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Maharaji was even protecting those of his children who have strayed.
But anyway, what did those guys who broke into your apartment look like? I think I just saw them in my forest.
John the appropriately protected for the Latvian outback.
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John, They definitely looked Latvian, that's for sure. I just can't tell from my neighbour's description if they're southerners or not. But definitely Latvian. So don't make it too obvious but look out your window. What are they doing now?
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.... but the dogs seem to be chewing on something quite large......
Should save on dog food.
John.
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You know, if there is a wicked powerful and creative and deeply drama loving, what would be a good word.........not .. god...for crying out loud, that has so many concepts tied to it.........but, some conciousness that we are part of, that had to wait some god awful amount of time just watching dna creatures eat each other, then, finally got a creature it could install human nature in, thousands of years go by........lots of thousands............you and Laurie are about to be robbed, the god(if you will), perhaps helped orchestrate a minimum bummer for you, and you will never, thanks to rawat and now enlightenment, tell that thingamabob, "if you helped, thanks" Hey, I managed to say "rawat" in my post, that may keep the thread from being deleted because of off topicness. How come random chance wont bother to cause a missed morgage payment to the res? Or two or three? Rawat really struck the coincidence jackpot with his greed propelled lifestyle not running out of finances despite his constant attempts to spend as much as he could on all his desires. The vast coincidental nature of a lot of the drama of life keeps standing in the way of me tossing the god comcept. Granted, people can make mincemeat out of scriptures, and religious behaviours will get you into world war three, well, any minute now, but still, the coincidence, and drama, macro and micro, I cannot explain away. Well, a part of it. Glad you didnt lose it all! Drug users find times just get harder. There is no escape. And why should that be the case?
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Bill, The whole point of coincidence is that there is no connection just an appearance of one. When you say things like: The vast coincidental nature of a lot of the drama of life keeps standing in the way of me tossing the god co[n]cept. you're implying that everything that seems like it might be connected -- for whatever reason your imagination can come up with, of course -- is. That there are no false connections, weak or strong. And that, my friend, is not only wrong, it's also a very dangerous way to live, as far as I'm concerned. I know at least one ex-premie who has so slavishly clung to the notion that everything he thinks is connected is, that it's driven him pretty well mad, barely able to function and absolutely certain that Rawat has done some deep juju on his heart. Why? Because he just can't accept the fact that we're prone to see connections and patterns where there aren't any. My story here was intended to be an example of a false connection. There was no tie between the two break-ins, they just happened. That's it. End of story. Your example of a coincidence that isn't just that but is rather proof of some causality, the fact that Rawat hasn't gone bankrupt despite a wasteful lifestyle, is, frankly bizarre and disturbing. If you really think that way, I'm sorry, but you need to snap out of it. The sooner the better. Here's another way of looking at it. Think of a card game like poker. Now any sane and reasonable person will resist the temptation to think it's anything but a coincidence if you get a pair of two's, right? Big deal. Just the luck of the draw. Random, as you say. But how about a better hand, like a straight for instance? Well, we all know these things happen. It would still be pretty bizarre to think that God or the Devil or Rawat or anyone for that matter had to be involved. No, once again, just a coincidence. Good luck of the draw but luck all the same. But what happens when you get two straights in a row? Two straights in two consecutive hands? At a certain point, we're all susceptible. Even the most rational, skeptical, atheistic, "left-brained" --whatever you want to call him -- mathematician will eventually break down if he gets enough straights in a row. It's just human nature and we're all susceptible to it. But the point is, the well-informed, rational mathematician will understand that even unique coincidences do occur once in a while and he will do his level best to balance the emotional appeal of the sense of some connection with the rational idea that once in a while there's a strong illusion of same. Religion, spirituality and new age thinking, on the other hand, looks for these connections everywhere because it wants to see some greater hand in our affairs no matter what. Well, you know the argument. It's just too bad you don't seem to get it.
Modified by Jim at Fri, Jan 27, 2006, 08:32:55
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Good post as usual Jimze. Coincidentally, we are having three world wars in a row over worldviews. The more traditional fighting happens over local power and greed. Is there a chance that people will just unlink from worldviews and embrace the rather cold view that all worldviews are wrong. Except that it is all here by some fluke without purpose or meaning. Accurate or not, people will follow someone who constructs a view. rawat's dad pitched his tent around some body parts, and his desire for servants. rawat jr extended the franchise, and his sons will not let that hallucination die. Of course the rawat mortgage comment was a stretch, although how does he manage not to drive off a financial cliff? Maybe the game here is confusion. It would be a boring place if we all just stood around restateing the obvious, if we all got along, and no bird flu or war took us down, we would heat the planet till we caused another permenian extinction. That extinction was caused by global warming also. Best not to push that button again! And we are. WW3 might just save us from global warming! Now if you are running a game system that can destroy the game playing field, you might keep the players from doing that without making it look like you were involved. Or, you get the fighters to stand aside, see thier differences in a different light, then drop energy storage into the mix, and say a few things, and wala, new dawn. Dont ask me to explain that last bit. Chalk it up to the bizarre side of me.
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Dont ask me to explain that last bit. Chalk it up to the bizarre side of me. I'm with you completely!
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Given that life is very complex, coincidences are bound to happen. They are inevitable. The chance that a particular coincidence happens is very unlikely, but of all the very many things that could happen that we might recognise as a coincidence, some coincidences are almost inevitable.
