daymoon
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The word of the day is,,,, C.O.P.E
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Post by daymoon on Sept 19, 2013 17:10:38 GMT -6
I have to say, I really really appriciate how friendly and polite everyone has been to me here Thank you I happened to notice this morning when I got up, I have a morning routine. I get up, fix a cup of cappuccino and try to wake up fully while checking my facebook before I start writing. Anyway, this morning I had no urge to look at facebook and when I did it was boring.It is full of cutesy pictures with mildy amusing quotes, people airing their drama, and political rants. BLECK! facebook is about as interesting as going to the laundry mat. The people here are so much more interesting I just wanted to say thank you to everybody
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Sept 19, 2013 18:54:08 GMT -6
I only mentioned that as food for thought, wm. Bias is impossible to abandon...it's an intrinsic feature of observation and conscious experience. It's not always a bad thing, either. I wanted to point out that concepts like "humanity" and "intelligence" are fluid in nature and subject to the bias inherent in individual experience. One person's notion of human-ness is just as valid as anyone else's. One can argue that DNA forms the basis of what makes us human, but that carries with it a biological bias. Chimpanzees and gorillas both share over 97% and 95% (respectively) of our genome...are they human as well? Domestic dogs don't share as much genetic material in common, yet they are like us in a surprising number of ways. It's theorized that humans and dogs evolved together for a very long time. Cognitive studies of canines - wolves and domestic dogs - demonstrate the close alliance between us and dogs. Wolves outperform domestic dogs in most cognitive tests when the dog is on its own with no human present...however, insert a human near to the dog, and the dog will outperform the wolf. The human in question can be a stranger to that dog, indicating that there is something about humanity that changes how a dog thinks and acts. We are "closer" to the world around us in ways that we presently don't understand. "Animal" souls or human souls...is there really a difference? I say there isn't, because Homo Sapiens is first and foremost an animal. I know, bewildered. It's just that I'm thinking of these concepts from a conventional point of view. If I had stopped and actually given it some thought, I would've come to the same conclusion. I was amazed about the cognitive studies of canines. Now that I think about it, maybe our souls really aren't so different after all.
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Post by bewildered on Sept 19, 2013 22:27:28 GMT -6
We are only as different as we think ourselves to be, yet paradoxically every one of us possesses a unique perspective. In my mind, the matter vehicles we think of as our bodies represent the aggregate of myriad systems forming an abstract whole. I think of the soul as the accumulated data of life experience occurring in that abstract vehicle...but the soul is not in my view consciousness or being. I think of it as clothing one may wear, inextricably linked to a style, or identity. Psychologists understand that identity is not in actuality a fixed variable; a person can in fact possess multiple identities and to some degree this is normal and not pathological. When you get right down to it, the way you think and perceive things is entirely dependent upon the bias filters you choose to employ. Are people with Down Syndrome "defective"...or are they exactly the way they should be? I argue the latter. On the surface it might seem tragic to some of us, but if you choose to intentionally divorce yourself from culturally-generated bias and relate to someone with Downs on a personal basis, you will soon discover that they are in fact amazing people! People with Downs appear to have a tremendous capacity for forgiveness that is only surpassed by a never-ending wellspring of love. They encounter difficulties when exposed to the less savory aspects of other people, for they don't understand why someone would want to hurt another person. They are often treated brutally in most societies, neglected, abused, and isolated by people whom they initially trust (people with Downs can be very trusting as long as they haven't been hurt very often by others). Many are terrified and like any creature who is terrified, they can react instinctively to defend themselves. They deserve to be treated with dignity and respect, and appreciated for the unique individuals that they are. I used that illustration as a real-life example of how bias alters our perception. To some people, Down Syndrome is a tragedy. For others, it is not.
