Higher dimensions a spiritual concept?

[sgreger1]

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.

Everyone has that feeling that something larger exists, THAT is what causes people to search for answers in things like christianity or "dimensions" etc. You have chosen one way of interpreting this feeling of "something beyond" that we all have, others have chosen different paths.

[AtreyuKun]

See I have no problem whatsoever with Jesus or any god. Just understand that I've chosen my path or at least I've chosen a direction. Let me make that decision without trying to convert me.

[Snusdog]

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???

sgreger, A little history

The idea that you are getting at is the entire premise behind Kant's famous book: A Critique of Pure Reason

It lead to the dilemma know as the Kantian wall..............

Kant never said there was nothing out there.............in fact he said there had to be

Rather, he said that neither science or experience could ever tell us anything about that reality.............it could only tells us about our internal/mental reconfiguration of that reality.

It is this single notion which killed modernity (i.e. the Enlightenment and it's faith in reason and science) and gave rise to post modernity (and its relativism)

The irony is that Kant was trying to save science from the ravages of David Hume....................what He did was to place the nail in the coffin.

The result is that there are three general schools regarding the nature of science
1) the realist school- science actually observes and helps us understand what really is
2) the fictive view of science- science is a modern myth (no more grounded in reality than the myths about Greek god)
3) the pragmatic view of science- who cares about the what or how of science. It is only important that it helps us do things like build bridges and fly plains

[sgreger1]

sgreger, A little history

The idea that you are getting at is the entire premise behind Kant's famous book: A Critique of Pure Reason

It lead to the dilemma know as the Kantian wall..............

Kant never said there was nothing out there.............in fact he said there had to be

Rather, he said that neither science or experience could ever tell us anything about that reality.............it could only tells us about our internal/mental reconfiguration of that reality.

It is this single notion which killed modernity (i.e. the Enlightenment and it's faith in reason and science) and gave rise to post modernity (and its relativism)

The irony is that Kant was trying to save science from the ravages of David Hume....................what He did was to place the nail in the coffin.

The result is that there are three general schools regarding the nature of science
1) the realist school- science actually observes and helps us understand what really is
2) the fictive view of science- science is a modern myth (no more grounded in reality than the myths about Greek god)
3) the pragmatic view of science- who cares about the what or how of science. It is only important that it helps us do things like build bridges and fly plains

That's the whole problem, we can only discuss things in human terms, it is our limitation, this is why we assume god is like a person who thinks and does things and has emotions like wrath etc, when by default a god could have no such things if he were a god.

As for the 3 views on science, I think it is slightly truthful to state that #2 is correct in a way. Science is correct in it's observations, but the assumptions it makes based on the observations may not be any more correct that ancient myths. Ancients observed lightning and thought it was the gods, scientists observe lightning and think it's naturally occurring electricity. We assume the scientists are right because they have a BETTER explanation of what lightning is, in that it was arrived at by the same method to conduct all other areas of science (the scientific method), but again we are just observing something and assuming that it is what it appears to be on the surface.


I can use math to prove the big bang, so we assume it must be true. I could probably make the math work to prove an alternate scenario too, does that mean that scenario is correct as well, even if it contradicts the earlier scenario of the big bang model? No, I have observed something, given an explanation, and called it good enough for today. This is similar to how myths were formed, when people saw lightning and assumed it was the gods based on their observations. Our theories are "more" right than myths, but may be equally incorrect in the grand scheme of things.

[LincolnSnuff]

The "Big Bang." Well I know what PP would say about that...

More seriously though, even subscribers of the Big Bang theory cannot explain how the initial conditions for the big bang were created. How would a mass of matter consisting of the entirety of the universe have come about in the first place? I don't see this theory as debunking Creationism as much as it supports it.

I don't think anybody is trying to convert anybody else here. The issue that arises is that there will always be things in this universe that we cannot and will not be able to explain based upon our human experience. This is where faith comes into play. Just like we place faith in our government to do what is best for society because we have the "best system" ever created (according to US citizens), it is necessary to have faith in certain things that humans cannot possibly comprehend. Interestingly, it takes an intelligent person to reject religion outright. You must be able to assess facts/laws of nature as being contrary to the faiths of others. Those who are less intelligent are more likely to blindly subscribe to religious ideals. In reality, it takes strength of intellect to realize that what and who we are cannot simply be the result of the interaction of atoms. If it was this simple, there would be an abundance of life in space clearly detectable even to us on Earth.

If there is a purpose to life, I would agree that it is simply to help each other realize the full glory of God through apostolic faith, i.e. lead others in doing what is right. Why has the human race felt the need to impose laws on itself throughout history? It's John Locke's social contract theory: we give up certain freedoms for the greater good of maintaining social order. This begs the question, "Why do we crave social order?" Who cares, really? Well, we all do. But only because we have an innate sense of right and wrong, which is necessarily based in religion/faith. If this did not exist, why would we care at all if someone else was murdered, their property was stolen, or their daughter was raped? Why do these events move us in the way they do? It is because they are contrary to our nature; contrary to our higher purpose of leading others along the right path.

Christianity/religion will never fully make sense when compared to human experience, but that is because of the nature of the beast. YOU HAVE TO HAVE FAITH in unexplainable things to follow something that no human is enlightened to comprehend.

[Premium Parrots]

in other words.........who really cares. Not much we can do about it right?


you are born, spend some time on earth then die and end up in a blue barrel at the bottom of Gods freezer with a smile on your face and a hard on.

simple as that

works for me

[sgreger1]

The "Big Bang." Well I know what PP would say about that...

More seriously though, even subscribers of the Big Bang theory cannot explain how the initial conditions for the big bang were created. How would a mass of matter consisting of the entirety of the universe have come about in the first place? I don't see this theory as debunking Creationism as much as it supports it.

