Hi all,

It's been ages since I used this site/board, so a big hello to anyone who remembers me from a year or so ago.  Sometimes I get bored with this whole thing & lose interest, then my curiosity gets the better of me and I look up some of the web sites I used to visit, including this one.

Anyway, the point of this post is to bring your attention to the work of a physicist called Saul Paul Sirag.  He is one of the top minds working on the most advanced theoretical physics in existence and has been tipped as a possible Nobel Prize winner for his work.  The reason for bringing his work to your attention is that he claims to be able to prove the existence of a universal conscious mind existing in higher dimensions; the science is so advanced that only the worlds top mathemeticians can understand it - a bit like Einstein's work when it was first published.  When he presented his work to a university the physicists just didn't get it, but the mathematicians followed what he was saying.

You can find his work on the web but most of it is *way* beyond the comprehension of ordinary folks, but there's a really interesting interview in which he explains some of his ideas and also his hope that a new generation of physicists will prove his ideas.  It is mind-blowing stuff and may back up a lot of the stuff that gets discussed here.  Read an interview with Dr Sirag at this location:

http://www.intuition.org/txt/sirag.htm

Uh Oh! - I've cited for talking too much!

Physics' job is to tell "What", and then to tell "How", ut it is never the job of science to explain "Why". At that point we come to Meta- (beyond) Physics.

By the way, it's true, QM isn't difficult unless you want to do calculations, in which case you need some math. The idea is that a "thing" is just a collection of properties, like size, shape and massive extension. Take those away and Lo! there ain't nuthin left.

"Things" do whatever it is according to their properties. So do you and me. I don't see why we need the Fine Structure Constant to recognize this. In fact, the great mystery to me is how we can tell that we're awake, as opposed to dreaming, since both situations respond to the "properties" of the elements involved. I think it was Ambrose Bierce (?) who said, "The dream is real until the sleeper wakes. Can more be said of life?"

As far as I can see, idealism is necessarily true, even if there is a material reality" (whatever "material" might mean), because to me, all I have is an idea of what seems to be happening. And from that perspective, the only difference between sleep and waking (aside from the fact that I can't fly when awake - they just cancelled my Medical - *$#%^!) is that when awake I seem to continue the same dream in a logically appopriate manner, but in sleeping I rarely have continuity.

The most important thing that I got from this interview is that people are beginning to recognize that there is more happening than the slow oxidation of metals, the motion of the tides as gravitational forces warp space, and the manner in which too much hot chili can give people heartburn. I like the trend!

dave

I totally agree with Brendan.  As a critical thinker, I too believe science is important and will eventually explain the paranormal, but it may take a long time. 

Consider diseases.  It took thousands of years before our scientific understanding reached the point where we conclusively understood the mechanisms for viruses and bacteria on the human body. 

In the case for the paranormal, skeptics will argue still no conclusive, scientific reasons have been found especially with today's "advanced" science.  Our science may only seem "advanced" in relation to what we have now discovered, but a hundred years ago, the scientists thought their science was "advanced" for their time.  So all the theories brought up back then may have sounded crazy, a hundred years later they are considered genius or ahead of its time. 

Science and the study of the paranormal should go hand in hand.  It's dangerous to take extreme sides with either the "true believers" or the "skeptics".  Both encourage blind faith in their position.

A noted parapsychologist here in Canada had this to say when asked about skeptics argument in regards to the statistical improbability of paranormal abilities: just because an extreme limited number of people may have such an ability, does not mean it doesn't exist.  Can everyone run a 4 minute mile?  A few decades ago, it was thought impossible.  But with training, we've shown it can be done.  So maybe "paranormal" abilities also require training and development.

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That's a very good point.  The last technological plateau was also reached when we thought we reached the limit of technology and only surpassed when scientists took giant leaps of faith.  Could you imagine the backlash and hysteria when microwave transmission was dreamt up?  Signals through the air producing morse code!  It's paranormal!

"Proof" and the need for it are intellectual constructs. When we truly understand that, we may all have the special talent you speak of. Out of the physical, we all can run 4 minute miles. I understand that this culture values that kind of proof...and I have my own love affair with it!...but experience precedes intellect here. But then intellect becomes its own kind of experience, does it not? But the theory will be useless unless it tells the untalented how to achieve the results, because without that, it won't really understand the results. If you really understand something you should be able to tell someone else how to do it. Otherwise your model is incomplete.

Dave you crack me up! Anyway, I could never clearly distinguish between "How" and "Why" especially since in the intellectual proletariat there is no distinction.
Regarding continuity in waking and dreaming...I had this weird dream just before waking. I bought this nice house, beautiful wood floors, paid a good price. Then one day, a train passed through the side of the living room. Naturally I was upset...the seller didn't tell me this! and I began making plans with how to deal with this...check my deed...do all sorts of legal things...checking the dimensions and the right-of-way stuff. And I was complaining to my father, who kind of brushe dme off about it, and wondering how to cope with a train passing theough the living room (just the living room, not the rest of the house).
Now, I'm sure that there are many ways to analyze this, and I can easily list a slew of things that would give me suggestions for such a strange dream (we have a train line being restored in town and it unfortunately passes very close to many houses, it fascinates me that the commuter rail in town does pass almost within touching distance of some brownstone type apartments, I have long watched trains and am aware of train lore, my dad's dad was a diesel mechanic for the railroad, etc) and I can come up with many symbolic interpretations about buying a house where you miss something so obvious, but what interests me most is that in the dream I totally miss that I am dreaming, that a train couldn't just pass through the edge of the living room, and that my father is passed over. This sort of this induces such a metaphysical 'crisis' for me...why am I so stupid! I accept the continuity of that dream without questioning it. I assume I am in waking reality even in the face of absurdity. But then it seems I am doing that in waking reality too, so maybe it is natural that I should do this in a dream.

I have sometimes been touched by words or ideas written down decades or centuries ago and wondered why I feel like I am communicating something more with dead people than with the living around me. I sort of assumed that it meant the ideas were timeless (whatever that means) but I like this idea that the communication is a kind of telepathy. I like thinking I am being telepathic with Blake and some of the Psalmists and Hans Christian Anderson and so on....though I'm not so sure I want to be telepathic with Bierce and Poe and Lovecroft and that group.....