Higher dimensions a spiritual concept?

[AtreyuKun]

One question: Why does any of this matter?

Also, hallucinations brought about by drugs does not mean you "see" or experience another dimension. It means you are FUBAR.

Why does it matter? For me it helps me to deal with what comes after this life. It doesn't seem quite so unknown even though thinking about it blows my mind.
See I don't really believe that "god" made the stars for us. How are humans ever going to experience a star system 231,098 light years away? I think it all means much more than god just got bored one day so he decided to make reality(ies).
We may very well all be snuffed out of existence when we die(which I can deal with) or our consciousness may be salvaged and the universe may be our playground. I don't really know, but trying to understand the relationship between matter, energy, and space helps.

[LincolnSnuff]

Hmmm... I would bet that natives use hallucinogens because they do not understand what the hallucinations are. The only thing that makes sense to them is that it must be something from their god(s) so they use it in this context. It doesn't mean that they are actually communicating with a higher power, seeing other dimensions, or "achieving higher levels of spiritualism." Why don't Christians/Protestants/Jews/Muslims (more educated peoples) use hallucinogens in religious ceremonies to do the same thing? Its because they understand the hallucinations for what they are:

Hallucinations, strictly speaking, are perceptions that have no basis in reality, but that appear entirely realistic. A typical "hallucination" induced by a psychedelic drug is more accurately described as a modification of regular perception, and the subject is usually quite aware of the illusory and personal nature of their perceptions.

I think all of the "mind expanding" talk is just an excuse to use drugs because the user likes how they feel, not because they reach some mythical "higher level of spiritualism."

[LincolnSnuff]

Why does it matter? For me it helps me to deal with what comes after this life. It doesn't seem quite so unknown even though thinking about it blows my mind.
See I don't really believe that "god" made the stars for us. How are humans ever going to experience a star system 231,098 light years away? I think it all means much more than god just got bored one day so he decided to make reality(ies).
We may very well all be snuffed out of existence when we die(which I can deal with) or our consciousness may be salvaged and the universe may be our playground. I don't really know, but trying to understand the relationship between matter, energy, and space helps.

So lines, squares, boxes, and time help you to deal with what comes after this life? Unfortunately, you are barking up the wrong tree.

[AtreyuKun]

So lines, squares, boxes, and time help you to deal with what comes after this life? Unfortunately, you are barking up the wrong tree.

I disagree. What's your take on it then?

[jagmanss]

I disagree. What's your take on it then?

My take is your using some drugs that I want....

[LincolnSnuff]

I have Christian faith. A lack of which causes people to search for answers in things like "dimensions."

I'm not trying to piss you off, but seriously, if you feel the need to find out what happens in the afterlife then you must believe there is an afterlife. If as you say God didn't create the universe, then why would you believe that anything happens when you die other than you are dead? Your need to search for "answers" is precisely why you should consider religion.

[AtreyuKun]

Ah. Of course. Now I know what I'm dealing with.
It's not so much about the afterlife as it is if there is an afterlife. I know something happens when you die. Afterlife implies there is life after death. I'm not convinced there is.
And thank you, but religion as you no doubt see it is not for me. Thanks.

[simplesmoke]

I have a strong suspicion that after we all die it will feel very similar to how it felt before we were born.

I also have a feeling that this will all occur again. I personally believe that time is infinite and matter is finite and whatever is going on out there (big bangs, collapses, whatever the timeline as hard as that is to comprehend) We will all exist again in this same way again.

After you close your eyes when you die I have a feeling the next thing you will feel will be that first sentient memory you have now from being a child.

I never knew till I was older there were already theories about this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_return

[CoderGuy]

I have a strong suspicion that after we all die it will feel very similar to how it felt before we were born.

I also have a feeling that this will all occur again. I personally believe that time is infinite and matter is finite and whatever is going on out there (big bangs, collapses, whatever the timeline as hard as that is to comprehend) We will all exist again in this same way again.

After you close your eyes when you die I have a feeling the next thing you will feel will be that first sentient memory you have now from being a child.

I never knew till I was older there were already theories about this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_return

Just like a video game. We have extra lives, once this one is over the game starts again. I like it.

