----- Original Message -----
From: "118" <ununoctiums@gmai...>
To: <moq_discuss@moqt...>
Sent: Monday, February 06, 2012 12:19 PM
Subject: Re: [MD] Metaphysics and the mystic.

>> Carl:
>> The way synchronicity normally appears to me is I'll get on a subject,
>> usually something I don't normally work with, and suddenly I'll see
>> references to it, articles about it, etc. for the next couple of weeks.
>> A
>> good example of that is treehouses.  I got on the idea once, and it
>> seemed
>> like every time I turned around there was information about treehouses.
>> I
>> remember going to the V.A. hospital for an eye exam, sitting in the
>> waiting
>> area and picking up a magazine at random, and there was an article about
>> treehouses in it.  This was Time, or Newsweek, or some other national
>> magazie that didn't normally have articles about esoteric topics.  It was
>> pretty weird for a while there.  Something similar is happening now with
>> brain structure, brain injury, and character.

Mark:
> Yes, exactly.  Then I wonder why I got on the subject to begin with.
> It is as if I am conspiring with everything else to create the present
> moment.  This collective realization happens so often to me that I no
> longer wonder at it.  I am part of it all, and glad to be.  To ignore
> that is to live in isolation, imo.  What a strange world it is if we
> assume that we operate outside of it.  I believe that MoQ is an
> attempt to bring humanity back into reality.

Carl:
Well, last night the regular guest didn't show up for whatever reason on
Coast to Coast, so they called in a substitute.  Do you want to guess what
his topic was?  Yep.  Synchronicity.  Seriously.  I couldn't make that up.
He's written a book about it, and has a website.  (Did you do that, or did
I? :-)

http://howsynchronicityworks.com/

He talked a bit about co-creating our existence.

>> Carl:
>> That speaks more to a source monitoring error than to synchronicity,
>> IMHO.
>> I've had exactly ONE experience with psycilocybn <sp?> mushrooms, and
>> didn't
>> get much hallucinations from them.  I got a bit of tracers that lasted
>> about
>> 5 seconds, then nada.  I probably didn't take enough of them.  After I
>> had
>> given up on the experience, I went inside the tent and laid down.
>> Shortly
>> thereafter, I got the idea to visualize a violet flame (do a search on
>> it)
>> above my head, and I fed most of the recurring images from  traumatic
>> events
>> into the flame.  I had been dwelling on them for almost twenty years.
>> After
>> that night, I stopped dwelling on them.  I have thought of repeating the
>> experiment, but I'm too paranoid about the illegality of the shrooms.

Mark:
> Source monitoring is one way to look at it.  The way I look at it is
> that we construct very simple appearances of what is.  This structure
> blocks much out since it would be too complex for our "cognisant
> brain".  By compartmentalizing we are able to function.  Anthing
> interfering with this compartmentalization will both confuse and open
> up new ways of personal thinking (most often the former).  These
> chemicals are over rated, since the same think can be done without
> them and without all the side effects of suddenly getting thrown into
> the pool of senses.  They are certainly eye openers, but do not have
> to be the vehicle.  In fact they should not be the vehicle for any
> reality creation, imo.

Carl:
Considering that most people have no interest whatever in anything outside
their normal range of experience, I can agree with this.  In fact, from my
experience, most people refuse to even think about the possibility of
something other than what they expect happening.  I've mentioned before the
idea of normalcy bias.  It's alive and well, as far as I can tell.  Have you
ever asked someone to free-associate and have them sit and stare at you?
Either that, or they start and follow a linear, logical path along lines
they're familiar with.  I think my problem with that is that as a young
child, I moved around a lot.  (Fifteen different towns by the eighth grade.)
I never really got a chance to establish "normal" like other kids.  Each new
place had different people, different experiences, etc.  Maybe that's why I
had such a mundane experience with the halluciagens?  I dunno.  Like you
say, who needs them?  My problem isn't opening my mind, it's closing it
around a specific concept long enough to make it work for me. <G>

Mark:
> These chemicals are still being used for psychotherapy, but the
> results can often be disabling.  Fear and regret is a big part of our
> lives, and it is best if we keep those under some structured control,
> with a little steam vent as it were.