On a continent where I thought I knew nobody, I bumped into an old friend. Amazing! But then, I have spent a lot of time wandering in places where I thought I knew no-one, and I know a lot of people who would qualify as old friends in such circumstances, so the fact that I bumped into an old friend somewhere unfamiliar isn't so much of a coincidence.
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some of these guys can artfully disguise themselves as reindeer apparently relishing chewing on 3 month old apples. That takes immense acting ability.
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What was going on? The intruder just getting a thrill about making a big mess in someone's house? A truly Canadian-type of crime.Sounds like maybe there is a big wave of that up there
Seriously, though. Aren't you suspicious if they didn't steal anything, like it was for the purpose of intimidation or to try to find some kind of information or something? Anyhow, glad you guys are okay.
Modified by Joe at Thu, Jan 26, 2006, 19:48:02
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Actually, Joe, the guys did steal from me. Not as much as they might have. Like I said, they had all sorts of stuff ready to go. Maybe they just couldn't steal a dog sled nearby to get it out of here. In fact, I'm really kind of pissed at the cops. My neigbours did call them and they admit they were going to send a car but a more serious call came in (perhaps someone threw some beer on someone watching the hockey game) so they never showed up. They meant to send out another car but they just plumb forgot. I'm looking into getting them to compensate me for my losses. No, seriously, I am. The guy who admitted breaking into Laurie's was in the process of checking the place out when she drove up and he ran back out so that's why he never got anything. As he confessed to the cops, he broke into a number of places, all on a drug-fuelled whim. Nothing personal about it. Anyway, don't you think that's one hell of a coincidence? But the point of the story is that that's all it is. We know that now. It was just a coincidence. Marvellous, you could say, I guess.
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It's sad really. This is the thing you've been waiting for all those years. The big message. The universe has been listening to you all along. And now it is telling you that. Yes, you personally Jim. Just you. The universe knows you exist. It cares about you. Why it even loves you.
You can give it all up now. All that atheism and evolutionary randomness. Just all part of the process. You've come home. You're not alone anymore Jim. I've got to stop now, I just can't hold back the tears.
Modified by Aunt Bea at Fri, Jan 27, 2006, 13:15:55
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Not a fire pit, but like a plasma that invites all the elements to fly apart, the Jimness gets a permanent dissolving into the plasma fire. Not the best option according to rumour. Not that it is painful like augustine imagined. While he is on the hot seat, I would like to mention that augustine is responsible for the catholics burning people at the stake. His idea of hell was wrong, and led to bad cruelty. But, to complete the Jim related theology, if you dont want any dealings with the (rawatian terminology) superiour power, when you die you are granted a future without him. Hell being the dissolving action instead of the better option created by that same one that managed to coincidence a moon, get us to a reserve globalization status, and soon to do a little support work with and for his needy ones on earth. buddhists reccomend shooting for the dissolving action. They also reccomend a no god view, so, there is no conflict there! Missionaries, bless thier hearts, extend thier hand to save others from that fate.
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Bill, It's not a matter of what I want (sugar plums and fairy tales) but what I expect (nothing). Think of it, though, do you really want all that Billness confusing the universe forever and ever? Or Jimness for that matter? Enough's enough.
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Jeez, that is an excellent point.
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All this other research is rooted in one thing. It is possibly tied to an argument. So I research it all. Should the state teach worldviews. That is the issue that is moving me on all this. Should the legal structure of the state include teaching worldviews. It bugs me that they do it. There is no control on how it is done, any teacher can swing the worldview presentations any way they want. Factions can move into trying to control that to steer the kids to whatever they want. In islamic countries, they do this. This might be the example that might lean your view towards the answer- no. In israel, they are having real issues about how teachers are supposed to teach Jewish education. Even to the extent that teachers personal lives are looked at and judged. What if, and it is possible, england goes on a revivalist streak, and a certain style of christianity decides to send its members to teacher colleges to steer teaching. And they get politicians to vote on certain curriculum. There are certain christian colleges, I dont know how many, but I do know it is more than one, that purposely train thier students to be lawyers with a particular slant, and are getting them all hopped up to be politicians and run for power offices. There are the new world order types, and they are a mixed bag, but thier outcome is completely unknown. What about the foggy line that allows religions to demand financial support for schools? Thereby causeing the state to fund a particular worldview. If this was not an issue for me, I would have ignored rush, because of coincidence reasons I wont bother you with. I would settle back in to a tolerant unconcern for issues from dawkins to conciousness. I am bugged because the schools are all over my kids with religious education and teaching them the bhagadva gita, yup, they had to read it ! And they come home with explanations of -the law of karma- the law of reincarnation- and this one that really would bug an expremie, the explanation on how buddha got enlightened. Dantes inferno, a must read, and then hours of discussion about the devil and hell, and I have no way to find out what was said! Who the hell knows. I cannot find out. They dont tape the classes ect ect. Well, no, I dont want billisms living forever on earth as part of what I am doing, but I do want to do something, and it is because it just seems like it should not be happening. As a materialist, should the state teach worldviews? To think they are just teaching the materialist worldview is just wrong. They are not. They will give rawat respect if he somehow manages to get himself included in thier curriculum. Could happen!