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daymoon
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The word of the day is,,,, C.O.P.E
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Post by daymoon on Sept 20, 2013 7:54:12 GMT -6
You would be surprised at how many families abandon special needs people in nursing and group homes It is truly sad. I've worked with quite a few of them being a nurse aid, and I totally agree with you bewildered. They are NOT a tragedy. I took care of one named Dorothy, her favorite thing in life was to look through magazines. LOL I nearly lost my job when I threatened another med aid with a beat down when she tried to take her magazines away and made her cry. I had another one named Gracie, she was my favorite She always hugged me everyday the first thing when I came on her side of the building. We all cried when she and Dorothy passed on. Unfortunately the more severe the condition, the shorter the life span
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Post by bewildered on Sept 20, 2013 12:54:06 GMT -6
You would be surprised at how many families abandon special needs people in nursing and group homes It is truly sad. I've worked with quite a few of them being a nurse aid, and I totally agree with you bewildered. They are NOT a tragedy. I took care of one named Dorothy, her favorite thing in life was to look through magazines. LOL I nearly lost my job when I threatened another med aid with a beat down when she tried to take her magazines away and made her cry. I had another one named Gracie, she was my favorite She always hugged me everyday the first thing when I came on her side of the building. We all cried when she and Dorothy passed on. Unfortunately the more severe the condition, the shorter the life span Some of the conditions created by trisomy 21 (Down Syndrome, an extra chromosome in the 21st pair) can indeed shorten the lifespan of a person considerably. There are aspects of this existence which require fluency in a different language to express, and trisomy 21 demands such a thing. Languages spoken with our mouths or symbolized with script can only focus upon an artificially constricted event, expressing it in a linear fashion which ultimately fails to capture the essence of the whole. We can employ linguistic modes such as poetry or allegory to express non-linear ideations, but even then the words of the poet only serve to point toward the secret language understood by us all...and by "us" I mean the totality of life. It's a language beyond words and bias, and I spent years trying to discover a linguistic model that captures this elusive tongue. I practiced allegorical poetry, a style that appears in some sacred texts of antiquity, and I realized that was as close as I would ever get. Here's why our spoken and written language fails. I'll simulate this other language: Trisomy 21 is sad/beautiful/grievous/wonderful, and people with it enrich/uplift/deepen the lives/experience/understanding of anyone who is fortunate/blessed/touched enough to meet/know/experience them. Their life/energy pattern stability might seem/appear short/brief/tragic, but that is only an illusion/virtual model/simulation produced by the lens/bias presently functioning in our conscious cognitive construct we think of as our mind/intelligence/identity. That might be difficult to follow, but the terms grouped together in bold represent complex thought-forms that carry emotional algorithms intended to activate when they are received. No spoken or written language can express this transcendent tongue, but I assure you that it is universally understood by everyone and everything. The fact that this language is both understood and spoken by all attests to the unity we actually take part in.
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daymoon
Junior Member
The word of the day is,,,, C.O.P.E
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Post by daymoon on Sept 21, 2013 9:02:17 GMT -6
You posting that reminds me of something, About twelve years ago I was working 60 hours a week night shift, a single mom of five really wild kids and hadn't slept in probably three days. Anyway, I was sitting in my truck just about to cry because I wanted to take my own life and just have it all over. Things where pretty bad for me. Just before I started crying, a young guy with some pretty severe developmental disorders came up to my truck. He literally slammed himself into my truck and begged me not to be sad. I just sat there stunned looking at him. He told me he loved me. Then he said something that shook me to the core and I have been forcing myself to be strong ever since. He pointed up and looked up at the sky and said "be ok please i love you." Then he stared at me and without speaking a word he pushed so much energy into my head I almost couldn't breathe. It was like for an instant every door in teh universe opened up and I could see who I was supposed to become. Then he looked at me and reached through the window and gave me a hug before his dad ushered him away from the truck and into the grocery store. Before that day I was actually kind of afraid of people like him. I had never had any experience with them so I really did not know how to interact with them. Now, I see him every once in a while at the thrift shop where I like to go shopping. It also serves as a daycare for people like him. Since then, I have taken every opportunity I have been given (in medical field ) to take care of people like him. As far as I am concerned they have a direct line to the powers that be. A lot of people have no idea just how special the worlds special people can be. They give love energy unconditionally, they love without bias or reservation. And the odd part is, if you have ever really been around a lot of them as I have, they know what you are feeling sometimes before you even realize it and they act accordingly.
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Post by skywalker on Sept 22, 2013 18:04:24 GMT -6
Over the years I have done quite a bit of research into people who don't believe they are fully human. ie: soul is something non human such as alien or vampire or whatever. I would really like to hear other peoples ideas and such on the theory that the soul is not always human and is actually an energy body that can be of different origins. Ive written a book on it called the non humans guide to living with humans. I don't want the research and information to end there though. I want to hear what other people think of the theory and if possible experiences pertaining to being not human yet looking like one. If you want a copy of the book or more information on the theory let me know. Its on amazon and I am willing to give a free copy of it if needed. This book is not about profit but about helping people who need it and the purpose of making information available. Anyways, all thoughts on the DNA of the energy body welcome Thanks Ann Holt I've always thought that the soul was something much more than the physical body it resides in. Asking whether a soul is human, animal or vampire, etc...is like asking if the driver of a car is a Chevy, Toyota or Ford. Physical bodies are just what souls use to exist on this physical plane. Some people who believe in reincarnation say that how a soul is reincarnated will be determined by how they lived their previous life. For instance if a dog lives a good life (for a dog anyway) next time it might be reincarnated as a higher being like a (human, dolphin, eagle? What would be a higher being compared to a dog? ). On the other hand if a person to live a wicked, cruel life his soul might be reincarnated as something like a snail or cockroach or something. Each soul continues on and on at various levels. Other people believe that the soul chooses what physical form it wants to take in order to obtain the experiences of that life form and how it lives. Personally, I believe the soul is something much more than that. I think that the individual soul is a small part of the life force that creates all living things and gives them life (kind of like being a piece of God) and that while we are individuals to a certain extent we are also at the same time part of the whole. All life is related because of this and it is only the experiences and memories that we gain during our physical lives that give us our individuality. When our physical bodies die our souls go back to the force from whence they came...to once again become part of the whole until the next physical body comes along and we start the process all over again. I know I'm probably not explaining that very well but that's my opinion on the subject.