I think when you die if you were good you get snus for free, no restrictions, for eternity, if you were not good you get PACT restrictions and have to live in WA.

[AtreyuKun]

I have a strong suspicion that after we all die it will feel very similar to how it felt before we were born.

I also have a feeling that this will all occur again. I personally believe that time is infinite and matter is finite and whatever is going on out there (big bangs, collapses, whatever the timeline as hard as that is to comprehend) We will all exist again in this same way again.

After you close your eyes when you die I have a feeling the next thing you will feel will be that first sentient memory you have now from being a child.

I never knew till I was older there were already theories about this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_return

I like that. I can see a bit of logic in there as well.
Everything is just a theory I suppose. We may never know.

[simplesmoke]

I like that. I can see a bit of logic in there as well.
Everything is just a theory I suppose. We may never know.

Yeah that is the part that is either good or bad depending on how you look at it. I mean if this is your 1,506,235,506 time doing this all again and you knew it, that would feel kind of crazy and maybe old.

And if things were recurring, it would kind of suck for the less fortunate or those that have terrible things that happen to them.

But if one were to consider infinite time with finite matter, you could also argue everything will happen again with slightly/majorly different configurations. Kind of like a multiverse but happening in succession never simultaneously.

I don't find much solace in a proposed god though, too much evidence to indicate we evolved from monkeys and if it were not for the dinosaurs getting killed off we would not be here in this form (this time around I guess also)

It's cool to talk about all the possibilities we all think of!

[Snusdog]

If this

Originally Posted by CoderGuy
I don't believe any of this is actually here at all, that everything we (individually) see or perceive is just our own interpretation.

Then how this

Science has already studied and proven in detail exactly your theory .

If all reality is merely a inner interpretation

Then all science has studied is a figment of its own imagination.

Science can never reach beyond the individual scientist's own internal wall.

As such, science can validate nothing about reality..........it can't even say that reality actually is


In fact........... ColderGuy has cheated even by describing reality as energy...............that too would be a figment of the imagination and no more immune from skepticism than any other claim about objective reality (simply making the "out there" energy.........rather than rocks and trees and Aunt Betty does not some how make it less problematic.................it just makes it sound more sophisticated to the unreflective ear)

So all reality is a dream

You do realize that this does NOT even begin to help explain things or provide a solution to the dilemmas that more traditional approaches to Epistemology have encountered..............in fact it retains all the problems of the traditional approaches while compounding them with others.

In short you have simply moved all the problems of reality inside the head

You still have to answer the problem of one and many. You must explain the origins of things (even if it is just the dreamer's mind). You must account for the concepts of space-time even if they are merely internal ideas/pictures/dreams.............. verses external realities). You must provide the grounds of the concept of otherness (If your mind is all there is how is otherness, the dream of something else distinct from you, intelligble.............Think about it............. there are five primary colors.....a six primary color is unintelligable.............)

Finally you must account for the preconditions necessary for such a mind as yours to exist. First, there must be particularity - the "I" of self. Likewise there must be continuity (me as me over time). These conditions then require conditions beyond you (a system may not be its own verity..............a system always requires a meta-system as its basis)..........and so we are back to where we started..............the necessity of a specific kind of objective reality.

The problem is that most people begin by talking of god in terms of the possibility of god. In turn they understand such a god in a purely generic sense (such a god is merely an ambiguous impersonal and unknowable factor (what we put under the last elephant holding up all the other elephant that are holding up the world)

The less than satisfactory results of all such inquiries are not surprising.

However, if god created the Universe that god would not be generic but a specific God. And if He created it he would not be a negotiable possibility that can be left off at will. Rather, that God would be the necessary condition for all life and for the understanding of all life.

In short, it may just be that while asking these big questions, we seldom get anywhere because we start off by insisting that the answer be the wrong sort of thing from the start. A generic concept of god cannot create or redeem. Thus, looking for what is not..........we constantly find nothing.

But if we were to be serious for a moment...............and be willing to entertain whatever the answer might be.....................then I would say that the Christian God is the precondition necessary for all predication which in turn may be demonstrated by the impossibility of the contrary (or in calculi- G is the q of p).