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The concern over religions should not get us to install govt policies that try to steer families. Religions in this time are in no position to expect the next generation to automatically follow thier parents. Kids are rebellious naturally, and this involvement of the state, is more harmful and potentially harmful, than leaving citizens to explore on thier own. The ebb and flow idea. Hell, the tv, computer screen is the new god anyway. The us teaches all the kids in the nation the religion of kwanzaa. In fact, they established it. Having done that, they have at least one other now on the drawing boards. An american indian religion. They will roll that out, teach the kids, and move on to the next creation they embrace. Dont you think they should stick with science alone? Teach facts only. Not the dogmas and beliefs. When I said they taught how buddha got enlightened, I did not mean they said he was sitting under a tree and wala! No, they had some discussion about mergeing. What about scientology? When does that get some curriculum time? Wiccan gets some discussion time and study in california and oregon. The state religion of rome was, the emperor was god. The link between religion and state should be broken completely. Indiviual parents should have the right to raise thier kids without the state teaching worldviews. The state can teach facts. Religions come and go, let them propagate thier ideas all on thier own dime and time. States are free to do anything on this subject. In utah, mormons can present thier ideas in the schools to whatever extent they want. Who is to stop them? Using what principle or law? How should the law be structured to straighten out this situation. When the norm of the planet is for religion and state connections, who is to say the islamist state is wrong? How do the folks in those countries make the case that church and state are best seperated when they can find no countries in the world where church and state are seperate. The governments of the world are teaching religion! The un is pushing it all over the globe. That brings up the whole subject of the whys in thier thinking, and the flaws. That subject brings up topics like is the worldview that we can self perfect correct. Is there a dark side/active devil factor operating here or not, because that is not an easily dismissed subject, and it impacts the foundations of the un worldview. Well, I didnt cover it all certainly, but here is my legal dilemma, to stop them from teaching religion, I may have to make the case from stem to stern covering all subjects, to show that teaching religion by the state cannot be supported in any way and that due to the devil factor, you cannot even fix the religion problem by, ugh, it just goes on and on. How do you do this legally, easily? Is there a legal solution that gets the state out of religious teaching that doesnt have to involve explaining totally, life on earth?
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Bill, What "dogmas and beliefs" do you say your kids are being taught? I hope you're not confusing teaching about religions and indoctrinating people in them.
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About, is the door that anything may travel through. And does. About -= is a notion the supreme court had in 63, and they inserted it in a ruling that was really about eliminateing school prayer. Either, they did it to toss a bone to the religious people who they knew would throw a fit over thier prayer decision, OR, they knew at that time that schools were reading scripture in classes and gave it a wink and nod, OR they were on board the new global citizen effort that was already underway internationally. Or, there is some other guess. ok, I suppose people can say, and have to me, gee, I am sure you can teach about without mischief or harm. Either way, instead of standing with the seperation of church and state, they opened a door that no one could close. By 2005, there is no door, because there is no door frame, because there is no wall. Each teacher is free to spin off on the subject to any extent, and you know from the forum experience how people cant help but insert their own stuff into thier efforts to teach others. I have documentation of factions who are fully seeing the -opportunity- and are active in working it. Factions aside, individual teachers, have thier own worldview and there is no restraint priciple whatsoever to limit them. Any discussion, no matter what, is "about". This case is either one to sidestep, or it is the case of the century. I know this is not a fair request to make, I am just sputtering at the daunting task it is and I know there are no shortcuts. Sorry I piped up in exasperation. Your upper thread comment, correct as it is, about making noise in the larger world hit one of my sides, the side that says the hell with it all. I guess the answer to your question is yeah, they do teach dogma, they teach all "about" hell, devils, each religion, law of karma, reincarnation, enlightenment(buddha style, and european style), the dogmas, the powers and names of all the greek gods, (you have to know them for the test- I am not kidding), and there are books to read. bhagavadgita, dante, who knows what else, and discussions run by the teachers, no transcipts, no oversight, no boundries. It annoys me. I dont think it should happen, but to stop it, the case would have to be so large, so daunting in its details, examples, and reasonings, that despite its chance to talk about -everything-, who the heck will take the case and run it? I am not asking you as you know, I guess I just took the chance to fess up to the forum about why I have made some of the posts I have. I guess I have not quite yet let go of this. Basically I object to satsang in the schools.
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Bill, I really don't see what you're so upset about. So they teach comparative religion, just like they teach comparative economic theory and the like. What's the big deal? You say that what you basically object to is satsang in the schools but unless you're saying the teachers are asking your kids to merely accept what they say without question or rational understanding, I think your fears are missplaced. Anyway, the history of human civilization is full of religion and superstition. It sounds like you don't want your kids to learn history, period. But you tell me, what do you want them to learn? By the way, your continual reference to the "new global citizen" just sounds like fundamentalist Christian paranoia. Now that's something I'd want to keep my kids away from!
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They could learn all manner of history of individuals who did things that arent in the stupid categories of those who ran wars, and those who had worldviews to tell us all. There is so much history of individuals living lives of interest despite the idiots running the governments and religions of thier day. There are miles of bookshelves filled with mostly true accounts of all manner of daring, nutty, adventurous, creative, simple, heartfelt, bizarre individuals. Reading a book about perfectly stupid decisions others have made in history will make the kids laugh and feel better about thier own tendency to make what they or others consider errors. Reading about all those types in the past would make for kids willing to be more themselves and perhaps more personally inventive as personalities. That would make a better global citizen. History students that were so inclined could read the Federalist Papers. There are lots of complex books to read. Despite all, the embrace of church and state is as deadly as ever. As we shall see only more and more. Wonderful!
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Bill, Most of the history courses I took (and I had a history minor in university) ran through the whole gamut of political, cultural (including religious), institutional events, sometimes focussing on individuals, sometimes groups. It's all interesting in various ways. I really don't see what you're on about. But the main point I want to make is that it's spelled "their".
