Is consciousness produced by the brain?
- Thread starter Nightrain
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Jaimie
Senior Member
Thank you so very much Polaris for explaining. So it comes from within, somehow I did not get that and how you could make it come alive. I do remember voice, voices "calling out for me" but that I neither did not know how to respond or chose not to. I was afraid. I think it was most likely a combination of how I died (accidental drowning, not suicide, most likely because I was trying to save a little kid from drowning, not realizing this child had been killed before being thrown in, I could not sense the kid either where I was, perhaps I was still trying to reach it, I've always been soft in my heart when it comes to kids) in one past life and in the other being killed by the doctor aka "boyfriend" or rather ex-boyfriend, by my book (so not accidental, not suicide) mixed up with the depression and anxiety I think I suffered from time to time with in both these lives. In the drowning-life it was my man from that life that saw a medium that then came forward in my world through a mirror so I saw her gigantic head and eyes looking at me, and this was when I transformed somehow and got myself instantly dressed in a wedding dress and focused on the ring I wore on my left ring-finger. I was very much afraid. I think this was me trying to tell her by showing her image of my looks that I had once belonged to him, I had once been his wife. What I think was my wedding shoes, white with silk ribbons to tie has come up during several meditations by now. I think those shoes were real special to me. In one experience I remember looking down at them, having both a smile and feeling like crying (but emotional cry, happy cry), but trying to not make it show. I remember him carefully taking his finger underneath my chin to make me look up at him, I think he was use to me walking and looking down ( a habit I did in the other life that came after that one and even in this one ). What I experienced the most was that we came to some corner of a house, where I guess we thought we could have a private moment and we kinda got clutched into each others embrace, arms, this might have been after the wedding, and I could hardly breath, but I could too in a way, he held me so tight, his strong grip with his arms around my back felt like a rope that would never fall off, that he would always hold me and never let me go. No wonder I had trouble letting him go after I had died.
All the best
/Jaimie
David Wilson
Senior Member
You will appreciate my confusion and my being appalled at once again finding myself gagged and bound by people and places who forbid what they will in the name of science ( and or religion.) I gather no rationale why I can mention a very blessing and beneficial visit from Jesus but I am forbidden from drawing attention to a book this same person channeled. If he had come in the flesh, which he could do, and sat and wrote with his own hand, perhaps as a camera recorded the event, do you know what might well happen? The identity of his own self, there being digitally recorded, would be disavowed because " Jesus doesn't do that" . If, as many suppose, Jesus (Jeshua) doesn't engage in channeling, why would this be. What do people think are the reasons why Jesus would not do this? Is it because the Bible has said it all, so irrefutably and inarguably that channeling would be redundant. What does the Bible mean when it suggests that a reader " listen to the still be small voice of the Lord"? It is not supported by a warning to never confide with another what the Lord has said to you. It is hard to impossible for my mind to scan the range of possibilities in a discussion like this. You claim to be one who wants to know the truth, but you discount the biography of one of earth's most famous realizers of that Truth. And, so long as expressions of wisdom or love or anything are forbidden from " the other side" I wonder whose speculative wisdom you will accept on your journey homeward? In his book, channeled by a lady you could readily view and hear and sense on youtube, Jesus is not bound and determined to correct and amend the Bible. His life story is his goal, and it is easiest for him to just give that account as it is recalled by him. Can you even begin to think and feel how frustrating it is is for once such as I to be muted over and over again by some people who think they know better than I. If I did not sense the support of God, gently but effectively, I could not and would not pursue any more attempts at sharing with others such precious information as I do. I do not see myself remaining in this website much longer, at all, because while human memory of past lives is accredited, messages from the afterlife, upon which reincarnation depends, is verboten, forbidden!!! Senseless. Neither a memory or a spirit can be proven to the satisfaction of science. I wondered myself how Jeshua/Jesus could have allowed his true story to be obfuscated for all these centuries. He makes clear in his book that he has been teaching and healing here and there for the ensuing centuries after his "death". Now that the internet exists, his truths can be shared and those through whom they are shared are no longer called put in mental asylums or burned at a stake. The time was never right to safely bring in an autobiography of Jesus until just recently, and as you confirm, even now it is outright contested, prior to investigation. The Love of which he consistently speaks is not something that exists "but for a few". If I exclude those who disagree with me, The completeness of divine Love is being denied. I long for people to have a better chance at understanding. I am no wiseman, and I am benefitting from the teaching of others, others whose truths coalign and effectually support and affirm each other. Accordingly, I know others can benefit from Truth, and truths about eternity must come from those who Know It. As for my Toronto Jesus, he was just there, all of a sudden. He said nothing while I was seeing him. I was drug-addicted, in part due to the industry of diet pill makers and was destroying my mind and body. He appeared because I needed help, not because I magically hallucinated him "because that's what drug addicts due when they are really desperate". I cannot tell you what he said to me as I walked away ( he had disappeared) because that would be 'channeling of spirits', and whose voice I heard in my mind quite clearly afterward was not discernable to me. So I am hamstrung here and I have had no past life memories. I do hope that at some time you consider the possibility of Jesus's actively teaching in these times, because he is an Excellent teacher and is utterly supportive of who we (truly) are at all times. BTW- I don't 'get' the point of that parable!
I'm a bit confused as to the meaning here.
I see two things:
- 1. a visit from Jesus
- 2. a book channeled by Tina Spalding
In my view, the two are very distinct. The first is direct personal experience, the second is second-hand experience as related by an intermediary. Whatever it was that Tina Spalding experienced, only she is in a position to know.
