On the outside looking in

[Robert L. Vaessen]

Rob -

I have to admit that your reply got me thinking about the 
un-doability of a probability path, and time travel.

If all the nodes in a probability path are fixed and unchanging, 
we could in effect perform time travel. Of course we'd first 
have to figure out how to pick and chose the specific path we 
wanted to visit. We could then go back and revisit any of those 
nodes. Selecting a different path if we so chose. Time travel 
would have no effect on the nodes themselves. The nodes are 
fixed and unchanging. We would experience the events as if they 
were real, but we would in fact just be visiting a different 
series of nodes than those along the original path.

We would be able to perform 'What-If' scenarios to our hearts 
content. Testing outcome probabilities, and selecting the nodes 
which resulted in whatever outcome we preferred.

Of course to do any of this, we would have to figure out a way 
to 'go back' in order to choose a different probability path.

-

On the subject of order and consciousness. If we are talking 
about consciousness equalling a functioning physical brain, I'd 
ask that you consider this...

Does consciousness extend beyond the physical. Do we have 
consciousness when we exhibit no brain activity? p.s. Please 
stop using conscience as consciousness. Conscience is sense of 
right and wrong. Consciousness is sense of self, free will. i.e. 
I think therefore I am. If you are unconscious you are unaware 
of your self. When you are conscious you are aware of your self.

If we can have consciousness outside the physical, then I submit 
that the brain/body is a receptacle for the consciousness 
(soul?). What is out of body travel?  People who have been 
clinically dead, and then resuscitated, report experiences 
outside of the physical when they recover.

If the consciousness can reside outside the physical, what are 
its limitations when outside the brain. Do the limitations/laws 
we've been talking about change when the consciousness is free 
from the brain/body? Are the limitations imposed by the 
capabilities/limitations of our brain?

Our ability to comprehend the matrix is limited by a series of 
laws/limitations. Do those laws differ depending on the state of 
our consciousness? Experiencing the matrix from within 
(inhabiting a brain), or observing the matrix from outside (Out 
of body)?

Have you ever been unconscious?

What's the difference between dreaming and unconscious?

What about lucid dreaming?

Have you seen the movie 'Flatliners'?

- Robert



On Saturday, March 16, 2002, at 07:11 , Rob Garrity wrote:

> Hi guys,
>
> I have been sinking slowly in the deep end of your conversation 
> lately.  Pretty 'rarified' stuff!
> But one piece did get me to think a bit. that was Pat's comment 
> on the conscience as a powerful super computer versus an 
> outside mechanism which imposes sequential order upon us.
>
> Two seemingly unrelated thoughts occurred to me:
>
> 1. Isaac Asimov's  observation that something, (technology) 
> completely beyond our understanding would be indistinguishable 
> from God.
>
> 2. A story I heard about Thomas Edison. Supposedly, he was 
> asked to give a class to a group of physics students at 
> Harvard. He gave them one of his light bulbs (picture the 
> old-fashioned curly-que designs) and as their first assignment 
> they had to measure its volume. The next day several students 
> presented him with a vast array of formulas for measuring this 
> strange object. he looked at them, chuckled, (I assume) and 
> turned the light bulb upside down and filled it with water and 
> measured the water's volume.
>
> Ok, now my point, such as it is:  Talking about  probability 
> paths as un-doable because we would need to be super computers 
> to be able to impose the appearance of a sequence on events is 
> kind of like people 200 years ago scoffing Jules Verne because 
> certainly there wasn't enough gun powder in the whole world to 
> send someone to the moon. We can't envision computing power of 
> any sort, mechanical or 'mental' that can handle the complexity 
> of a world striped of time and matter. So it must be infinitely 
> complex. god-like.
>
> But as we find with natural laws once we understand them, they 
> are often remarkably simple and eloquent.  If there is only 
> consciousness and the rules which guide it; and assuming these 
> rules are 'orderly' like cause and effect; then it would make 
> sense that these rules would be expressed by our consciousness 
> as 'sequential and orderly'.
>
> It's not the only possibility. But back with Ocam's razor it 
> surely cuts things the cleanest.
>
> Rob,


----------------------------------
Break the bonds of time. There is no such thing as time. You 
simply are. All things simply exist.
Think in terms of Occam's Razor, Ernest Mach's principle of 
economy; "Scientists must use the
simplest means of arriving at their results and exclude 
everything not perceived by the senses.";
or the Parsimony Principle. The simplest explanation, no matter 
how absurd, is the most likely.
A universe without time or motion eliminates a vast array of 
conundrums. Escape from your
'path' and experience the whole 'matrix'. Read about the 
nonexistence of time (and other such
nonsense) at: https://www.robsworld.org/notime.html