Modified by Jim at Wed, Feb 01, 2006, 23:04:07
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Athiests will never betray the concept of the seperation of Church and State. Athiests will never make policy based on the precepts of a particular faith. Athiests will never favour the moral code of one small group over their multitude of neighbours because they attend the same church. An atheist believes life is very precious because when you die, it's over. Some religious fundies are a little freer with human life because the afterlife is so much better if you're good, and if it isn't you deserved it anyway.
shamelessly lifted from this slashdot post
Jonti
-- never a premie
Modified by jonti at Thu, Feb 02, 2006, 05:04:16
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Well Jonti, it is a fun idea, but most of those sentences dont stand up actually. That can be next post just for fun. I did read the conciousness link. I know you see what it said. I can tell by your way below posts. I have a thought about it. As you know, most people dont march in lockstep with the latest news about these issues, even here amongst such high company. Clearly they have found the barrier between dna and experience. I would use this imperfect metaphor. Your hand, reaches out, and has a boundry with space, air. Air however can penetrate the hand, and does. We breathe some percentage through our skin. Urban legend had it that the girl in goldfinger died because she was painted, and couldnt get enough air. Her lungs coudnt do the job without the skin. Anyway, the hand has a limit. Now I know this is not the best example, because stuff floats off the skin and floats in the air, and also, air is not like experience. My point is that I view the boundry between the material and experience to be similar. The material cannot reach over to the experience, but what experience is can reach through the material.
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<i>The material cannot reach over to the experience, but what experience is can reach through the material.</i>
But the material world does impact ("reach over" to experience. And our "immaterial" minds reach over to the material world in that we can choose to act in this way or that.
That's the difficulty for those who believe in an immaterial mind-stuff, like a soul. How can something that cannot be detected by any material method influence the material world in any way?
And how can the material world impact on it, while being completely unaffected by the interaction?
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Hi Jonti, As you know, it is all guesswork at this point. However, I think that the material limits have been well defined. At least to the extent your link stated. I know the science guys are trying to take a stab at what experience rules might exist. Since material limits show no signs of having any undiscovered link made of material, I think experience must be the thing that has the capacity to provide the bridge. I cannot concieve of any model but what I guessed already in the post above. You said "but the material world does impact, reach over, to experience", but your link says they give up in defeat on that idea. There is a gap. That is exactly the gap that must be there if there is to be a case for the god option. The god option is not defeated by this discovery, while it can be said it is not strenthened either, still the gap is essential for the god option. Interesting. You said "How can something that cannot be detected by any material method influence the material world in any way?" Great questions or points as usual Jonti, I do appreciate your interest in this. I would say that maybe the only way we see it is in some of the limitations and behaviours that human nature has. Thats become my personal stumbleing block to athEIsm. Even if animals started talking, blabbering away endlessly complaining about thier limitations as animals, I would still have to see a way around our human nature limitations before I could make a case that there might be no god. Got to go.
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Well, yes, but *any* gap in one's understanding will do, if one's case for a Deity is posited on one's bafflement at the world! The religious sentiment is not dependent on ignorance as such. From a scientific point of view, belief in a Deity is more unnecessary than ignorant. So I cannot agree that the absence of a scientific Theory of Consciousness is *essential* for the god option. It's just another gap in our present understanding.
And the problem with pointing to the gaps in material understanding and declaring See, it must have been God wot dun it! is that, sooner or later those gaps get filled in, and off you have to go in search of another gap. That, or suppress the advance of material understanding.
That's a pretty lofty view, of course. In practice, the more one is able to explain the world in material terms, the less room there is for a supernatural Deity to operate. So I fully agree that a scientific Theory of Consciousness would, in practice, be a heavy blow to religion. To be frank, that is one of the reasons I give the matter so much thought.
One thing I find very intriguing is that Classical science (relativity etc) teaches that there is no universal now. Two events sufficiently far apart in space-time can be seen as occuring either way round, or simultaneously, depending on one's frame of reference. But Quantum science *does* talk about two widely separated events occuring simultaneously.
That is acknowledged to be a flat contradiction. But what's really odd is that both Classical and Quantum science work very well indeed. Each makes predictions that are fantastically accurate. I suspect the resolution may be partly philosphical. There may be two sorts of time. As well as the relative time of Galileo, Newton, and Einstein, the time of physical equations, of pendulums and clocks and movement in physical space, there may also be an absolute time. Newton certainly thought so. Although his Laws of Motion all deal with relative time, he explicitly postulated the existence of an absolute time as well. But he wrote and said very little about absolute time. Here is all he said ...
"Absolute, true, and mathematical time, of itself, and from its own nature, flows equably without relation to anything external, and by another name is called duration: relative, apparent, and common time, is some sensible and external (whether accurate or unequable) measure of duration by the means of motion, which is commonly used instead of true time; such as an hour, a day, a month, a year."
I think it likely that, philosophically speaking, consciousness will turn out to involve both absolute time and relative time. That view seems to offer a way to understand some of the bizarre findings of modern science that suggest observation inevitably interfers with the things it observes, even sometimes affecting the relative past.
