bobover3 (imported) wrote: Thu Mar 26, 2009 12:11 pm Not only do I doubt the reality of heaven, I doubt the reality of reality. Does anyone know who and what the human race is? Do we have a purpose or meaning? What about the earth, or the physical universe? Does anyone know what's going on here?
Rene Descartes also doubted the reality of reality. He was applying a philosophical technique of questioning everything right down to his own existence. In the end he came up with his famous 'cogito ergo sum' conclusion. The mere fact that he was aware of himself proved his existence, at least to his satisfaction.
But then again there was an episode of Star Trek where Kirk got the holodeck to create a 1930s bar scene with 1930s people in it. They thought they were real too. They had thoughts and feelings, emotions and memories. They could not accept they were merely computer generated (non) beings that would cease to exist once the program was terminated.
Kirk came out of that even more depressed than when he'd gone in. "At least we're real," he says to console himself.
"How do you know?" says Spock.
Current ideas in physics are that all sub atomic particles are really tiny quanta of energy. The mechanism whereby one particle can affect another remote particle is completely outside of human understanding. Well, at this stage of our progress.
What it does show is that there are phenomena yet to be discovered. Those mystic phenomena that others have posted on this thread could not only be found to have a real scientific basis but one day we could capture and exploit the effect so that it is reliably available on demand.
Do you think that with the power of the mind alone, we could rearrange the sub atomic particles and turn water into fine wine? Or repair the retina in a blind man's eyes? What if we could even raise the- Naah. I'm getting carried away here.
But some would have us believe that these things have been done.
Kortpeel
