is why God knows even when a leaf falls. That is possible because wherever you are is the center of the universe. Wherever any atom is, that is the center of the universe. There is God in that, and God in the Void.

 

[Write4U]

quoted by Dennis Tate

At this point of my near-death experience, I found myself in a profound stillness, beyond all silence. I could see or perceive FOREVER, beyond Infinity. I was in the Void.
https://www.near-death.com/experiences/exceptional/mellen-thomas-benedict.html#a05

I am sorry, but I am very skeptical of this account. If this account is true, then that person must have been in a state of uncontrolled hallucination and not experiencing entry into the afterlife, even if he sincerely believed that was the case.

The fatal flaw in the narrative is a giveaway on his own account of experiencing his "near-death experience", i.e. he was not dead, but still alive and his brain was still functioning, albeit in a state of delusional hallucinations.

If he had died (actual braindead), he would not have been able to experience anything. After death there is nothing, nothing at all. The "self" of the dead person disappears altogether due to microtubule catastrophe and the disintegration of brain cells, where the self resides.

 

[Write4U]

Is evolution more probable to have occurred within 13 billion years or within eternity?"

Evolution of what? Remember that this universe evolved from a state of pure energetic chaos, some 13.8 billion years ago. Whatever was before the BB no longer exists, at least to us.

Is 13 billion years not long enough for you? You have seen what 4.5 billion years can do to an average planet. Abiogenesis from pure chemistry to sentient life, remarkable but true...

p.s. I have a problem unpacking this question.

"Would Intelligence begin in fundamental or nearly fundamental energy?"

That's an ambiguous question. It assumes that intelligence began with energy, which IMO is misleading.
Perhaps a better question might be "Would mathematical functions begin in fundamental energy"? To that question we can safely say "Yes".

But as the question stands, didn't everything begin in fundamental energy, i.e Chaos?

The universe was in chaos after the Big Bang kick-started the cosmos, a new study suggests. While one might expect the explosion that began the universe to wreak some havoc, scientists mean something very specific when they refer to chaos. In a chaotic system, small changes can cause large-scale effects.

While past studies have suggested chaos reigned during the infancy of our universe, the new research offers what scientists say is iron-clad argument for the case.

"The general result of this paper is that, contrary to what some previous studies have suggested, different observers would still agree about the chaotic nature of the universe," study leader Adilson Motter told SPACE.com. "Now we establish once and for all that it is chaotic."

https://www.space.com/9255-big-bang-moment-pure-chaos-study-finds.html#

 

[Write4U]

13.72 billion years is roughly equal to ZERO time when compared with eternity

13.72 billion years is roughly equal to infinity when compared to Planck time. It's relative......

 

[James R]

Dennis:

I am of the belief that The Law of Complexity Consciousness has been at work in whatever form of energy would exist in the first dimensions of space and "time" that would exist and has been compiling and compiling Super Strings and Super Waves into more and more and more complex forms of Intelligence / life!

Okay. And what tests might conceivably prove that belief to be incorrect? Are there any? If not, then the belief is probably not a scientific one.

Several of the most basic paragraphs that I ever read on String Theory left me with the impression that fundamental and /or nearly fundamental energy would exist for infinite time BEFORE the Big Bang event.

Can you please define "fundamental energy"? I don't know what that means.

Does anybody here believe that the first intelligence would originate less than five billion years ago on earth?

Maybe I do. How do you propose to measure intelligence? What would be the most important difference between the "first intelligence" and whatever came just before that?

It seems obvious to me that the first Intelligence would originate in the form of energy that would predate the Big Bang and frankly......

What makes you think that forms of energy can predate the big bang, in the first place?
And then, what makes it "obvious" to you that "intelligence" would originate in that form of energy?
What form would that pre-big bang Intelligence have taken?

None of this is at all "obvious" to me, and so far you've provided no reason why I should accept any of it.

All that I know is that many near death experiencers report that the grass, flowers and trees in the higher invisible dimensions have a level of consciousness and feel joy.....

Why do you think that "near death experiences" are a real experience of "higher invisible dimensions", as opposed to merely being the imaginative experiences that an oxygen-deprived brain might have, for example?