Modified by jonti at Tue, Feb 07, 2006, 04:37:12
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>Now what in the world are the odds of that happening? Interesting question, Jim, and important. (And glad things worked out not as badly as they might have for you and Laurie.) Rather than it being even slightly off-topic, I think the question you’ve raised goes right to the heart of cult-think: the way of viewing the world that sees Maharaji working in mysterious ways to improve the lot of his premies. (Circumstances that work out for you are manifestations of ‘Grace’; others that don’t are put down to ‘Lila’ - and forgotten when the next shot of Grace comes around.) Probability misjudgement certainly comes into it, and research shows it is associated with unconventional belief systems. By the time I went to university (twenty years after I might have done - mostly, but not entirely, thanks to M.) I had stopped believing in Superior Powers in person, especially Maharaji. But was still unsure about paranormal phenomena, so I read up on every piece of properly controlled research I could find just to work out for myself whether the paranormal exists (No - it doesn’t!). Having dismissed that one, I got more interested in why people believe in spooky stuff generally, when the evidence for it is, at best, flimsy-to-non-existent. I had to design and run a final-year research project of my own, so I attempted some follow-up work on a question that Susan Blackmore had raised about probability misjudgement and paranormal belief. I will have to describe the experiment in detail in order to explain it properly… Susan B. had found a correlation between a tendency to make probability errors and paranormal belief. But then, I thought, you could easily acquire a paranormal belief through the weird company you keep, or by reading the wrong books, so I decided to try and get a measure of people’s past paranormal experiences, ie.what they thought had happened to them personally. And then attempt to replicate the ‘probability misjudgement’ effect directly in the lab. So I designed a self-report scale measuring three factors: first, the scope of participants’ experiences (the number of different types of phenomenon they had encountered - 'ghosts', 'psychokinesis', 'telepathy' etc); then the frequency of each occurrence. Finally, the perceived paranormality of each experience (‘how certain are you that this experience cannot be explained by ordinary science’?). I multiplied the three measures together to give a rough overall ‘experiential belief’ rating. Participants were then invited to take part in ‘a parapsychology experiment to test your powers of psychokinesis’. (This was a deception, ethically dubious, but justified in my mind through necessity. Everyone was debriefed afterwards – some egg on faces but no harm done, or friends lost, I hope!) The experiment was computer-based, using a piece of customised software that resembled a PK (psychokinesis) test. It comprised a blank screen, apart from a thin horizontal line running across it, halfway up. Then over the course of eighteen trials-per-person, a flashing cursor would cross the screen from left to right, wandering apparently at random, up and down, as it proceeded. Participants could not touch the computer, but were asked to influence the path of the cursor, so that it ended up either above the line, or below it by the time it reached the further edge of the screen, using the powers of their mind alone! The target end state (‘above’ or ‘below’ the line) was predetermined for each trial by the flip of a coin. The program, of course, was rigged, so that every participant gained an impressive number of ‘hits’ (14 out of 18), irrespective of the original coin flip. (There was some sleight-of-hand involved on my part to kick off the correct version of the program.) Afterwards participants rated their own performance, answering two critical questions: (1) ‘Do you believe you succeeded in influencing the computer with your mind?’ (‘strongly agree’ through ‘unsure’ etc, through to ‘strongly disagree’) And: (2) ‘If the program had been running on its own, at random, without your influence, how often do you think the same hit rate would occur by chance alone?’ The tick-list scale for this question ran from ‘once in ten sets of trials or less’, through to ‘once in two hundred sets of trials or more’) The results for question (1) were not surprising: high-paranormal believers were more likely to think they had influenced the computer. Results for question (2) were more interesting, with the strength of a person’s paranormal belief negatively correlating with the perceived likelihood of the hit-rate being a purely chance occurrence. That is, the more paranormal experiences they had previously reported and the strength of belief etc, the more likely they were to report ‘once in two hundred sets of trials or more’, while sceptics were more likely to say ‘once in twenty’ or lower. The true probability of a 14-out-of-18 hit rate, if this had been a genuinely randomised piece of software, was ‘once in forty times’ – replicating the kind of phenomenon that might seem surprising in real life, but should not be that surprising when it happens to you. [There were also a few general number-crunching puzzles thrown in, to make sure that the probability-misjudgement effect wasn’t just down to believers not being very good at mathematics. On these, believers performed as well as the sceptics.] It’s always great for any student when your experiment works so I was pleased, but not surprised, when it did. But I was truly astonished at the size of the probability effect, and levels of statistical significance it reached. Definitely something going on there… One unpredicted effect (which Susan Blackmore hadn’t reported) was the way that some of the sceptics significantly underestimated the chance baseline – but nothing like to the scale that believers overestimated it. And in my mind, its always safer to err on the side of caution, even if that involves over-caution, when the alternative involves believing the unbelievable. (Or in miracles and wonder-workers or cult performers showering grace upon the faithful…) All participants in the experiment were final-year university students, and not stupid in any conventional sense - which I still find more than a little worrying re, the state of the human condition and its sometimes limited capacity for rational judgement. Coincidences in real life happen because they must happen – probability theory insists on it. If coincidences didn’t happen at the rate they do, then that would be spooky. Yet when improbable things happen in life, even the most intelligent person is susceptible to reading too much into them.
Modified by Nigel at Fri, Jan 27, 2006, 16:20:21
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Hi Nigel, First, thanks for the concern. It was a tough couple of days there but not unprecedented. Last spring, when I was doing another murder trial, also on the lower mainland, both of Laurie's kids ran into some serious medical trouble. One was up in Northern Alberta working on the pipelines and one was in Victoria and, again, I was helpless to even be there. Now tell me, what were the chances of that? Actually, we can make light of it now -- thank Maharaji! -- but it was no laughing matter at the time. So what? I shouldn't take cases off the island anymore? Should pray harder? Quit bugging good ol' Amazon? Where's the karmic trip-wire in all this? That's the question. Seriously, though, your experiment was interesting and particularly, I thought, for the skeptics' underestimation at the end. Yes this stuff is certainly front and centre for all sorts of magical thinking. Of course you can't see any of it clearly without a handkerchief on your head.
