I think this maybe your answer:



Obviously Jah will confirm...

I think that science got closer to spirituality in the last 50 years and getting closer together, it is starting to help us understand spirituality rather than fight it.

Why should the Higgs Field and a universal field of consciousness be two separate things? What if the field that is responsible for giving all matter in existence mass is also responsible for giving all life its consciousness?

that is a very bold statement.

are you sure you would feel the same way if you had a deeper understanding of the nature of the higgs field?

The Higgs field is nothing special. You could talk about the EM field, the Strong field, the dandelion field, the Weak field (note: one of these is not quite like the others). But to look for consciousness in any of these is like looking for the forest in a particular tree. Yes, a tree contains the fingerprint of the forest. But it is not the forest.


If you are looking for Brahman then the will of Brahman is exclusively found in that dance between decoherence and entropy/gravity; the merging of the Strong-Electro-Weak force with gravity.


Gravitons may actually be emergent phenomena in the same fashion as phonons (sound waves).

I do strongly believe that we have already answered most of man's crazy philosophical dilemmas. All of this discussion is just word play. We need to shut up and calculate, not sit down and talk fluff.

..ok, calculate the effect a present conscious observer has on wave collapse, vs. what 'happens' if no one's there to see it..
..calculate (as A.I. researchers are working on) whether it is possible to make a conscious/thinking/aware program..if not, that suggests consciousness is emergent from life..
..and, think of new things to try and calculate..
quantum levels' getting a bit bland these days..

how would we measure whether it's conscious or not?

are comatose humans conscious?
what about simple animals?
are insects?
amoebas?
slime molds?
plants?

where does consciousness end or begin?
can any of us say for certain?

^..at least with an A.I. program it could have language/speech abilities..
you could have a conversation, ask it questions, look at it's artwork, see if it has intuitive leaps..
when you can no longer tell it's a machine it might be getting somewhere..

as for plants, slime moulds....it is related to the notion of intelligence..

for me, intuition suggests they are conscious..but how long it will take to come up with testable theories, i don't know..

the term 'Extelligence' has been coined to answer the question 'How does 'nature' engineer making say, a wing, and not a whole random string of mutations in evolution..how 'intelligent' are it's choices of form..?'
the information, it is suggested, derives from the 'extelligence' of the System..

i don't mean to digress, but the point i am making is about Systems..connections..wholes..

I guess if an A.I. comes up with a word or an idea or an attitude that wasn't originally programmed and could not have been cobbled together using random strings...then it would have made an intuitive leap and a 'conscious' decision...track that line of code down...and you could have a measure/description of consciousness...

Then we can ask for its opinion on the Higgs...

Roll on the future..

^ yeah good idea cyb..

..to be more explicit,
if consciousness derives entirely from the complex physical arrangements, interactions and information processing of the brain, (as a purely 'physicalist' perspective would say)

then it should in theory be possible to simulate/mimic this within a sufficiently complex number of lines of code and gate arrays..(or similar)

much as i would be stoked if a computer sang me it's song, and gave me new insight into the mystery of the Higgs boson, part of me suspects this may never happen, and that consciousness may be more similar to a notion of a 'life force' field..

but, it is one way of testing the waters of scientific understanding and definition of consciousness..
if you can't define something, you can't measure it..
step 1..but this may take some time..
.

An AI is considered intelligent or conscious when it can make a human believe it to be human.

Technology is still a long way from this. All current AI work on preset configs. They are almost unable to learn and evolve from daily actions.

Yes, I figured as much, but I asked on what you base the claim that science and spirituality now more than ever are getting closer together. The more common, and I believe correct, understanding is the complete opposite, namely that now more than ever they are separating. Science, ever since it blossomed during the Age of Enlightenment, has just gotten more materialistic, more mathematical, more technical and more reductionist, and it has had greater and greater success understanding and describing our universe by moving in this direction.

But then again, spirituality is a term that rings a personal bell in peoples own inner dictionaries, so until you clarify what you mean (which I should have asked right away!), I might just be talking into thin air.

Anyways, this is not the exact topic of this discussion I think, but I it's not completely irrelevant either.

Be spiritual because of science not inspite of it.

Citta, it might surprise you to know that quite a few scientists see the merging of science and spirituality.

Buddhism in particular has a lot of core pieces that are verified by science.

Long before science declared cause and effect to be so, Buddha taught about dependent origination.

Long before quantum entanglement Buddha taught that everything in the universe was one. It was only an illusion of separation. Today any physical scientists takes these things as fundamental truths. There is no separate you from the universe. You and the universe are one. If you want to argue that I will step aside and allow you to argue alone. But everything I know of science supports these teachings of the Buddha.