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daymoon
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The word of the day is,,,, C.O.P.E
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Post by daymoon on Sept 23, 2013 9:35:59 GMT -6
I think you did a pretty good job of explaining that. I am not sure about returning to the source for a soul or the whole part about a dog living a good life then evolving higher. I have read the theory on it but I don't really agree or disagree on it. I think anything is possible and most likely the death experience is set to the individual. Kind of like, If an angel in human form dies, they return to heaven, or a vampire would return to the ash looking place. I think though some souls go directly into the next life if that was there plan. Although I did meet someone once who believed they had a body in another world and when their time on earth was up they would return to that body that was in stasis.
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Post by bewildered on Sept 23, 2013 20:33:31 GMT -6
It's time for me to ask one of those questions again. What precisely is a "higher" form of life? Evolving doesn't necessarily lead to "better." It simply means some kind of quantitative change is produced in order to adapt to circumstances and stressors inherent in the environment or ecosystem. Is a human being actually a "higher" form of life than, say, a chimpanzee or a raven? If so, what are the criteria which make a human "superior" to a raven or a chimp?
If we judge superiority by material culture (that is, the aggregate of all artifacts that we as a species create), then consider what our material culture has accomplished on this planet. We have destroyed entire ecosystems and driven countless species to extinction thanks to our material culture. We possess the ability to annihilate all life on earth. The dinosaurs, the largest creatures to walk the earth, lacked that ability.
If one considers language as an earmark of human superiority, I'll be the first to break the news that a complex language is not the exclusive purview of the human species. Dolphins associate other dolphins using unique names; researchers are discovering that the screeches and hoots of chimpanzees and bonobos represent a very complex vocal language; each wolf can be identified by unique qualities of their howl. What we are discovering is rather sobering: other animals are capable of learning how to communicate with humans easily, whereas we have a difficult time doing that.
Other animals think and feel...how can we know that our own thought process is somehow "better" than theirs? Humanocentrism has been plaguing our species for thousands of years, and has been a primary agent behind our staggering collective arrogance.
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Post by bewildered on Sept 23, 2013 20:42:13 GMT -6
Consider the following factoid: chimpanzees possess a short term memory that is frightening in power and scope. They leave us behind in the dust in this capacity. I'll share a video at the end of this post about cognitive research being conducted with chimpanzees at the University of Kyoto in Japan. What these chimps can do will amaze you...and it is the norm with them, not the exception. A chimp can view a randomized sample of fifteen numbers revealed for 210 milliseconds, and remember the correct numerical order of the sample when the values are masked (aka a game of "memory"). Humans who take the same tests perform miserably in comparison. Watch Ayumu the chimp breeze through the exercises. National Geographic
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niki
New Member
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Post by niki on Sept 24, 2013 6:34:21 GMT -6
It's time for me to ask one of those questions again. What precisely is a "higher" form of life? Evolving doesn't necessarily lead to "better." It simply means some kind of quantitative change is produced in order to adapt to circumstances and stressors inherent in the environment or ecosystem. Is a human being actually a "higher" form of life than, say, a chimpanzee or a raven? If so, what are the criteria which make a human "superior" to a raven or a chimp? If we judge superiority by material culture (that is, the aggregate of all artifacts that we as a species create), then consider what our material culture has accomplished on this planet. We have destroyed entire ecosystems and driven countless species to extinction thanks to our material culture. We possess the ability to annihilate all life on earth. The dinosaurs, the largest creatures to walk the earth, lacked that ability. If one considers language as an earmark of human superiority, I'll be the first to break the news that a complex language is not the exclusive purview of the human species. Dolphins associate other dolphins using unique names; researchers are discovering that the screeches and hoots of chimpanzees and bonobos represent a very complex vocal language; each wolf can be identified by unique qualities of their howl. What we are discovering is rather sobering: other animals are capable of learning how to communicate with humans easily, whereas we have a difficult time doing that. Other animals think and feel...how can we know that our own thought process is somehow "better" than theirs? Humanocentrism has been plaguing our species for thousands of years, and has been a primary agent behind our staggering collective arrogance. I completely agree with you One could argue that humans are a 'superior' species based on our ability to create, compose, express ourselves, organize, and imagine. Other species do this on a smaller scale, but relevancy is the key. Certainly, I do not feel that our species is a higher form due to its ability to destroy, consume way beyond its means, and obsess over materialistic pursuits rather than spiritual pursuits. My own belief is that our souls retain knowledge that our intellects do not