I found it intriguing that several studies indicated that even here on the earth plants have much more of
a fear response than anybody would have guessed.

That seems like a total non sequitur to anything you said before that. What has plant fear got to do with fundamental energies, the big bang, or near death experiences? You're all over the place.

I suspect that the animists may turn out to know certain things that the majority of Christians like myself would not have guessed.

What makes you suspect that animists may have access to special knowledge? Why animists, in particular?

Have you given any thought to out of the body experiences and how the ability of somebody to be conscious......
seemingly outside their bodies..... could be possible?

Since there's no good evidence that any such thing actually happens, is it really worth wasting time speculating on how it might work, if it was real? Surely the first step is to confirm that "out of body experiences" actually occur.

I've been reading those accounts since 1990 from many different angles and I am convinced that a part of our consciousness does not depend on our brain.

What convinced you?

Some studies link the out of the body experience to the right temporal lobe. Electrical stimulation of that part of the brain can produce an out of the body experience.

That would tend to refute your belief that "out of body experiences" aren't the product of the brain, would it not?

Computers work because electricity is zipping around in circuitry....
to what degree is human consciousness comparable to what is happening in computers that makes them work?

Nerve conduction in the human body and in the brain also uses electricity. Does that help?

String Theory implies types of energy that operate at levels vastly beyond mere electricity.

I don't know what you mean by that. String theory only references the usual fields that physicists already know about, the electromagnetic field being one of them.

It seems to me that all across the philosophical spectrum there is at least some understanding of some higher level truths.

What do you mean by a "higher level truth"? How many levels of truth are there? How do you know?

"I actually do believe in evolution but I think that anybody who would dogmatically limit evolution to our four dimensional space time continuum lacks basic mathematical aptitude.

You have a quote mark at the start of this. Whom are you quoting?

Back in the 1990's I read several articles on GUT and string theory. Later on I read Stephen Hawking's Universe. in his chapter The Anthropic Principle he speculated that perhaps there were an infinite number of unsuccessful universes out there somewhere in which was no life due to the fact that electromagnetism, gravity, weak and strong nuclear force were not properly tuned for life as we know it. It seems obvious to me that another possibility is that the first intelligent life form might be composed of energy.

Energy isn't "stuff". It's essentially an accounting system. How could anything be "composed of energy"?

Can you name anything that is "composed of energy"?

Also, you keep saying that lots of things "seem obvious" to you. Based on what? Your overactive imagination?

13.72 billion years is roughly equal to ZERO time when compared with eternity. If fundamental energy would always have existed, as I assume Dr. Hawking seems to believe due to his suspicion of their having been an infinite number of unsuccessful universes and probably Big Bang + Grand Collapses, then if evolutionary theory could be expanded to have occurred within infinite time as opposed to limiting abiogenesis and evolution to about 4.5 billion years than you increase the probability of evolution being possible by essentially an infinite factor!

There are lots of ifs and assumptions in that sentence.

I don't know what "fundamental energy" is; maybe you'll explain.

On what basis do you "assume" that Stephen Hawking shared your belief in "fundamental energy"?

As for evolution: we already know it's possible. It happens. That's an established fact. We don't need infinite time for that.

I do believe in evolution occurring, but I suspect that perhaps 99% of evolution probably occurred before our Big Bang which was probably planned and choreographed by the Life Form/life forms that would probably be composed of fundamental energy.

It sounds to me like you don't have the first clue about what "evolution" means, or what the "theory of evolution" is about.

My impression of chapter thirteen of "Stephen Hawking's Universe" is that the following idea on a Cyclic Model of the Universe from a near death experiencer is perfectly logical and to my thinking.....

Again, what makes you think that "near death experiencers" have special access to knowledge - or access to special knowledge?

...much more logical than Dr. Stephen Hawking's idea of their being a nearly infinite number of "Unsuccessful Universes" out there somewhere in which there was no life in them... .due to electromagnetism, gravity, weak and strong nuclear force being at levels / magnitudes that were not conducive for the existence of "life.???"

Do you understand what Hawking is talking about? He is speculating that there might be a multiverse consisting of a large number of "island universes" which have different values for their fundamental physical constants (the ones that determine the relative strengths of fundamental physical forces and so on). But Hawking always explicitly stated that this is speculation. It is not verified in any way.

