And some people say there's no God..........

Robibnikoff skrev:

Not to mention the fact that I did not insult him, and I was answering a post in which he distorted what I had written. So many start out with a pose of being reasonable and tolerant, but they fall apart so quickly.

Jangchub skrev:

And I have not told you how to think. I have pointed out that your beliefs have no objective support; they are, in effect, based on nothing. As such there is no objective difference between them and any other irrational belief. If you believe in them anyway, that is your right. I respect your right; but you have no right to have your beliefs free of criticism.

I wouldn't feel better because I don't feel bad to begin with. Sure, if you call Buddhism a myth, I have no argument. Buddhism is unique because it accepts all other philosophies and doesn't make a distinction of a creator. We've had this discussion before. Buddhism is a theory of philosophy.

I was called an idiot and moron because of my Buddhist beliefs of reincarnation. Does this fit your category of someone being disrespectful? You didn't say anything disrespectful, so I'm not sure why you're defending yourself. My faith in Buddhism is stronger than ever and at this point cannot be shaken.

What's your position on String Theory?

Nice way to call me a dumbass by saying IF you were to do so might be regarded as disrespectful. Oh well. We've never seen things through the same eyes.

You didn't respond to my main point which is that, energy cannot be created nor destroyed. The Dalai Lama, when asked what he thinks of the Big Bang Theory, he replied, "Big Bang, no problem, just not the first one."

What do you know about Buddhism?

On 26 Aug 2006 01:20:39 -0700, "thomas p." wrote: - Refer:

The 8 fold path to getting in a tizz?

Jangchub skrev:

What exactly does that have to do with reincarnation? I can't wait to read your answer.

Jangchub skrev:

We are discussing reincarnation. I stated that it has no objective support. Either you have evidence or you do not. If you do not, my above statement stands; there is no objective difference between your belief and any other irrational belief. I am not attacking Buddhism. I am not attacking you. I am not telling you how to think.

Mind is pure energy. Therefor it cannot be created or destroyed. It has to go somewhere so it continues, in its pure state to take a rebirth into what I'll categorize as a good rebirth. Taking a human rebirth is always best.

Look, I don't care much if you believe in anything. I also don't believe because I do believe in things I can't always explain doesn't make me an idiot. Far from it. But, you have your agenda of smacking people down and that's your baggage as a person, not mine.

There is no way to disprove it either. It's rather important for you to have some working knowledge about the whole picture than simply making comments on pieces of a philosophy.

Buddhism is very closely related to science in that the historical Buddha NEVER told anyone to believe him. He always said to go out and check for yourself. There are many millions of Tibetan Buddhists who have studied, debated, and defended their beliefs for many years. Buddhism has been around for over 2500 years. To this day, the main point is non-violence at any cost and simply to be a better person.

It doesn't much matter if rebirth can be proven or not. What is tangible is that, I am a happy person and I know my mind through meditation which IS proven to have amazing health benefits. So I draw on a lot of different things.

At my core, I do not believe in god and am indeed atheist. Anyone discussed as a Buddha was once a person who actually existed. Mind is endless. Nothing I say will offer enough information to you and I am not working all that hard on the challenge because you aren't really interested anyway.

I think you are using the word "energy" somewhat metaphorically. In physics, the word "energy" has a very precise meaning. In physics it is true that there is a law of conservation of energy (or, to be more precise, a mass-energy conservation law provided we equate mass and energy via St. Albert's equation e=mc^2). But surely you are not claiming that mind is energy in the exact physical meaning of the word. If you claim that then I would remind you that energy, almost by definition, is the capacity to do WORK (in the precise physical meaning of the word "work"). If you claim that mind is physical energy, then I challenge you to affect the physical behavior of even a single dust mote using your mind alone.

Surely you don't claim that. You must be using "energy" merely as an analogy or metaphor for your conception of mind. But if we have only a mere analogy, you cannot blithly claim that mind cannot be created or destroyed and invoke the physical principle of energy conservation to do so. You are making mere word play here so as to give your concept of mind a veneer of scientificity.

If you see my point here, then you must admit that you are making a completely arbitrary assumption that mind cannot be destroyed --- an assuption that relies only on faith and not on reason. Hence your further inferences about reincarnation are null and void as far as reason is concerned.

Energy can be dissipated and descend into an unorganized state though. In fact, for any closed system, this is inevitable according to the second law of thermodynamics.

St. Albert? Isn't that a Catholic thing?

Indeed I am claiming mind is energy, but it isn't physical. The mind can thing and meditate, sleep and we only use a tenth of its capacity. See how mind works by doing just one minute of single pointed meditation and tell me you have the ability to be completely empty with nothing leaking in and I will bow at your feet at once.