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If we were to not over and under estimate, I wonder if we would find a bugger, (hope that is not a bad british term,) standing there pointing to some non scientific, but curious aspects of human drama that push the coincidence envelope to the point that leaves us groping for reasons to explain coincidence anamolies. Rips in the fabric of the coincidence explanation boundries. Would all coincidence anamolies fall under the random chance logics? guess I should try to spot anamolies to look at. Nigel, I remember you posting about this previously. Do you have another project you are working on, these days?
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I wonder if we would find a bugger, (hope that is not a bad british term)
I'm sure good brits use it too, but it is *very* bad language, referring to something that should not be attempted without vaseline, or paraffin in the case of americans. For australians, however, it is a term of cheerful amity, and really means bugger all.
I hope that's clear.
Jonti
-- always a pedant
Modified by jonti at Sun, Jan 29, 2006, 10:10:16
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>'Rips in the fabric of the coincidence explanation boundries'. That's one truly choice phrase! Bill (probably what Jim would call 'Billese' at its most inscrutable ) As for 'coincidence anomolies' - I don't think any such thing exists. As I tried to put over, coincidences are not anomolous, they are something that have to happen. For every billion-to-one oddity you encounter in life, there will be a billion similarly improbable oddities not happening. And anyway, you cannot calculate the odds of events that have already happened. Odds 'for' and 'against' any phenomenon only exist where there is a predicted, or 'target' outcome. No bookmaker will accept bets on the outcome of last year's Derby or World Series. Which is why, whenever anyone argues that 'the chances of life happening on earth are so vanishingly remote..etc..blah, blah, it shouldn't have happened...' it's a nonsense. Imagine a horse race with 1,000,000 jockeys competing. Before the event, the chances of yours, or any named horse winning are 1,000,000 to one against. But the chances of any horse winning are 1/1, ie. a dead cert. I'm not saying everything is random - some cause-effect relationships are predictable, while others are not - because you don't know all the initial variables involved, and so, from an observer's point of view, they might just as well be random. (I don't remember posting about probability before, Bill, though I did mention it briefly in my EPO Journey. I'm not doing any research these days as I'm working as a freelance writer and no longer connected with any university.) Cheers,
Nige the silly bugger.
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Hi Nige, I remember you telling us about your project. I recall you telling us it was part of school. And it was big, and you did leak somewhat about it. And I think I remember you saying you would discuss it more when your project was more complete. You said "For every billion-to-one oddity you encounter in life, there will be a billion similarly improbable oddities not happening. And anyway, you cannot calculate the odds of events that have already happened. Odds 'for' and 'against' any phenomenon only exist where there is a predicted, or 'target' outcome Perhaps my only at this time -anamolie- is one I have discussed in financial circles. I say the chances of accomplishing globalization, on the first try, with human nature involved, and competeing interests, is almost, but apparently not totally, impossible. What it took to navigate us to this point is where I am hallucinating an anomolie. I am grateful that you are here to discuss the improbability subject. I guess at root, I am looking at history, and especially the last 100 years, with the angle that globalization required so much coincidence, and coincidence that involved masses of humans, and drama, war, ideoligies that held people back, discoveries like computers and derivitives and odd but crucial elements such as israel and the jewish men strewn throughout the world financial industry. The road, and the troubles, and the successes, are all under my gaze with the angle of trying to see the hand (if you will) of (to borrow a rawatian phrase) superiour power. Even the middle east war looming, and the bird flu fits ok within my hallucination of a guided humanity. This last part would fit under the, now that you have globalization on track economically, at least on the central bank level, and they are locked in together, we have to be culled in some fashion so that we dont global warm the planet to disaster. Anyway, I nutshelled this nutty view because I have to go.
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Bill,
Globalisation is just the natural consequence of the lesson we learnt a long time ago that cooperation is better than conflict. Sure we still have our distrust of the stranger from the tribe over the hill, but the trend has been for increased cooperation for a long time. Once certain traits have been established in a species, it is not chance that the species behaves in that way.
Do you think it is coincidence that all of Europe (apart from Britain) uses the same mains electrical plugs and sockets?
BTW, dodgy stereotyping of jews as financiers there, Bill. Totally unnecessary in the argument you were making.
John.