 

[James R]

Dennis,

I'd like to take a moment to comment on your quote from a "near death experiencer".

Primarily, I am wondering why you think that any of this account should be taken as evidence of special knowledge, or even as a real experience. Why do you think this is not just imaginative fantasy?

At this point of my near-death experience, I found myself in a profound stillness, beyond all silence. I could see or perceive FOREVER, beyond Infinity. I was in the Void.

Terms like "beyond Infinity" are actually meaningless. You realise that, don't you?

Also, if this person could really "perceive FOREVER", why is this account so mundane? Why is there no new or useful information in it?

I was in pre creation, before the Big Bang. I had crossed over the beginning of time / the First Word / the First vibration. I was in the Eye of Creation.

How did he know that?

I felt as if I was touching the Face of God. It was not a religious feeling. Simply, I was at one with Absolute Life and Consciousness.

What does that even mean? Does it mean anything?

When I say that I could see or perceive forever, I mean that I could experience all of creation generating itself. It was without beginning and without end.

How does one "experience" something like that, directly? Does this actually mean anything?

That’s a mind-expanding thought, isn’t it? Scientists perceive the Big Bang as a single event that created the Universe. I saw during my life after death experience that the Big Bang is only one of an infinite number of Big Bangs creating Universes endlessly and simultaneously.

Again, how can one directly perceive an infinity of anything?

The only images that even come close in human terms would be those created by super computers using fractal geometry equations.

So we're talking about somebody who perceived "images" here, are we?

How do we know that these "images" weren't all in the brain?

Also, is this person an expert on super computers and fractal equations? Or is he just imagining what other images would "come close"?

The ancients knew of this. They said God had periodically created new Universes by breathing out, and recreated other Universes by breathing in. These epochs were called Yugas. Modern science called this the Big Bang.

Ah, vague appeals to "the ancients".

Which particular ancients are we talking about here? How did they know all this? Where did they get the information?

Whatever "Yugas" are, I'm confident they are very different to the Big Bang, which is a scientific theory, not a mystical vision.

I was in absolute, pure consciousness. I could see or perceive all the Big Bangs or Yugas creating and recreating themselves. Instantly I entered into them all simultaneously. I saw that each and every little piece of creation has the power to create. It is very difficult to try to explain this. I am still speechless about this.

Not quite speechless. Just not communicating anything useful.

It took me years after I returned from my near-death experience to assimilate any words at all for the Void experience. I can tell you this now: the Void is less than nothing, yet more than everything that is! The Void is absolute zero; chaos forming all possibilities. It is Absolute Consciousness; much more than even Universal Intelligence. The Void is the vacuum or nothingness between all physical manifestations. The SPACE between atoms and their components.

Oh wow! Let's all get excited about The Void!

What does it mean to be "less than nothing"?
What does it mean to be "more than everything that is"?
How can something be both of those things at the same time?
How can "chaos" form all possibilities? What is "chaos", in this context?
What is "Universal Intelligence" and how do we know it exists?
What is "Absolute Consciousness" and how do we know it exists?
How can "Absolute Consciousness" be "much more than even Universal Intelligence"? In what sense is it "much more"? What's being measured here? How is it being measured? How does the writer know this?
Is The Void simply empty space, or something else? The author seems confused.

It's a pity the author hasn't actually answered a single one of these questions, isn't it?

Modern science has begun to study this space between everything. They call it Zero point. Whenever they try to measure it, their instruments go off the scale, or to infinity, so to speak. They have no way, as of yet, to measure infinity accurately. There is more of the zero space in your own body and the Universe than anything else!

That reference to "modern science" is nonsense. The author is making that stuff up.

"Zero point energy" is a thing in science, but it has a specific, scientific definition. It is not something that makes instruments explode when we try to measure it, or whatever. There's no "infinity" involved. And "zero space" is not a term that is used in science.

What mystics call the Void is not a void.

Why should we care what mystics say?

It is so full of energy, a different kind of energy that has created everything that we are.

Different in what way? What physical laws describe this "new" kind of energy?

Everything since the Big Bang is vibration, from the first Word, which is the first vibration.