You, and so many others, keep wanting to make the spiritual something 'else'.
Spirituality is this. This is it. To me and a lot of other people on this planet there is no distinction between material and spiritual. This is what Buddha taught (if you stick to his core teachings...because I'll openly admit that many Buddhists have added a lot of extra to what this man said and did). In reality though, Buddha was a man, who taught that if one can overcome the need to think of themselves as separate from the universe then they could overcome suffering. I believe this to be true. I believe many of us have experienced this on psychedelics in a very brief sort of fashion.

Just because something can't be seen doesn't make it spiritual in the sense of being supernatural. We can't see radio waves and yet they are still a part of the universe. If you had used radio technology a thousand years ago it would have almost certainly seemed spiritual to the people.

What I think is that we will eventually realize that awareness is a fundamental property of the universe. Perhaps we discover a field of awareness or a field of consciousness...who really knows. But I do believe that if such a discovery is made it will also be spiritual even though we can measure it from here. To date there is nothing precluding the brain as a receiver.

You must also realize that an aweful lot of us don't agree with your assessment of particle wave duality. To me that experiment is proof that we are part and parcel of the universe. We can never totally exclude subjectivity because we can never be separate from the experiments we are running. I don't want to dig that argument back up, but just understand that a lot of people see it differently than you and for those people they can easily see his as a merging of science and religion.

There is no difference between material and spiritual to me. They are one and the same. This entire universe is nothing but energy. Some more condensed than others, but in the end it is just pure energy. Why should I believe that modern science has fully unlocked all these mysteries? I can easily allow for the fact that some of what we see on psychedelics is real without invoking a supernatural argument. It could just be entirely different energetic wavelengths. It could be energy sources we simply haven't discovered in a measurable way. It could be energetic inference patters, who really knows..and that's my point.

To believe that current science has totally done away with spirituality is to take a very ignorant view of what spirituality means in the context of at least Buddhism and Vedanta. I won't argue for other religions because I don't see much value in them, but I'm sure others could make similar arguments for their given faith.

Lastly just know this. If in the very end the word spiritual is replaced by the word science it won't change what was true and what was false. Renaming dependent origination to cause and effect did not alter the law one iota.

^^ This... Nice joedirt...

same concepts, different wordage

Oly I don't agree here. I have not only studied quantum mechanics in detail for my PhD, but I also spent a decade working as a computation chemist were I used applied quantum chemistry at times. In addition to that I have also run the actual double slit experiment myself. I'd bet that Citta has as well.

The point I want to make is that no one really understands quantum mechanics. And even among those of us that have taken the time to develop the mathematical background required to really study this field we do not all agree on the results of the double slit experiment.

For instance. I stand very much with the consciousness effects the experiment crowd. Based on what I know, what I have studied, and the results of the experiment I ran this is what I believe. I know other scientist that agree, and I know plenty that don't... To me these people refuse to accept any merging of science and spiritual and to them we are just looking for this merge.

Who is right or wrong? I'm past the point of even wanting to debate this with people. What I'd encourage people that really want an answer, is to get their theoretical skills in order and then run the actual experiment. Don't take the word of someone else. Not on this subject. There are two very different camps and each have a solid basis on their claims.

I do not have the background of Citta or joedirt here nor have I spent more than a lay interest on the subject. However, while at university I spoke with numerous experts in the field since it, at times, crossed paths with my area of focus: philosophy. The experts all had differing views of the particulars quantum mechanics but the one conclusion they all shared: no one has the complete picture or truly understands what is really going on and the people who say they do are usually full of BS.

Oly mon, I think you need to be careful in judging others as not understanding quantum theory... esp. if experts in the field also claim to not understand it fully. There are many theories but no 'grand unified theory' (that I know of).

Thanks for the posts above, joedirt. Nice read.

as they say, "if you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don't understand quantum mechanics"

i agree joedirt, good posts. thanks for taking the time to write that out

its really wild how the universe appears to have been one in the beginning...and then the whole quantum entanglement ball of wax...and then we re-realize people for thousands of years have been claiming its all one, and we are it, and it is us :]

who really knows how it all really "is"...Its a god damned fascinating mystery and i'm so grateful for just being able to experience it. It sure is fun to ponder the possibilities though

A lot of people seem to think we know an awful lot about the universe, that we have most of the picture put together and we just need to fill in a few gaps in our understanding here and there. Others take a more middle stance, and many think that we actually know very little. The latter is what psychedelics have hammered into my brain over and over again

Citta wrote:
..this is becoming like a circular argument..

some people do try very hard to define these things..thinkers, philosophers, and the few scientists prepared to stretch their imaginations..

the whole point of language is to reach consensus of definition is it not..?

or are science and other disciplines of thought (and they are disciplines in some cases) just to operate as separate languages, unable to talk to eachother?

this would represent a schism in the overall world-view of society..