Carl:
I think that's where a lot of our problem have come from, in that we don't
really have a good way to vent any more.  Fighting is frowned upon, as is
getting drunk.  It's really no wonder to me why so many kids now use drugs.
They want out, but there's no doorway.

>> Carl:
>> Agreed.  I've long suspected that "reality" is more of a trap than most
>> people realize.

Mark:
> Yes, a trap until one realizes it to be so, I think.  Then one is
> free.  Then one can laugh at all the inconsequential nonsense that we
> live our lives by, and one can actually become responsible for what we
> create, imo.  However, we must treat our reality with respect, since
> it has been created over the eons by those such as we.

Carl:
Someone once said that once you become real, you cannot become unreal again.
I agree with your idea of treating reality with respect, either ours or
someone else's.  If you want to make someone really angry, challenge their
reality.  It's sad, but I've experienced it too often to deny it.  It's part
of the reason I look for philosophical discussions.  A lot of the time the
topics are those I've already thought about, but there is new stuff too,
which keeps it interesting.

>> Mark:
>>> In the past in this forum I have presented the concept of wave
>>> function collapse. <snip>

>> Carl:
>> I did a search on it as well.  If that's what's happening, then we really
>> DO
>> co-create our own reality.  Jung commented on it, along with Pauli, in a
>> paper they presented together.  According to them, it would appear that
>> the
>> reality we experience is totally dependent on the observations we choose
>> to
>> make.  I'm not totally comfortable with that concept.  Even less so since
>> I've been reading "Descartes' Error" by Antonio Damasio.  I've barely
>> gotten
>> a good start on it, (he describes the effects of lesions on different
>> areas
>> of the brain, and more significantly how those lesions affect character)
>> and
>> it's making me re-think a lot of previously held assumptions.  I haven't
>> read enough yet to decide what I'm going to end up thinking about it, but
>> it
>> is stirring the grey matter.

Mark:
> Damasio deals with patients who are ill.  Freud did the same thing and
> came up with all sorts of conclusions about sex.  So I am always wary
> of taking the example of a few individuals and projecting out.  I
> think we are responsible for those things we choose to attend to, but
> we are not alone.  Everything is involved.  As we choose, so does all
> else.  I suppose that what we are is a product of that continual
> choice process for which we have an input.  This is where the moral
> fabric of the universe that all things partake in.  As humans we are
> maybe more sensitive to creating a concept out of it, but this does
> not mean that the underlying phenomenon is our creation.  We just play
> along.

Carl:
I think that choice process are largely DQ.  So many choices in fact, that
life becomes fairly unpredictable.  I was having a bit of a problem with
your concept of morality, until I realized that you're speaking in very
general terms.  i.e. we make the choices that don't include killing off a
lot of people, generally for the improvement of the species, etc.  My
concept is a personal one, normally based in spirituality.  Equally valid,
but different.

Mark:
> While we may claim that Morality is not some basic principle in the
> universe, we seem to follow it without question.  At least many of us.
> For, why is something better?  I suppose if one is an evolutionist,
> in the sense that it explains Everything, then one can completely
> release oneself from any responsibility.  Yes, the 21st century could
> well be the century of Victims.  Poor me, give me more.

Carl:
Entropy, or the conservation of energy?  I haven't really decided yet.  We
want the most return for our investment, either in money, time, or energy.
We want to follow the path of least resistence.  There is a point, though,
when we become bored with having no challenges in our lives.  We need some
reason to get up in the morning.  I can speak from personal experience on
that one.  I've been on disability for over ten years, and it provides my
basic necessities.  My bills are paid, but not much more than that.
Frequently, I find myself with nothing to do and all day to do it in.  I
can't afford the normal distractions, and I am developing a loathe/hate
relationship with television.  I can barely stand to watch most movies, so I
end up reading a lot.  I went back to school.  I want to be productive, help
people, and hopefully, make enough money that I can afford more than I have
now.  I AM willing to work for it, though.  I guess I was just never very
good at playing the victim.  (I did that for a bit too.  It got old.)  It's
interesting to me that a lot of people think I'm nuts because I'm making an
effort to get off of disability.  They think I have it made.  Sigh.