The validation of all time and space from within time and space.

[AtreyuKun]

Jesus died to save men -- a small thing for an immortal to do, & didn't save many, anyway; but if he had been damned for the race that would have been act of a size proper to a god, & would have saved the whole race. However, why should anybody want to save the human race, or damn it either? Does God want its society? Does Satan?

~Mark Twain

That's the last I plan to say on theology.

[sgreger1]

If this



Then how this



If all reality is merely a inner interpretation

Then all science has studied is a figment of its own imagination.

Science can never reach beyond the individual scientist's own internal wall.

As such, science can validate nothing about reality..........it can't even say that reality actually is


In fact........... ColderGuy has cheated even by describing reality as energy...............that too would be a figment of the imagination and no more immune from skepticism than any other claim about objective reality (simply making the "out there" energy.........rather than rocks and trees and Aunt Betty does not some how make it less problematic.................it just makes it sound more sophisticated to the unreflective ear)

So all reality is a dream

You do realize that this does NOT even begin to help explain things or provide a solution to the dilemmas that more traditional approaches to Epistemology have encountered..............in fact it retains all the problems of the traditional approaches while compounding them with others.

In short you have simply moved all the problems of reality inside the head

You still have to answer the problem of one and many. You must explain the origins of things (even if it is just the dreamer's mind). You must account for the concepts of space-time even if they are merely internal ideas/pictures/dreams.............. verses external realities). You must provide the grounds of the concept of otherness (If your mind is all there is how is otherness, the dream of something else distinct from you, intelligble.............Think about it............. there are five primary colors.....a six primary color is unintelligable.............)

Finally you must account for the preconditions necessary for such a mind as yours to exist. First, there must be particularity - the "I" of self. Likewise there must be continuity (me as me over time). These conditions then require conditions beyond you (a system may not be its own verity..............a system always requires a meta-system as its basis)..........and so we are back to where we started..............the necessity of a specific kind of objective reality.

The problem is that most people begin by talking of god in terms of the possibility of god. In turn they understand such a god in a purely generic sense (such a god is merely an ambiguous impersonal and unknowable factor (what we put under the last elephant holding up all the other elephant that are holding up the world)

The less than satisfactory results of all such inquiries are not surprising.

However, if god created the Universe that god would not be generic but a specific God. And if He created it he would not be a negotiable possibility that can be left off at will. Rather, that God would be the necessary condition for all life and for the understanding of all life.

In short, it may just be that while asking these big questions, we seldom get anywhere because we start off by insisting that the answer be the wrong sort of thing from the start. A generic concept of god cannot create or redeem. Thus, looking for what is not..........we constantly find nothing.

But if we were to be serious for a moment...............and be willing to entertain whatever the answer might be.....................then I would say that the Christian God is the precondition necessary for all predication which in turn may be demonstrated by the impossibility of the contrary (or in calculi- G is the q of p).

The validation of all time and space from within time and space.

I'm sorry, I kinda gave the short version because I don't have time to write out the whole back-story, but I am not saying that nothing exists at all, or that it is a figment of our imagination. I am saying that what you perceive as reality is part of an elaborate virtual reality program your brain is running for you. The outside world exists, but in a different way than we experience it.


I am not sure how to put it, but there is nothing new age or unusual about it, i'm just saying that what exists all around us is much more than what we are able to percieve because of the inherent hardware limitations of the body (in the same way that I can't see radiation or ULF waves even though they exist, my body just can't detect them so they are rendered invisible to my "reality"). I am saying that the mind gathers info from the "real world", then splices it all together into one coherent image for your viewing pleasure. The brain creates this image to look solid and consistent, when in fact there is very little about the universe on a core level that is solid or consistent. I don't really have time to explain that in a way that makes me sound not crazy, but I assure you it is not nonsense and is fully backed by peer reviewed literature of all sorts.


But your right dog, we can only think so far out because naturally we have inherent limitations. Just like the ants will never be able to figure out how to make nuclear bombs.

/Or will they???

[CoderGuy]

And to clarify there is a difference between "none of this really being here" and "nothing exists".