I don't think anybody is trying to convert anybody else here. The issue that arises is that there will always be things in this universe that we cannot and will not be able to explain based upon our human experience. This is where faith comes into play. Just like we place faith in our government to do what is best for society because we have the "best system" ever created (according to US citizens), it is necessary to have faith in certain things that humans cannot possibly comprehend. Interestingly, it takes an intelligent person to reject religion outright. You must be able to assess facts/laws of nature as being contrary to the faiths of others. Those who are less intelligent are more likely to blindly subscribe to religious ideals. In reality, it takes strength of intellect to realize that what and who we are cannot simply be the result of the interaction of atoms. If it was this simple, there would be an abundance of life in space clearly detectable even to us on Earth.

If there is a purpose to life, I would agree that it is simply to help each other realize the full glory of God through apostolic faith, i.e. lead others in doing what is right. Why has the human race felt the need to impose laws on itself throughout history? It's John Locke's social contract theory: we give up certain freedoms for the greater good of maintaining social order. This begs the question, "Why do we crave social order?" Who cares, really? Well, we all do. But only because we have an innate sense of right and wrong, which is necessarily based in religion/faith. If this did not exist, why would we care at all if someone else was murdered, their property was stolen, or their daughter was raped? Why do these events move us in the way they do? It is because they are contrary to our nature; contrary to our higher purpose of leading others along the right path.

Christianity/religion will never fully make sense when compared to human experience, but that is because of the nature of the beast. YOU HAVE TO HAVE FAITH in unexplainable things to follow something that no human is enlightened to comprehend.

There is answers to all of those questions and they could all be adequately explained without a God. I agree with you about the big bang, I think the universe in general seems predisposed to creating the human subjective experience, it seems like it exists for a purpose. My main thing is that the big bang would have been nothing had there been no laws of physics and thermodynamics to govern how energy re-distributed itself post-big bang and into the world we see today. Where do these laws of physics come from? In what medium are they carved in that allows them to be absolute universal constants?

Life depends on so many conditions being exactly perfect. Either it was created in a way that was predisposed to lead to human life, or M-Theory is correct and the true universe is so vast (dimension-wise) that every single reality/possibility has it's own place in existence, or, to put it simpler, if given enough universes/time to play out, every scenario will play out, which is why we find ourself in this scenario: because it was one of the possibilities and it's just what we ended up with. It just seems built for us, but that' because it could have taken a trillion failed universes before meeting all the requirements for life. When you add endless time and infinite universes into the equation, almost every possibility should in theory play itself out in one of the many universes. And I bet they are all asking the same question too: Why does this seem uniquely built for us?




But the reality is that our body/brain hardware has evolved to suit only our needs on this planet. Even our perception of time is made especially for our little spot here on the 3rd rock from the sun. It may be hard for us to understand other places if we actually traveled here, because again the way our brains work involves a mechanism that grabs up sensory data from the environment around you and then splices all the channels together into one solid stream of data which you watch as the picture in front of you. We have no idea how this system would choose to pain something we run across on another planet or system where the rules may be different.

[WickedKitchen]

Why can't life be the product of an interaction of atoms? If we could prove that then so many other things would make sense. All of the life on earth didn't just appear. We see species come and go even in our observable life. We are confident that the world looked different before and will look different again in the future. I subscribe more to the fact that we evolved to fit this planet perfectly rather than this planet was made for us...perfectly. Because there is no life as we know it observable from earth doesn't mean that there is magic involved. It's much more likely that there simply aren't the necessary conditions and ingredients nearby. There certainly isn't the needed conditions for mammals anywhere near us.

I also think we care that others are harmed because we can imagine how it would be if we were the one harmed, or if one of our family/friends were harmed. It's as simple as treat others the way that you want to be treated. I don't think anything needs religion for that. It's common sense. We crave social order because we have the cognitive ability to look ahead and see that with order things are predictable...even human behavior. Without order then security and predictability go out the window. I don't think it has anything at all to do with religion. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that those assisting in creating and maintaining order may have created or embellished religious beliefs to serve their own end.

Why would a wolf not wander into another pack and take another wolf for a mate? Perhaps eat another pup, or claim the location of the pack as his own? Because he knows that if he attempted this he would likely be overrun and killed himself. Therefore there is a semblance of order here. I grew up in a Roman Catholic family and we were taught that animals don't have souls, don't go to heaven, and don't believe in God...yet I can remember hundreds of us bringing our pets to the church parking lot every year so the men in the robes could spill water on them and we could all feel better about things...but I digress. I don't think God or religion has much to do with social order.

What piques my interest is that humans are similar throughout the globe. Our DNA is similar. Our bodies are arranged almost identically (although my brain is reportedly located in my arse from time to time) and we react to stimulus similarly. It is also said that we are products of our environment. True is this for cognitive thought and social behavior, but chemically we are nearly identical. I think that explains the God concept. We all have that in our brains. Some people get more electrical impulses over that part of their brains than others just as some people are synesthesic and others are baffled by this. It would also explain why drugs cause similar or identical trips in two people at opposite ends of the globe. This has probably been going on for as long as we have been here.

Drugs might very well be a short cut. I don't think that it's necessary to reach these mental plains, but I don't know how to access that part of my brain readily. With practice I think we all could have that ability. Oddly many drug induced trips are similar to things people experience through meditation, dreams, etc. I think they facilitate access to those certain locations in the brain where these thoughts and feelings come from. I think I've had similar experiences without drugs, but I do know for certain that I have had them with drugs. I couldn't accurately explain them but I know they happened. Without a doubt I can recount two of those experiences. One of which could easily be interpreted as religious.

Ok, I've got to get breakfast for the kids and get school lunches ready. I'll pass the proverbial pipe...