>> Carl:
>> The problem I have with the predetermined concept is that I don't know
>> who
>> gets to do the predetermining.  If we do it ourselves, then Lewis
>> Carroll's
>> comment applies, if we attribute it to a divine being, then there's more
>> going on than most are willing to admit.  My shamanic background teaches
>> that we are all here to learn, and generally we make an agreement before
>> we
>> incarn here what that's going to be.  We decide before we come what the
>> best
>> situation will be to learn what we need to learn, and we incarn into that
>> situation, with those parents, with that socio-economic status, etc. to
>> facilitate that learning. The problem with that is that we don't come
>> back
>> with full knowledge of what we are supposed to learn.  We have to figure
>> it
>> out as we go.  We DO come back with specific interests and talents, so
>> who
>> knows?

Mark:
> I suppose that we can do much by ourselves, but we cannot live in
> isolation.  From the simplistic way in which we treat reality, it is
> possible to assume great power.  It could well be that the devine
> being includes us, and is made complete by us.  If not for us it would
> be something completely different (which it isn't).  I am all for
> learning.  I could never be a guru of any kind.  Not that I am drawing
> a personal relationship, but I believe that many of the great thinkers
> thought as much.  Notice that Buddha, Socrates, Christ, and others
> (that we will never know about) never wrote anything down.  For to
> write things down makes one a beaurocrat of some kind dispensing rules
> for existence.

Carl:
I have avoided being seen as a guru for most of my life.  I want to help
people become their own guru.  The situation is that most people are told
they don't have the ability to do that.  Usually, it's by some early
religious training, where the person doing the teaching has a vested
interest in keeping people dependent on them.  I rejected that pretty early.
Now, I have people looking to me for guidance, and I refuse.  I point them
in the direction they can take to get their own answers, but I don't provide
those answers.  Can you tell I'm a Rogerian?  LOL!  (Practioner of Carl
Rogers' approach.)   Even then, when I started attending the discussion
group on the Bhagavad Gita, the people who got me involved apparently told
the woman who hosts it, (from India) that I'm some sort of advanced
whatever, based on some healing work I've done in the past.  The woman from
India insists on calling me a "Holy man" and brushing my feet every time I
go there.  I tell her repeatedly that I'm not, but she insists.  Sigh.

Mark:
> Since we have the ability for decision, there is no reason to think
> that this did not exist before this incarnation.  If one sticks only
> to the material, measurable world then one becomes stuck there,
> complete sq.  I think that there is knowledge in the form of human
> learning during one's lifetime.  Much of this can be placed in the
> area of brain memory.  Of course this is lost when the brain gets
> eaten by worms.  Interstingly there have been studies which show that
> worms can assume knowledge by eating other worms.  But I am not
> condoning canabalism :-).

Carl:
Thanks. <G>

Mark:
>Then there is another form of memory which is the memory retained by the
>universe in general.

Carl:
I think you are referring to Jung's Collective Consciousness.  I totally
agree, and have tapped into that on occasion.  At first, when it happened, I
thought of it as clairesentience, because I would just "know" the answer to
the question, then I realized I was tapping into something other than normal
reality.

Mark:
> For example, homeopathic medicine (which has been around for too long
> to say it is bogus), works by diluting a substance to a point where
> mathematically it does not exist anymore.  The theory behind its
> efficacy is that the water "retains the memory" of the metal or
> whatever.  It is this "memory" that acts as a cure.  Of course this
> does not make much sense to the rigid scientific community but it
> makes perfect sense.  Have you ever walked into a room, say after a
> party you were not at, and can still "feel" the party?  This could be
> one way of presenting Karma.  We have created "memories" that we seek
> to rectify or continue.  The whole universe operates on memory, not
> just our brains.  Memory and Free-Will all under the umbrella of
> morality!  There that is a maxim if I have ever delivered one.

Carl:
I know exactly what you're taking about.  There was a French scientist, Dr.
Jacques Benveniste, that attempted to prove this.  "Nature" magazine went to
examine his findings.  The editor took "The Amazing Randi", a paranormal
debunker, with him to do that.  Since Randi exists to disprove, that's what
they did.  It destroyed the French guy's reputation  After that, I stopped
reading Nature.  My opinion of them went right down the toilet.  Randi has
no credentials, is totally biased, etc.  It was disgusting, and I kept
hoping that the Frenchman would have sued.  He didn't, that I know of, and
has since died.