I am using the term energy because pure mind is energy. Everything is connected to everything else. In string theory, the science community is having a hard time distinguishing theory and philosophy when addressing the subject of quantum mechanics.

I am by no means an expert on eitherthe science of nature, or Buddhism as I'm a practitioner for just a bit over two years.

Mind has absolutely no matter as a component. Not one particle. The mind is a complex thing to discuss. An analogy is tea in a cup. Break the cup and it is no longer a cup. It's broken shards of matter. The tea, is still tea. Mop it into a towel, still tea. Contents and container. All sentient beings have mind. Humans can develop. Animals cannot develop in a lifetime as a human can. I'm swaying off topic, sorry. Maybe I'm not qualified to debate this, but I like the challenge.

No, the science community is drawing these conclusions through the Mind Science Conference and other large bodies of professionals who invite The Dalai Lama annually. They do this because the brain function of an adept meditator is different than the average person. Meditators use much more of their brain function. This is being studied very closely with proper testing in blind studies in labs at four major universities.

Do you love anyone in your life? If the answer is yes, prove it. You can't. You just love. I don't know if we are on the same life track so this may become an irritating discussion for most. All I'm asking is for people to consider what I'm saying, not agree. I also don't think being called an idiot, moron, jerk, whatever, is relevant. I am none of the above, and to close I will say there is a relative amount of faith involved in Buddhism, but not in the same way we rely on a man in the sky. I respect those who believe in god, but I don't agree.

On Mon, 28 Aug 2006 12:50:32 GMT, Jangchub wrote: - Refer:

Prove it.

Actually a Jewish thing, though he was not a practicing Jew, nor did he believe in a personal kind of God. But by my lights, he deserves canonization more than anyone else who has ever been called a saint.

Translate: You agree that whatever kind of ``energy" you associate with mind has absolutely NOTHING to do with physical energy. You create a deliberate obfuscation by even using the word ``energy". It is unnecessary to say that ``mind is energy" in some kind of vague analogous way since you already have a perfectly good word for mind (namely the word ``mind").

I am a bit skeptical about these opinions as to what exact percentage of our mind's capacities we use. Mind is not sufficiently understood to make these statements meaningful.

And I am using the term mere analogy because your words are mere analogy. If you must use the word `"energy" then perhaps we could clarify discourse this way: Let us agree never to use the word "energy" without a qualifying adjective. Thus we can say ``physical energy" when we speak in the sense of physics and we can say ``mind energy" when we speak of your mysterious kind of energy that you associate to consiousness. That way you will not only communicate more clearly with me and others, but you will think more clearly in you own mind and you will never arrive at confused ideas like citing the physical conservation of energy law as if it had the slightest relevance (it has no relevance) to your hypothetical conservation of mind energy.

Slight overstatement. You don't need to go as far as string theory. Ordinary old-fashioned classical quantum mechanics is philosophically puzzling enough.

``An analogy is tea in a cup" you said. And another mere analogy is your confused usage of the word ``energy". I am by no means opposed to making analogies, but only to drawing unwarranted inferences from mere analogies.

The pseudo-scientific community draws all kinds of idiotic conclusions of this type. If you are a big fan of this kind of New Age fluff you should check out the crackbrain theory of the ``morphogenic field" and other such absurdities. The world is full of idiots who dabble in quantum mechanics and other au courant fields of physics and draw preposterous philosophical and even spiritual conclusions from what they think they understand about physics. BE WARNED: Charlatans abound in these areas.

I you have a reference to any of these studies and if you think that any of them qualify as science, let me know.

I can give very strong evidence (short of proof) to those I love by simply being good to them. I have a naive idea that if a person practices good will and generous conduct to others than it is reasonable to believe that this is a loving person. This is not the kind of "proof" that would satisfy a mathematician but, to borrow a lovely phrase from Anglo-Saxon law, it is "proof beyond a reasonable doubt".

But friend, others on this thread have called you "idiot, moron, jerk". Go back and read my post and you will see that I did not.

I understand what you think, but I am growing tired of terms like, idiotic, and crackbrain. Here is the link for Mind Science Conference. Hardly a group of new age idiots.

If Einstein was alive, he'd have finished the Theory of Everything. He was right on the cusp and possibly had the equation, but he died before he wrote it down somewhere.

I think string theory is a parallel system to the beliefs in Buddhism. Then again, I don't know your working knowledge of the philosophy of Buddhism. That would help. It's odd to me when someone poopoos something they may not have fully examined. Clearly, I have said I am not qualified in either case, but I hope to be able to stand up to any challenge the more I learn about my own mind. Maybe by then I won't bother. It's an incredible waste of energy.