and knowing these things can make some of us, who are paying attention, feel as if we do not belong. I think we are born knowing all the details of our spiritual journey in this human life, but over time these things get forgotten or put in the background while we attempt to integrate into what society says we must be. Those of us who still 'feel' the purpose can constantly feel discomfort, because the deepest, oldest part of us knows we are not here to get caught up in the pursuit for the latest iphone, for example. I'm not certain this means we are relatives of another race, species, or planetary being. To me, that is a thought based purely on romance. You don't fit in, so your mind looks for ways to explain why, when in reality the truth might be much simpler. If each of us have experienced life in more ways than this current life we are living now, it may be that our soul or higher self is just feeling the pain of what it must participate in, witness and experience, during this 'current' life. Just a thought ;-)
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Post by skywalker on Sept 24, 2013 7:11:41 GMT -6
It's time for me to ask one of those questions again. What precisely is a "higher" form of life? Evolving doesn't necessarily lead to "better." It simply means some kind of quantitative change is produced in order to adapt to circumstances and stressors inherent in the environment or ecosystem. Is a human being actually a "higher" form of life than, say, a chimpanzee or a raven? If so, what are the criteria which make a human "superior" to a raven or a chimp? When I was talking about "higher forms of life" earlier I was just passing on one of the theories I've heard about reincarnation. I don't believe it myself which is why I was struggling to come up with what might be considered a higher form of life than a dog. If I were a dog I would be just as happy as I am as a human. I think I would probably feel the same if I were a snail or a bird or a fish. I imagine I would be jumping for joy if I were a T-rex or a triceratops. Personally I think that all life is the same because the life force or "soul" comes from the same place. There is no higher or lower life...there is just life. This is something I have been saying for years. All species of animals have language because they are all capable of communicating with one another. It may not be language the way we would recognize it but that is only because we do not belong to that species. Just because we don't understand it that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. People are lazy (and arrogant) when trying to learn to communicate with animals. We always try to teach them our language instead of trying to understand theirs. I agree, dude.
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Post by bewildered on Sept 24, 2013 12:42:42 GMT -6
One could argue that humans are a 'superior' species based on our ability to create, compose, express ourselves, organize, and imagine. Other species do this on a smaller scale, but relevancy is the key. Certainly, I do not feel that our species is a higher form due to its ability to destroy, consume way beyond its means, and obsess over materialistic pursuits rather than spiritual pursuits. I think the term we could use is "successful." Our material culture enables our species to: acquire more protein through hunting, grow our own food supply, survive in virtually every ecosystem and climate on Earth, survive in outer space, and walk upon the surface of another world. We are unlocking the data of the DNA molecule, something that allows us to change the color of flowers, cure macular degeneration, and produce meat without ever having to kill a sentient creature. Our species is rather remarkable. The material culture represents everything created by human hands...both the seemingly simple and exceedingly complex. Clothing, stone tools, atlatls, plows, irrigation ditches, computing systems, aircraft, satellites, and space-worthy occupancy vehicles are all constituent parts of our material culture. As far as we know, no other species on Earth relies upon such a robust material culture to succeed. You raised an interesting point, niki, when you wrote " Certainly, I do not feel that our species is a higher form due to its ability to destroy, consume way beyond its means, and obsess over materialistic pursuits rather than spiritual pursuits." Modern humans (people anatomically identical to us today) have been around for close to 200,000 years. Precisely how long has "life as we know it" existed? I refer to our present mode of living complete with widespread ecosystem destruction, industrialized agriculture and hyper-pastoralism, striated societies (socio-economic classes), weapons of mass destruction, cities of concrete, steel, and glass, and so on. Life as we know it has only existed for approximately seventy years. Viewed from a different perspective, that's only .00035% of our time on this planet! If you add more time to my estimate - say, include the Colonial Age and push it back by a few hundred years - you still arrive at a rather small fraction of the whole. If one were to insist upon 400 years, then my estimate changes to .002%. The agricultural revolution began in earnest 13,000 years ago. So, for 7% of our time, we have engaged in creating a surplus of food that permitted a tremendous population explosion and developed a highly destructive material culture that eventually wrecked our planet. What were we doing for the remaining 93% of our time? We were hunter-gatherers living in relatively small, self-sustaining groups. People like the !Kung of the Kalahari are an excellent example of "life as it was" for thousands upon thousands of years. Until recently, the !Kung lived in nomadic bands of 30 or so people. 