Here are a couple of articles on the subject:

http://www.riseearth.com/2011/04/water-has-memory.html

http://www.life-enthusiast.com/twilight/research_water_memory.htm

>> Mark:
>> >From this
>>> attribution of free will to all, we can then claim that the universe
>>> is moral.  This is another conclusion that Pirsig comes to as I
>>> understand it.  Is Synchronicity moral?
>>
>> Carl:
>> I don't see morality in quite the same way.  I see it as a cultural
>> thing,
>> and even then it's something that becomes a choice.  Because of that, I
>> don't see free will as being a contributor.  Does that make sense?  We
>> have
>> the ability to choose, within a certain set of possibilities, and we tend
>> to
>> make those choice based on our preconditioning.  Descartes' Error begins
>> with a discussion of Phineas Gage's accident, and the subsequent
>> consequences.  Following his accident, his character changed
>> significantly,
>> and he began making very poor moral choices, which would indicate that
>> the
>> "moral" aspect of his character had been damaged.  This would indicate
>> that
>> what we call "moral" has a chemical, or otherwise structural, basis
>> within
>> our brains.  Like I said, I haven't read enough of the book to make any
>> rational decisions about the whole thing.

Mark:
> It makes sense.  The way I see it, is that everything has free will.
> If we want to take a statistical view of things (which is often
> misleading) I could say that what we exist in is a synthesis of all
> the free wills.  This would also mean that any choice that we make
> will change everything.  Our memories affect our choices, but each
> moment is new and therefore not determined by memory alone.  This
> could be a kind of "chicken and egg" thing.  Perhaps we could say that
> "accidents" diminish one's ability to stay in tune with a universal
> morality.  Just an idea, but abberant behavior is not considered
> "normal", and we do not decide what is normal.  I am convinced that
> morality has a chemical or structural component, but it also has
> umpteen additional components.  I hesitate to point to one as being
> more important than another.  Umpteen means infinite in this case :-).

Carl:
We study "normal" by examining "abnormal" all the time, don't we?  We get a
lot of answers that way.  "Why is this other than that?" is a great starting
point for most research.  Why did this organism develop cancer when that one
didn't?  etc.  I do agree that morality has many components.  Again, my
concept of morality tends to be a personal one, whereas you're operating
from a bigger picture.  I think RMP was talking about the bigger picture
too.

>> Carl:
>> Ah yes.  Focused human endeavor.  It is a wonder to see at times.  I'm
>> looking forward to the Superbowl later today for the same reason.

Mark:
> Well as the game went on, I became more and more a Giants fan.
> Perhaps I contributed to their victory in a very, very small way :-).

Carl:
I think the reason I liked the Giants was their resiliency.  They never gave
up.  The last seven games of the season were the same way.  Most of them
involved a come-back late in the game.  I just admire that.

Mark:
> I am learning something here about my structure of reality, thanks for
> the insight.

Carl:
Heheheh.  I love corrupting young minds.  Wait - did I say that out loud?
:-)

Mark:
> Lewis Carrol below:
> Alice did not feel encouraged to ask any more questions about it, so
> she turned to the Mock Turtle, and said 'What else had you to learn?'

Carl:
Aaarrrggghh!  Again with the turtles!  I'm seeing turtles everywhere.  I
guess you knew that already, right?

Mark continues quoting Carroll:
> 'Well, there was Mystery,' the Mock Turtle replied, counting off the
> subjects on his flappers, ' - Mystery, ancient and modern, with
> Seaography: then Drawling - the Drawling-master was an old conger-eel,
> that used to come once a week: He taught us Drawling, Stretching, and
> Fainting in Coils.'"
>
> Mark again:
> Me?  I am just "Fainting in Coils"!

Carl:
I laughed out loud when I read that.  A classmate commented that many of the
students are having a problem understanding our professor.  He is from an
academic background, whereas most of the professors we've had so far have
been counselors.  I don't have a problem with him at all.  She, (the
classmate) said that it was because we were "sprial" thinkers, rather than
linear thinkers like the majority of the people in the class.  Thinking
spirally, you can see why it would be funny to think about fainting in
coils....

Bis spater,
Carl

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