Translation: You cannot prove you love anyone. We can assert you love them because you want to be good to them, but that would imply anyone you are good to is someone you love. Good will and generous conduct is what Buddhists call Bodhisattva, right view, skillful means, etc.

I offer the same evidence to you (short of proof) and when I tell you about studies being conducted using the adept meditator as the subject you say prove it. You can't prove you love someone.

Yes, I should have qualified that more clearly Our discussion has been very decent. Maybe one day there will be a universal answer to everything, as Einistein was working his entire career to prove. He got close and I am very interested in string theory as it closely looks like Buddhist conclusions regarding emptiness. There are many scientists representing both sides of string theory and the debate is ongoing. I find it all so interesting and wish I'd have paid more attention to my physics professor instead of vodka.

By the way, in case you aren't sure, I am a woman. I've seen some refer to me as him/her.

crackbrain charlatans". These sites are arguing the case that meditation techniques can have physical and psychological benefits of various kinds and are attempting to study why. I am willing to believe that. But if the people who are studying these phenomena use the word "energy" I still insist that this is a very different usage of the word energy than the physical sense of the word. There is only, at best, an analogy between whatever mental phenomena they are studying and the physical concept of energy. I still maintain that confusion would be avoided by using a different word than energy. In your previous post you seemed to be arguing a case for reincarnation by using a principle of "conservation of energy" that I insisted and still insist it is an invalid inference based on an analogy. If there is some kind of conservation of "mind energy", that has to be independently established.

Careful, careful. Einstein was not working on the Theory of Everything when he died. He was working on cosmological ramifications of general relativity. The Theory of Everything , if and when we find it, would be a unification of quantum chromodynamics and the so called standard model with general relativity. Einstein was not working on that, though he obviously had thought about the question.

You should understand that the physics community has gotten rather sceptical about string theory. String theory seemed to have promise for a while, but work in that field has gotten bogged down and physicists are mostly trying other approaches these days. The basic issue is this: We have two theories (1. QCD and the standard model 2. general relativity) that have both been verified to extraordinary degrees of precision, but yet they can't both be exactly right because their fundamental ontologies are incompatible. General theory cannot work unless spacetime is a smooth manifold. On the other hand, quantum theory says that spacetime CAN'T be a smooth manifold due to quantum fluctuations at the Planck scale. What is needed is a theory of quantum gravity that will yield QCD and general relativity as limiting cases, but that will subsume both theories and unify them somehow. String theory is one of many attempted approaches that, as I said, seemed to show great promise but has gotten rather bogged down. It may yet be the case that the correct answer, if and when we find it, is some kind of variant of string theory, but maybe not. Maybe an entirely different approach is needed.

I did not exactly poopoo Buddhism. I have the highest respect for Buddhism as an ethical system. As for reincarnation, well, like all atheists I take the attitude "where's the evidence"? I have long ago read Buddhist scriptures and books about Buddhist philosophy. I take it that you follow the Tibetan variant of Mahayana Buddhism.

And I specifically agreed that I cannot prove that in the sense that I prove mathematical theorems. Who would ever maintain otherwise?

Of course. How can anyone seperate love from the impulse to be good to someone? Aren't they pretty much the same thing? That does not mean that my love is restricted to family and a tiny circle of friends. I am personally not a bodhisattva and I do not claim to feel enormous amounts of love for a random stranger. But the small amount of love I can spontaneously feel for a stranger is entirely adequate reason to feel regard for his/her well-being and to have occasional generous impulses.

Vodka has its merits.

Regards

I just want to add a clarification about the physics here. Besides working on the cosmological implications of general relativity Einstein was, of course, working on the unified field theory and I should have realized that that is what you meant by Theory of Everything. But these are not the same. Einstein's attempts at unified field theory had a very limited goal, namely to unify general relativity and electromagnetism. He had a belief (which we now know to be mistaken) that it would be possible to unify gravity and electromagnetism into a single system and then make minor modifications so as to include the weak force and strong force. Truth be told, Einstein was not keeping up with the latest physics and he did not know much about the strong and weak nuclear forces. History turned out differently. The first unification combined electromagnetism and the weak force. After that the strong force was also incorporated. This gave rise to the so called "standard model" with its current classification of quarks. The phrase "Theory of Everything" (TOE for short) is always used to mean a unification of all four fundamental forces. That is what we are seeking now.

Jangchub skrev:

Mind is not a thing; it is not energy. It is a process in the brain. When the brain ceases to exist, there is no mind.

And I have never called you an idiot.

It is sad that you cannot handle criticism of your beliefs, that you have to respond with silly accusations. My original statement that reincarnation has no objective support for it and that, therefore, it is an irrational belief stands.