20 of those people were adults, and 10 were children. The ratio of adults to children in bands of the !Kung was two to one. Two to one! Why? Did the !Kung live short lives? Nope. When studied by anthropologists and other scientists, the !Kung were discovered to be quite healthy. Their reproductive practices were very different than what you find in an agricultural society like ours. The !Kung lived each day just for that day, and only took what they needed for that day. Anthropologists discovered that the !Kung actually enjoyed a higher standard of living than humans in striated, agricultural societies. The !Kung only worked three hours each day hunting and gathering food. They distributed what they hunted and gathered to everyone in the band according to what they needed. The rest of their time was spent doing what they wanted to do. Pretty sweet, eh? I myself harbor the suspicion that what we think and believe is purely relative to our situational awareness. For hundreds of years, people just couldn't believe that the "savage and uncivilized" original people of North America were capable of building the tremendous and elaborate mounds scattered across the continent. It took Thomas Jefferson excavating such a mound on his property to establish that Native Americans could, in fact, build them. We are now discovering that thousands of years ago, Native Americans had settlements that housed over thirty thousand people! That was much larger than any settlement in Europe at that time. Our bias defines our perspective, and our perspective in concert with what we have been taught shapes our interpretation of reality. What if the past and the future don't actually exist? What if such notions are merely conventions our societies developed in order to understand what they couldn't understand? Death isn't an end, it's merely a continuation of a cycle. This cycle is perpetual, and also might be thought of as a mobius loop. "Reincarnation" forces a linear perspective upon what is essentially a non-linear expression. If the past and the future are merely cognitive constructs, and nothing is actually a line that travels directly from A to B, then our bias is obviously at play. What if something travels continuously from A to A in a cyclic pattern, essentially making what we think of as the "past" and the "future" into "right now?" We might be living countless "lives" simultaneously in innumerable universes. Infinity is a mathematical construct that says "I have no freaking idea." We would do well to keep that in mind when thinking about how our own bias and perspective both limits and defines us.
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Post by bewildered on Sept 24, 2013 14:33:57 GMT -6
All of this relates to some of my "far out" experiences, to paraphrase what I wrote to plutronus in another thread of the forum. I'm at a loss to explain them, so I merely accept them for what they are, as they were. I sometimes experienced visions that left me with a profoundly convoluted mass of thoughts that led me to question my interpretations of reality. It took me quite a few years to work through what I saw, felt, tasted and otherwise experienced. Time and space were the target of these visions, and it was as if someone or something was attempting to nudge me toward shattering the glass mansion I was living in at the time. The visions were quite intense, and I suppose a psychologist might state that I was experiencing an episode of psychosis when they happened. Who knows...they might be right. Regardless of what they were, I'm not aware of "psychosis" affording someone with rational threads they may follow and explore in its wake. If it was madness, then it was a rather useful madness. I kept bumping into a persistent theme in these visions, and I was at a loss to explain it adequately in the language I used on a daily basis. When I came across quantum entanglement, I realized that I was looking at the very theme I was experiencing in my visions. Quoting from a page on sciencedaily.com, quantum entanglement is "...a quantum mechanical phenomenon in which the quantum states of two or more objects have to be described with reference to each other, even though the individual objects may be spatially separated." Read the article in its entirety here: Quantum EntanglementThat sounds like a mouth-full, but if you consider the implications of that definition, you'll begin to see what I saw: time and space are holographic and fluid in nature. Both are completely dependent upon a situational observation made from point x relative to all possible points radiating from x on an infinite number of axes, or planes. What I just described is in fact a star. The star, which can be thought of as x, radiates toward all possible points on an infinite number of axes, or planes. Most of us will be familiar with graphing linear and even non-linear equations from our algebra classes where you may have two, three, or more variables in a system of equations. While you can solve for x, y, z, and however many other variables that are present in your system, each cannot be described independently of the other. x, y, z, and n ("n" is a nifty analytical device you can use to signify "anything!") are all relative to one another. This in essence describes quantum entanglement. If x is zero, then y might be one. If y is zero, then x could be negative two. Quantum entanglement. The star radiates in a fashion that might be symbolized as {x | x <= ...infinity}, or x is such that all x is less than or equal to infinity. x appears everywhere at every point on every possible plane or axis, so x + y + n <= infinity. It is only by isolating certain planes or axes that we arrive at a finite value. This is where I see how our perception and bias is an artificial convention we use in order to feel more comfortable and secure. We need x to be a certain point, not all points, so we constrain it. Even so, the value of x is entirely dependent upon the values of the other variables we use! In a nutshell, I saw that what we perceive as our lives, identity, and even reality are in fact a type, or system, of very persistent entangled delusions.