.
joedirt wrote:


..this is logical i think..
thanks for the language..
.

last up, for any actual physicists..

what is the contribution of Gravity to the Total Mass of the universe..?

and how does gravity act on the Higgs Field?

therein would like clues about manipulation of mass i imagine..
.

nen, maybe this helps: http://people.cs.umass.e.../stanford/universe.html

"Today a young man on acid realised that all matter is just energy condensed to a slow vibration, that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, there is no such thing as death, life is only a dream and we are the imagination of ourselves."

Don't take my word too serious, I am no quantum physicist. I just try to share my understanding, maybe none of us is right, but by putting together all the wrong theories we can evolve to the truth.

The other day I just thought that we are a bit ahead of our time, like many back in ancient times. What worries me is that more and more people start thinking ahead of their time and I think this may have an effect on our global consciousness. These are the types of questions that maybe we are asking too soon

I bet in 200 years they'll be laughing on how we thought and operated now.

Have a good day, filled with much love.

Joe-I'm not claiming to understand quantum theory never said I did. In fact expressed my frustration not having the mathematical background to understand further.

I'm sorry I hugely respect your educational background but i just don't agree that science and spirituality are merging as the poster wrote and like you said many physicists also do not agree.

"If you think you understand quantum theory, you don't understand quantum theory". Im sure that quote rings a bell.

My point I was making and will stand behind is that people try to link up Quantum theoretical terminology, like superposition, quantum entanglement, the observer effect, ext incorrectly and esoterically and as a PHD holder Id have to think that you would agree with this.
Depak Chopra, prime example. Not too many Physicists going into incense filled newage bookstores to grab his latest hard cover book of bullshit. These types of writer use terminology so grossly incorrectly and fluffy because they KNOW their audience doesn't have a clue what their talking about.

Quote by D.C.-
"Consciousness is the divines unlimited tendency's of particles existing all in superposition simultaneously." WTF does that even mean? NOTHING. Its f'n word salad. I never went to college but know that this guy is stringing together words to sound all scientific and credible to sell books, and lectures to support his fleet of Bentleys in Malibu Ca. when in fact he is making an ass of himself to those such as yourself.

So yes in today's day and age, people and so called spiritual teachers like this, LOVE to use science to claim the gap is getting smaller and I disagree with that.


A1pha- I dont feel its fair to say im judging a person because of my statements. are you implying I feel I understand it? I just backed up why I said what I wrote just to clarify. It has nothing to do with judgment Im disagreeing.

A- Nobody truly understands quantum theory in the same way we do Newtonian, or theoretical nuclear physics so that statement I made happens to be quite true. True for us all.
That doesn't mean Quantum physicists are just scratching their heads without a clue though like chimpanzees in a mirror.

B- Second reason for my statement; You hear more and more that science, which usually 99% of the time Q.T. is bridging the gap between esoteric spirituality and hard science and I just don't agree. Its a play on words IMO. That doesn't mean I'm judging him it means I'm disagreeing and indirectly asking for his reasons.

To me there is nothing more spiritual then the absolute, beautiful eloquence of evolution, or the millionths of a second of the Big-Bang and the creation of our universe. IMO that's way more spiritual in my definition than dogmas, or powers of intention, crystal healing or that other stuff that has become what so many feel spirituality is. Obviously not everyone here but its a huge ole' billion dollar business and growing fast and Q.T is the newest BIG SELL.

Spirituality to me is jumping off a 1000 ft building on the Vegas strip at night wiht my crew. To me that's as close to God as a person could get. So no I don't feel science is closing the gap in spiritual matters unless one uses semantics and word play.

Embrace the void. Your not reading what I wrote. I never said we should be looking for consciousness in the Higgs field or in gravity. I ASKED, has any group ever approached searching for a field such as those to explain consciousness. My point was that here all along was this field that we only recently detected and gives all particles mass. My question was; why couldn't consciousnesses be the same? Leading groups right now are working hard to determine if consciousness is within us or around us. To me using a field idea makes sense. I never said or suggested look deep into he Higgs field and maybe that where consciousness is. I used it as an comparison.

Also I really have to disagree with you that there is nothing special about the Higgs field! Would you mind explaining why you feel this way? With out it nothing would have mass, with no mass there would be no gravity, no gravity there would be no stars, just be a bunch of hydrogen and helium gas clouds doing squat in a huge dark cold space. How anyone could say its not important really makes me wonder if they are thinking it through.

Joed- great to have you back I missed our conversations. I respect your education and mind and don't for a second feel I know more than people that have studied this science but feel some are making me out to sound this way. I do feel I understand it more than some, those that claim the moon isn't there because the observer hasn't collapsed the wave function of possibility...crap like that.

I haven't even posted for weeks on my own thread just been enjoying the ideas and banter but now feel im being misunderstood or misquated and the claim im judging people i felt was unfair.