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Greetings and salutations at the lotus feet of satgurudev JHB! Loved your gravity riff. And the two posters that tagged on to that one of yours. It is not that Jews in the finance industry are factors in the ways that others could make, To get to globalization, you have to have one currency that is the reserve currency. Just to allow that to happen required circumstances that alone are almost impossible. After world war 5, oops typo, but maybe someday someone will type that in a sentence! After ww2, the US was in the rare position of in a planet full of continents and countries and ideologies, it held most of the gold, lots of its own oil, nukes and tremendous resources and vibrant manufactureing. Having china and especially russia, and numerous other nations boxed off in thier own economic structure and currency, combined with them threatening the world loudly, was a real essential boost to allowing the other nations to allow the US to be the reserve currency. Having all those people tied up in a tyranny that controlled them financially through communism, and ideology restriction, combined with a profitless system, made growing a sole reserve currency nation possible. Vietnam helped by providing the US with the ability to run large deficiets without the US allies being able to put a stop to that. France(degaulle) knew the US was pulling a reserve currency role and tried to contain the us by buying gold. The US was in a strong enough position and went off the gold structure in 73. Keeping deficiets somewhat contained, the US managed to make a deal with the arab nations to control the price of gold to allow the arabs to buy gold cheap for over 20 years. Since that time, they played thier cards right when russia and china switched over to the dollar system. WTO ect. That transition could easily have not been as smooth as it was. The Japanese didnt seem to know it, but in 89, if they had smart enough guys and were bold enough, they could have, perhaps, taken over reserve duties from the us. But, they cooperated with the us instead, and took a fall because you cant host a financial bubble like they were unless you are the reserve currency. The US really made a play for globalization by taking its reserve status and jamming the economy with money, and moving towards a debt based system. All while still making noises like it was playing by old rules. Previously you could never run up deficiets in one nation. The us took the chance it had, and must have talked with other central bankers, made some quiet deals, and now are running us on a system where production is not what makes a country strong, but the ability to go into debt is. That is quite a feat. My guess as to what the future holds, is like what happened in the last depression. Depression comes, and last time, there was the new deal. This time, depression comes, and the globalization new new deal gets unfolded. A system where each country is allowed to go into a certain amount of debt based on thier own factors. how much they make via production and export, and how much they need over that and then some. They will be allowed to go into debt x amount that year. A global allowance system. Anyway, the vast amount of things that had to go right to allow for this to happen, is what has me scratching my head. In order to have globalization, you have to have one and only one reserve currency. One source of debt. The US will have to hand over the controls, and already the US Fed is managed by an international body. Controlled by the US still, but managed by a number of countries. The Jewish men played a role in a few ways. They have a bond that is outside of and in addition to, any bond they have with the countries they are citizens of. That bond, would take more posts than I would be able to provide to fully discuss, but it is not a negative factor if you are after globalization. I think to make the case that I am, that on the macro financial level, there is a design, I know it includes some large macro political and social claims as well. I know of no one else making this study, and I know this hardly is a arguement in this post, but more a thin line about the reserve element surviving to this point. Even if there were men planning in hopes, they would have had no way to ever know computers would come along, which are essential for it, and derivitive debt instruments, which are also crucial, but so many other essential factors in geopolitics, good and ugly, that a wave of a hand claiming "it is ridiculous" will not suffice for a response. I will have to try additional posts.
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'with the angle that globalization required so much coincidence, and
coincidence that involved masses of humans, and drama, war, ideoligies
that held people back, discoveries like computers and derivitives and
odd but crucial elements such as israel and the jewish men strewn
throughout the world financial industry.'
This weird stuff echoes the weird conspiracy theories you find in all the campgrounds in America. You soon find people there ready for Armageddon, prepared for it with their motor-homes, tools and spares, guns and supplies of food. They are watching the signs, what the UN is doing (evil world power, predicted in the Bible as coming just before Armageddon), and what the Jews are up to (they are pulling the strings in the UN of course) with their money... I haven't been there recently, but I am sure that the war in Iraq and the bird flu are all part of it now
This is pretty grotesque stuff, pulled together by people who are all 'trying to see the hand (if you will) of (to borrow a rawatian phrase) superiour power.'
There is no fucking superior power, and the idea that you can pull all these things into a coherent picture and see a guiding hand is dangerous wishful thinking.
The growing fundamentalist religion in America seems to me as bad as that of the Muslim fanatics.
God help us, and especially the Jews.
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Greetings 13, this below snippet from the JHB post might separate me from those with a different take on Jewish men in finance. "The Jewish men played a role in a few ways. They have a bond that is outside of and in addition to, any bond they have with the countries they are citizens of. That bond, would take more posts than I would be able to provide to fully discuss, but it is not a negative factor if you are after globalization." I am different from those you mention 13. I have read them, they are varied of course, but I draw a different line and it makes a lot of difference! I am not looking for guidance from some revelations madness, that was written by someone who wanted to destroy the budding christian group. That is all I can guess. Those that look at davos folks, or rothschilds, or the bittendon group, however that is properly spelled(bilbergers?), are looking at groups of men playing with power and money. I look for someone playing with/in spite, of them. Nigel said you can look at something if you have a goal in mind. If there is a god someone, and he has some power, then this last century has to have seen some amount of that power, or it doesnt exist. I cannot find anyone discussing the planet from the angle of "lets watch for signs of a coincidence anamolie that could indicate any kind of case that can be made for a chess game towards a goal." I agree with you of course, global analysis is loaded with religiously motivated visionaries that basically call for our destruction. Some see things and DO see control that bands of men are constucting. For whatever reasons. But I know that construction is following the reserve currency. How THAT survived, that crucial element, is where I see so many factors that no band of men could orchestrate. So, I figure it is a subject that fits the coincidence thread!
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history ... required so much coincidence
Oh yes. If it were possible to restore the Earth to the *exact* condition it was in, say, 4 billion years ago, and then to let it all unfold again, it would not turn out the same way.
Even 1 million or so, and modern times would be utterly different.
1000 years? Yeah, quite different, I'd say, for sure.
This world we live in is the product of an astonishing series of happenstances and coincidences. As would be each and every one of the other possible worlds, were it possible actually to rerun things.