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Post by paulette on Sept 24, 2013 15:24:41 GMT -6
You would be surprised at how many families abandon special needs people in nursing and group homes It is truly sad. I've worked with quite a few of them being a nurse aid, and I totally agree with you bewildered. They are NOT a tragedy. I took care of one named Dorothy, her favorite thing in life was to look through magazines. LOL I nearly lost my job when I threatened another med aid with a beat down when she tried to take her magazines away and made her cry. I had another one named Gracie, she was my favorite She always hugged me everyday the first thing when I came on her side of the building. We all cried when she and Dorothy passed on. Unfortunately the more severe the condition, the shorter the life span Some of the conditions created by trisomy 21 (Down Syndrome, an extra chromosome in the 21st pair) can indeed shorten the lifespan of a person considerably. There are aspects of this existence which require fluency in a different language to express, and trisomy 21 demands such a thing. Languages spoken with our mouths or symbolized with script can only focus upon an artificially constricted event, expressing it in a linear fashion which ultimately fails to capture the essence of the whole. We can employ linguistic modes such as poetry or allegory to express non-linear ideations, but even then the words of the poet only serve to point toward the secret language understood by us all...and by "us" I mean the totality of life. It's a language beyond words and bias, and I spent years trying to discover a linguistic model that captures this elusive tongue. I practiced allegorical poetry, a style that appears in some sacred texts of antiquity, and I realized that was as close as I would ever get. Here's why our spoken and written language fails. I'll simulate this other language: Trisomy 21 is sad/beautiful/grievous/wonderful, and people with it enrich/uplift/deepen the lives/experience/understanding of anyone who is fortunate/blessed/touched enough to meet/know/experience them. Their life/energy pattern stability might seem/appear short/brief/tragic, but that is only an illusion/virtual model/simulation produced by the lens/bias presently functioning in our conscious cognitive construct we think of as our mind/intelligence/identity. That might be difficult to follow, but the terms grouped together in bold represent complex thought-forms that carry emotional algorithms intended to activate when they are received. No spoken or written language can express this transcendent tongue, but I assure you that it is universally understood by everyone and everything. The fact that this language is both understood and spoken by all attests to the unity we actually take part in. I'm fascinated by this concept expressed above. Eastern spiritual practices have the representative yin/yan symbol which illustrates that all concepts have their opposites and cannot be separated out from them. Nevertheless that is what we humans do with our judgements of good OR bad. Most everything manifests somewhere on the spectrum between the two. It is quick and comforting to make a decision good OR bad (or let someone else make it for you). But it is not encompassing of what is. A lot of bad --- well everything gets thrown out when in fact, it is there with its own gifts to be unwrapped. People who isolate from other people who are different than they are no doubt fear finding resonance within themselves. We are, after all, imperfect human beings with a task of practising being human. Sometimes people less tied up in consenual reality can tell or indicate things we normally do not see. At very least, there is chance to develop more compassion - for others who are different than us, and for the differences we find in ourselves.
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daymoon
Junior Member
The word of the day is,,,, C.O.P.E
Posts: 119
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Post by daymoon on Sept 24, 2013 18:46:21 GMT -6
Consider the following factoid: chimpanzees possess a short term memory that is frightening in power and scope. They leave us behind in the dust in this capacity. I'll share a video at the end of this post about cognitive research being conducted with chimpanzees at the University of Kyoto in Japan. What these chimps can do will amaze you...and it is the norm with them, not the exception. A chimp can view a randomized sample of fifteen numbers revealed for 210 milliseconds, and remember the correct numerical order of the sample when the values are masked (aka a game of "memory"). Humans who take the same tests perform miserably in comparison. Watch Ayumu the chimp breeze through the exercises. National GeographicWhat makes us superior to a Raven? Thumbs.....Chimpanzees? LOL! Clothes. But not much more.... Well some people anyway.
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Post by bewildered on Sept 24, 2013 20:14:45 GMT -6
What makes us superior to a Raven? Thumbs.....Chimpanzees? LOL! Clothes. But not much more.... Well some people anyway. That's only a matter of personal opinion, influenced by the fact that you're human. We can't fly without help, but a raven can fly as easily as we can walk. They possess better eyesight than we do, and can regenerate neurons in a manner that we ourselves cannot. That's just a few points to consider. I know you're probably kidding, but some people honestly believe that we are somehow "better" than other animals. A reality check will either change that, or they simply ignore the reality check and keep on believing whatever it is that they want to believe.