This is the first mention of a "first Word". What is that, exactly? Whose Word is it? Is this about God, or something?

What does "everything ... is a vibration" mean? In what sense am I - or my table lamp - a vibration? What's vibrating? How do we know? How can we measure the "vibrations"?

The biblical "I am" really has a question mark after it. "I am -- What am I?" So creation is God exploring God’s Self through every way imaginable, in an ongoing, infinite exploration through every one of us. I began to see during my near-death experience that everything that is, is the Self, literally, your Self, my Self. Everything is the great Self. That is why God knows even when a leaf falls. That is possible because wherever you are is the center of the universe. Wherever any atom is, that is the center of the universe. There is God in that, and God in the Void.

So now we start to import what sounds like a Christian belief into this whole story about The Void and so on. Why?

What does God need or want to explore God's Self? Isn't God something that already knows everything?

Then we get the claim that everything is "the Self". Which self? God's self? The author's self? All the same "self"?

In what sense is my table lamp a part of this "Self" the author is speaking about?
In what sense are you and I part of the same "Self"? You don't know me. I don't know you. Why not, if we're both "Self"?

We end with the claim that God is everywhere, in all things. But how do we know that? What test would rule out the possibility that God is in All Things? If there isn't one, then we're very far away from any Science of The Void, or any other kind of science.

What started out as claims about the physical universe has, by this point, descended into ramblings about God and mysticism.

What use is any of this nonsense?

 

[Dennis Tate]

Dennis:

Okay. And what tests might conceivably prove that belief to be incorrect? Are there any? If not, then the belief is probably not a scientific one.


Can you please define "fundamental energy"? I don't know what that means.


Maybe I do. How do you propose to measure intelligence? What would be the most important difference between the "first intelligence" and whatever came just before that?


What makes you think that forms of energy can predate the big bang, in the first place?
And then, what makes it "obvious" to you that "intelligence" would originate in that form of energy?
What form would that pre-big bang Intelligence have taken?

None of this is at all "obvious" to me, and so far you've provided no reason why I should accept any of it.

Why do you think that "near death experiences" are a real experience of "higher invisible dimensions", as opposed to merely being the imaginative experiences that an oxygen-deprived brain might have, for example?


That seems like a total non sequitur to anything you said before that. What has plant fear got to do with fundamental energies, the big bang, or near death experiences? You're all over the place.


What makes you suspect that animists may have access to special knowledge? Why animists, in particular?


Since there's no good evidence that any such thing actually happens, is it really worth wasting time speculating on how it might work, if it was real? Surely the first step is to confirm that "out of body experiences" actually occur.


What convinced you?


That would tend to refute your belief that "out of body experiences" aren't the product of the brain, would it not?


Nerve conduction in the human body and in the brain also uses electricity. Does that help?


I don't know what you mean by that. String theory only references the usual fields that physicists already know about, the electromagnetic field being one of them.


What do you mean by a "higher level truth"? How many levels of truth are there? How do you know?


You have a quote mark at the start of this. Whom are you quoting?


Energy isn't "stuff". It's essentially an accounting system. How could anything be "composed of energy"?

Can you name anything that is "composed of energy"?

Also, you keep saying that lots of things "seem obvious" to you. Based on what? Your overactive imagination?


There are lots of ifs and assumptions in that sentence.

I don't know what "fundamental energy" is; maybe you'll explain.

On what basis do you "assume" that Stephen Hawking shared your belief in "fundamental energy"?

As for evolution: we already know it's possible. It happens. That's an established fact. We don't need infinite time for that.


It sounds to me like you don't have the first clue about what "evolution" means, or what the "theory of evolution" is about.


Again, what makes you think that "near death experiencers" have special access to knowledge - or access to special knowledge?


Do you understand what Hawking is talking about? He is speculating that there might be a multiverse consisting of a large number of "island universes" which have different values for their fundamental physical constants (the ones that determine the relative strengths of fundamental physical forces and so on). But Hawking always explicitly stated that this is speculation. It is not verified in any way.

When it comes to fundamental energy or energies we know that electromagnetism, gravity, weak and strong nuclear force ARE NOT FUNDAMENTAL ENERGIES....... but instead are complex energies somehow made up of less and less complex forms of energy or energies that operate at RELATIVELY LOW LEVEL energies in comparison to truly fundamental energy as explained by String Theory!