Science has shown strict determinism to be, well, bunkum. But it's a great approximation, and can be used for all sorts of fancy engineering. It's no coincidence that you get to read these words!
Modified by jonti at Mon, Jan 30, 2006, 14:12:09
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Hell of a post Jonti! Dang, giving that vast scope of a view was a show stopper. How about elaborating on this part of your post. "Science has shown strict determinism to be, well, bunkum. But it's a great approximation, and can be used for all sorts of fancy engineering. It's no coincidence that you get to read these words!" Luckily for the planet, you didnt go back 4.5 billion years ago. If you take out the earth being hit by some massive thing that broke off the stuff that made the moon, then the earth ends up having no close moon that big that stabilizes the axis and gives it the slight rocking motion. No moon, and your axis just spins wildly. Forget about life. Or any worth noteing. So, the implication, I suppose, is that THAT had to be part of the planning! Oh it does have to go that far I suppose!
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I said, "Science has shown strict determinism to be, well, bunkum. But it's a great approximation, and can be used for all sorts of fancy engineering. It's no coincidence that you get to read these words!"
I take it you're happy with the fancy engineering part? I mean, the determinist nature of computers works just fine for you. But you are a tad surprised to hear me say that strict determinism is long dead, as a philosophical consequence of the very real material success of science?
Chaos limits the usefulness of a strictly determinist understanding. Science needs more. An amusing thought experiment shows this. Imagine a mathematically perfect pool table with a dozen balls, all set in motion from some starting configuration rolling around, colliding with each other and off the cushions, friction free of course.
Newton's Laws allow each ball's exact trajectory to be determined as far forward -- or backward -- as one would be pleased to calculate. Yet even so small an influence as the gravitation force exerted by an electron on the edge of the Galaxy disturbs these perfect calculations.
Of course, but how soon is there a noticeable difference? With colliding spheres a slight difference in the angle of collision translates to a much larger difference in the angles followed by the balls after the collision. This is the rueful experience of any player of pool. And if those balls continued to collide with each other and bounce off the cushions any similarity to the intended trajectories is quickly lost. Swiftly after any descernable difference, all resemblance is gone.
Thus Chaos, as a mathematical idea. The idea that changes on a large scale may happen as a result of tiny, tiny, tiny influences. And to answer my question how soon is there a noticeable difference? The answer is in a classic article by James Crutchfield, J. Doyne Farmer,n and Norman Packard titled "Chaos" in the December, 1986 issue of Scientific American.
It would take around a minute, in the case of our idealised pool table and the gravitational pull of an electron at the edge of the Galaxy. Clearly, determinism as a practical strategy for obtaining an understanding of the world has its limits.
And it gets worse. When we are talking about the electrons, we are talking about quantum effects. There is, in principle, no way of exactly determining both the position and the velocity of that electron. Over time, the flux of quantum indeterminacy affects large scale chaotic systems in a way that is in principle unpredictable.
Strict scientific determinism is something of a straw man. Folks may think themsleves smart for kicking against it. But it's an idea long ago abandoned by science as being useful when dealing with the real world, except in carefully controlled and constrained environments.
Modified by jonti at Tue, Jan 31, 2006, 05:54:55
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Hi Jonti, what stretched me was your billion million history comments. I didnt understand the next part. Although after I did the reply, I found your post below on determinism. I still am trying to understand it, and I havent yet fully read this post you just posted. But I am happy to learn. The stuff is complex and deep. You appear to have a good handle on it. I hope to get it enough to respond!
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Thank you for your kind remarks.
Here's a mental picture for you. Imagine a bush (not on fire, and not the POTUS or any of his kin). A nice, big, fat, bushy sort of bush.
Nice, eh? I like bushes. Where was I?
Oh yes. Now imagine the present day is the tip of one of the twigs. That twig represents the way things actually turned out. The tips of the other twigs represent the outcomes that didn't actually happen, but could have.
Now one can imagine oneself at the end of any of the twigs, looking back at the maze of turnings and branchings and twistings that lead up to where one is. What an amazing series of unlikely events had to happen, for one to get to that twig!
The crucial point is, this assertion remains true, whichever twig one chooses.
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Bill, How much of what you say is just echoing your preacher? Also, I know you play with your "nuttiness" and it certainly smooths the edges a bit, being so self-effacing and all but, honestly, do you really think you're a bit nuts or is this just Columbo-time?
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Perhaps if the FCC sided with me on the Rush issue, no, that wouldnt do it. Perhaps if I changed the world by redrawing the line between parents and schools and govt. Naw, still no. Sent a dvd message on Idols and polytheism in arabic, japanese, hindi and farsi, while showing off the finest Idol ever made, to those audiences. Naw, still no. Showed the world that a plasma ball is how you store energy. No probably not enough. I dont think you can get people to come unless you are discussing human nature in some way. That seems to be the area that folks are most concerned with. Just to say that human nature has no point really, just whatever you can do to manage its oddities is the name of the game till evolution makes it less troublesome, wont gather a crowd on a day off! But, someone with a bad vision, will always crop up to enthrall those whose human nature is driving them to seek rest. The promise of rest after violence is certainly one of the popular pitches of bad visionaries. Or like in rawats case, rest through slavery.
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It was a 10000 word dissertation. My supervisor suggested I submit it for journal publication, but that would have taken a lot of work to edit and condense it into a suitable style and format. It was right at the end of my degree course, had enough of work, and I never quite got round to it... I might have it on disc somewhere, and I have a bit of webspace I could put it on. I'll let you know if I do...
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