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Post by skywalker on Sept 24, 2013 20:25:43 GMT -6
I think I would rather fly than have thumbs. That would be cool! I'll pass on eating bugs and worms though.
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Post by bewildered on Sept 24, 2013 20:50:35 GMT -6
LOL, sky. Over a billion people consider bugs and worms to be a viable food source. It all depends upon your perspective, methinks. I can eat 'em with no qualms because I dared to try them out years ago. Does that mean that I dine on wigglies and crawlies all the time? Nah, I'll take a burger and fries before worms and beetles, but if it came down to it, I'd have no issues stuffing them into my mouth.
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daymoon
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The word of the day is,,,, C.O.P.E
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Post by daymoon on Sept 25, 2013 6:12:38 GMT -6
Ok YUCK!!!!!!!! bewildered!!! just YUCK! I would have to be bordering starvation before I would eat a big or a worm! And yeah I was just kidding about thumbs and clothes LOL! Different doesn't mean better or worse.
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Post by bewildered on Sept 25, 2013 7:16:02 GMT -6
Hehe. I sympathize with your take on eating insects, daymoon, but according to some estimates, over two billion people regard them as a source of food and eat them on a regular basis. I've done a fair amount of traveling over the years, and those travels have led me to places where insects are a part of the local cuisine. Here I go again, doing that thing that I love to do. Prepare yourself! Shrimp tops the list of the most commonly consumed seafood in the United States, beating cod, tilapia, and even salmon (I love salmon, it's my favorite fish). Here's a cute image of a shrimp: And here's an image of a backswimmer. Some people like to roast 'em, then eat 'em! Just for kicks, here's an image of a crab, #7 on the top ten list of seafood critters eaten by Americans (shrimp are #1 for reference). Any questions?
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daymoon
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The word of the day is,,,, C.O.P.E
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Post by daymoon on Sept 25, 2013 7:50:53 GMT -6
I don't eat shrimp because it looks like a bug LOL!!! I have eaten crab though. Crabs don't look too buggy to me I guess. You know rich people don't get crabs right? They get lobsters. And you forgot to add them to the creepy list hahahah!
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Sept 25, 2013 12:15:52 GMT -6
ummmmmmm, anything I eat has to be missing its head! another reason to slowly but surely keep sliding down the vegan path! (I never knew shrimp were so cute)
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Sept 25, 2013 12:23:32 GMT -6
Our bias defines our perspective, and our perspective in concert with what we have been taught shapes our interpretation of reality. What if the past and the future don't actually exist? What if such notions are merely conventions our societies developed in order to understand what they couldn't understand? Death isn't an end, it's merely a continuation of a cycle. This cycle is perpetual, and also might be thought of as a mobius loop. "Reincarnation" forces a linear perspective upon what is essentially a non-linear expression. If the past and the future are merely cognitive constructs, and nothing is actually a line that travels directly from A to B, then our bias is obviously at play. What if something travels continuously from A to A in a cyclic pattern, essentially making what we think of as the "past" and the "future" into "right now?" We might be living countless "lives" simultaneously in innumerable universes. But please continue, Bewildered ! Do you think these simultaneous lives are identical? Do we sometimes get a glimpse, like deja vu?
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Post by bewildered on Sept 25, 2013 16:51:02 GMT -6
I don't eat shrimp because it looks like a bug LOL!!! I have eaten crab though. Crabs don't look too buggy to me I guess. You know rich people don't get crabs right? They get lobsters. And you forgot to add them to the creepy list hahahah! Post an image of a lobster, or you just imagine big claws on the shrimp - same difference.