In that article that I gave a couple of quotations on String Theory from it was mentioned that Stephen Hawking Ph. D. was having difficulty with gravity......
gravity would not fully fit in mathematically with ONE ORIGINAL SUPERFORCE in merely ten dimensions of space and time so as of the time of that article
M-Theory postulated eleven dimensions of space and time to make full unity into one force possible.

Bosonic String Theory works with twenty six dimensions of space and time and I ran into evidence in parapsychology or pseudoscience that would imply that Bosonic String Theory is probably going to win out over M-Theory over the long term.

My guess is that there may be TWO fundamental energies.... one based on Super Strings which I assume correspond to light.....
the other perhaps based on Super Waves that may be the primary component of GRAVITY that Dr. Hawking was having trouble
fitting into the mathematics for full unification. But that is just a guess.

As far as a test to prove this to be untrue.....
One of the most productive ways to disprove this basic idea would be of course connected to
attempting to disprove Energy from Quantum Vacuum.

Why does energy somehow go off the scale in larger and larger particle accelerators or massive vacuum chambers?

There is a facility being built in Europe that will probably soon have the answer but......
Energy from Quantum Vacuum could compete with the oil industry so........
don't hold your breath waiting for information on what is being found out there to be released to the general public.

 

[Dennis Tate]

I am sorry, but I am very skeptical of this account. If this account is true, then that person must have been in a state of uncontrolled hallucination and not experiencing entry into the afterlife, even if he sincerely believed that was the case.

The fatal flaw in the narrative is a giveaway on his own account of experiencing his "near-death experience", i.e. he was not dead, but still alive and his brain was still functioning, albeit in a state of delusional hallucinations.

If he had died (actual braindead), he would not have been able to experience anything. After death there is nothing, nothing at all. The "self" of the dead person disappears altogether due to microtubule catastrophe and the disintegration of brain cells, where the self resides.

Can you get hold of a copy of "Stephen Hawking's Universe" and read chapter thirteen?

I think I have it in my basement but I am not enthused with the idea of attempting to type it out.

You really need to read about the operation performed on Ms. Pam Reynolds.


https://www.near-death.com/science/evidence/people-have-ndes-while-brain-dead.html

People Have Near-Death Experiences While Brain DeadKevin Williams

Dr. Michael Sabom is a cardiologist whose book entitled Light and Death includes a detailed medical and scientific analysis of an amazing near-death experience (NDE) of a woman named Pam Reynolds (1956--2010). In 1991, at the age of 35, Reynolds underwent a rare operation to remove a giant basilar artery aneurysm in her brain that threatened her life. The size and location of the aneurysm, however, precluded its safe removal using the standard neuro-surgical techniques. She was referred to a neurosurgeon, Dr. Robert F. Spetzler, of the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, Arizona, who had pioneered a daring surgical procedure known as deep hypothermic cardiac arrest. It allowed Pam's aneurysm to be excised with a reasonable chance of success. This operation, nicknamed "standstill" by the doctors who perform it, required that Pam's body temperature be lowered to 60 degrees, her heartbeat and breathing stopped, her brain waves flattened, and the blood drained from her head. In everyday terms, she was put to death. After removing the aneurysm, she was restored to life. During the time that Pam was in standstill, she experienced an NDE. Her remarkably detailed veridical (i.e., verified) out-of-body observations during her surgery were later verified to be true. Her case is considered to be one of the strongest cases of veridical evidence in NDE research because of her ability to describe the unique surgical instruments, the surgical procedures used on her, and her ability to describe in detail these events while she was clinically brain dead. Pam Reynolds Lowery ultimately died from heart failure, on Saturday May 22, 2010, at the age 53.

Table of Contents
1.Pam Reynolds' Surgery and Near-Death Experience
2.About the State of Pam Reynolds' Brain Death
3.The Pam Reynolds' Debate in the Journal of Near-Death Studies
4.More Links to Articles Related to the Veridical Perception Debate
5.The Case Against Keith Augustine's "Internet Infidels"
a.Against Keith Augustine's Naturalism
b.Against Keith Augustine's "Myth of an Afterlife"