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Post by bewildered on Sept 25, 2013 17:16:19 GMT -6
But please continue, Bewildered ! Do you think these simultaneous lives are identical? Do we sometimes get a glimpse, like deja vu? Similar, perhaps, but not exactly identical. The multi-verse, or innumerable universes existing simultaneously as fractal expressions of a much greater hole, is fertile ground for some theoretical physicists. I think of it as frequencies on an unfathomably wide bandwidth, much like how we envision radio frequencies. Some frequencies are very "close" in proximity to others, allowing some minor "bleeding over" to occur where a receiver - you - can start encountering signals from the other frequencies close to your relative position on the bandwidth. In my weird scheme, memory is not what it seems. This is because the brain symbolizes what is essentially a quantum portal/probability engine. In the known universe, energy patterns interact according to probability (that's the name we have for it, at any rate). The brain serves as an agent of chaos, a vehicle that allows for interruptions of probability to occur at a vastly accelerated rate. This can be understood to mean your behaviors, whether intentional or unintentional. The quantum portal might best be seen in how we access other "nows"...or what the linear mode of thinking classifies as memory. A portion of your personality and identity construct experiences events as if they were happening now. Psychologists recognize this facet as a key factor in trauma: what happened twenty years ago is effectively happening right now. Rather than being some weird trick of the mind, I think this is an important clue about the true non-linear quality of our existence. When you access memory, you are plugging into a different "now." We can see the drastic, reality-altering effect bias and perspective can have. We are quite literally taught how we should view and interpret reality from the earliest age, and this scheme is continually reinforced throughout our entire lives from a myriad of sources: friends, family, institutions, philosophies, religions, etc. What if you were to experience this existence without the scheme you presently know and are comfortable with? What if no time except for the present existed? Life would be much different, don't you think?
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daymoon
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The word of the day is,,,, C.O.P.E
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Post by daymoon on Sept 26, 2013 7:32:43 GMT -6
"What if no time except for the present existed? Life would be much different don't you think?"
I don't even want to imagine what life would be like with a bunch of beings who had no concept of anything but right now. If one does not think beyond "NOW" then how can one calculate that every action has a reaction? How does one comprehend the ripple effect of actions? If I did not think beyond that small scope of right here right now then how would I acknowledge not to spend a 100 dollars on that pair of new nikes I want because the electric bill will be due next week? Your past defines who you are today, and the present is where you are as a result. The future is completely dependent on what you choose to do today. I must reject the concept of right here right now because the only unbreakable truth in the universe is that change is inevitable.
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Post by bewildered on Sept 26, 2013 9:28:40 GMT -6
That makes sense when you are thinking in terms of what is most familiar to you, daymoon. I suppose if there was a point to my ramblings here in this very cool thread, it's this: how we think determines what we think, and this forms the underlying pattern of our bias. Bias interprets reality for us by filling in the gaps where our experience falls short. It creates a simulation of the universe within our minds (a virtual reality if you will), and it is this simulation we interact with on a daily basis. The same thing happens in regard to other human beings and forms of life. We fabricate a model of a person or creature in our conscious construct, and pay attention to it and not the living, breathing person/being. This is how people can live together for decades and suddenly discover that they never really knew each other. "I guess I never really knew him." Sound familiar? I'm not saying that someone should exist free of bias, because that's virtually impossible. As far as I can tell, bias is a consequence of conscious awareness, not necessarily an error committed by it. I have noted the following observations regarding bias: 1. The smaller the sample size you work with, the stronger your opinions become. This leads to what I call the "absolutist" fallacy: something is either this way, or it's that way. Black and white thinking completely misses the vast region of middle ground. 2. The more unaccustomed a creature is to change, the more resistant they are to it. A creature who refuses to consider an external point of view seeks homeostasis by maintaining the status quo, not by challenging it. 3. Absolutism can lead to morbidity in bias, where self-destructive behaviors are considered preferable to change. I think the true challenge of a human being is to unite the heart and mind and re-discover who we truly are. We can negate the negative effects of bias by developing the capacity to step outside of our comfort zone and consider alternative points of view.
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Post by bewildered on Sept 26, 2013 9:34:04 GMT -6
"What if no time except for the present existed? Life would be much different don't you think?" I don't even want to imagine what life would be like with a bunch of beings who had no concept of anything but right now. If one does not think beyond "NOW" then how can one calculate that every action has a reaction? How does one comprehend the ripple effect of actions? If I did not think beyond that small scope of right here right now then how would I acknowledge not to spend a 100 dollars on that pair of new nikes I want because the electric bill will be due next week? Your past defines who you are today, and the present is where you are as a result. The future is completely dependent on what you choose to do today. I must reject the concept of right here right now because the only unbreakable truth in the universe is that change is inevitable. It's too late for yesterday, and tomorrow never comes. Is today tomorrow, or is it yesterday? Show me yesterday, and I'll point in the direction of tomorrow. I didn't do that to confuse you. I just want to point out that "yesterday" and "tomorrow" are nothing but concepts in your mind...they don't actually exist.
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daymoon
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The word of the day is,,,, C.O.P.E
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Post by daymoon on Sept 26, 2013 13:13:39 GMT -6
LOL tomorrow may not exist as a fact, but if i don't consider past present and future as a whole never ending circle then I would be a mess LOL I think we are maybe talking about two different things? I am talking about no separation of time. basically past present and future all exist at the same time. Maybe this will explain it? I remember yesterday, and choose today, so that I may have a better tomorrow when it becomes today. They are all the same thing in my head.
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