I find the subject of channelling fascinating, but ultimately flawed. Over the past few years there have been a number of separate channelers that I have followed and drawn inspiration from. However, when their accounts are placed side-by-side, there are discrepancies.
In another area of life, that of gathering eye-witness accounts of say a newsworthy incident or perhaps some crime being committed, witness accounts often disagree. This doesn't necessarily imply any deliberate attempt to mislead, each person may be honestly describing things from their own perspective.
Nevertheless, I noted irreconcilable differences in the stories of the life of Jesus as recounted by various channelers over recent years. How do we we approach this problem? Well, we could pick one and place our trust in it as a definitive truth, and discard all the others as erroneous or false. Or we could try to identify the common ground between various accounts and ignore the discrepancies.
My own approach was to consider things only in terms of to what extent I found something positive, uplifting and inspirational. Ultimately that has meant a need for greater self-reliance, not in the sense of being totally alone in this world, but rather of reaching that same positive, uplifting and inspirational state by direct means, whether that be meditation, prayer, or through the actions and activities of daily life.
David Wilson
Senior Member
Hi Speedwell. Your points are well taken. I have encountered diverse and contradicting channelings online. I do not find discrepancies within Tina Spalding's work, though, whether her youtube channelings or written works. In A Course in Miracles, the author, Jesus, indicates that he chooses his channels wisely. So I stick with her and her Jesus and the works she presents because of their content. As you spoke of positivity, so will I, and I find no more positive messages than those by the author of ACIM and Jesus My Autobiography. She and I and many thousands of others have been been affected and benefited by the book A Course in Miracles. Jesus himself has referred to it as "my favourite book". It was a labour of love, to be sure and took about 7 years of the mutual enterprising of Helen Schucman and William Thetford and Jesus. Of course you may question the accuracy of Tina's channeling. I know she is nothing if not diligent. After all, she does come from England, though she lives in British Columbia now. Since you reserve the right to consider the source, I would hope that yo might do just that. Why? Because that Autobiography speaks so well for itself and I have no issues with it whatsoever. If you do, then it's just not for you, I guess.
Native Son
Senior Member
I think that you may be right on your thinking about the endings of stories, whether it's God's stories, or human stories. God's stories may not be written in stone, as an old saying goes, although some will argue that God's wishes and commandments were written on stone tablets. However, I do believe that God writes the stories on our souls. Therefore, the variations possible in God's own written script is perhaps tied to God allowing us what we believe to be free will. Again, using Hollywood or Broadway, we have situations where directors will allow the actors to vary from the script by allowing them to improvise and use their own ideas, as to how a scene may play out outside of the already written screenplay. The Directors themselves may actually be responsible for going off script. To be open here, I suspect that even events prophesied in the Bible, or other Holy texts, will unfold somewhat differently than what is written (script). And I'm saying this to those that believe in those Holy texts, of course. It's like a sort of warning, where a future event will be given in detail as to how it will occur, and yet, if certain steps are or not taken, as the case may be, it will be totally avoided, and follow a different course (ending).
SOCRATES: I cannot help feeling, Phaedrus, that writing is unfortunately
like painting; for the creations of the painter have the attitude of life, and yet
if you ask them a question they preserve a solemn silence. And the same may
be said of speeches. You would imagine that they had intelligence, but if you
want to know anything and put a question to one of them, the speaker always
gives one unvarying answer. And when they have been once written down they
are tumbled about anywhere among those who may or may not understand
them, and know not to whom they should reply, to whom not: and, if they are
maltreated or abused, they have no parent to protect them; and they cannot
protect or defend themselves.
PHAEDRUS: That again is most true.
SOCRATES: Is there not another kind of word or speech far better than this,
and having far greater power–a son of the same family, but lawfully begotten?
PHAEDRUS: Whom do you mean, and what is his origin?
SOCRATES: I mean an intelligent word graven in the soul of the learner,
which can defend itself, and knows when to speak and when to be silent.
PHAEDRUS: You mean the living word of knowledge which has a soul, and
of which the written word is properly no more than an image?
SOCRATES: Yes, of course that is what I mean..........
"The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.…"
https://www.lightsfilmschool.com/blog/creative-control-screenwriter-filmmaking-process-afs
Native Son
Senior Member
That is one of my many reasons for putting little faith in all these many psychics, past and present, claiming to be in direct communication with the spirit world. Take the differences given by one very well noted psychic of the past, Edgar Cayce, one who claimed to be "channeling" (access to ) an entire universal library in the "astral realm", the Akashic records. Personally, I was initially "mesmerized" with the accounts given by Cayce when he was in his state of self-induced hypnosis, where he would then have OBEs, so as to "travel" to the hall where the Akashic records were kept. And there he claimed that he could access all the information of the Universe. Reading much of the literature on Cayce and the readings he gave, I too, like a some here have stated, felt as if one or two of those readings given for others that I read were directed at me. But that is another story. I personally give Cayce a small chance that he may be genuine in some respects (personal bias), but mostly I do put any faith in much of what he said, and also on what he predicted. At least not in the way everyone takes Cayce, which is on the surface only, as he may have had some deep and hidden meaning in store for the right one to understand it. This is my own "conspiracy" theory, of course.
"Cayce made over 14,000 otherworldly journeys in his life and the information he gained from these journeys has astounded people all over the world. Part of Cayce's revelations deal with the many reincarnations of the Christ soul which is the subject of this article." https://www.near-death.com/reincarnation/jesus/edgar-cayce-on-the-past-lives-of-jesus.html
Native Son
Senior Member
David, You should follow your heart. If you feel the way you do on these matters, do not allow anyone, including me, to sway you from what you strongly believe, and from which you have garnered what you consider as being lots of Good things in your personal life. There will always be contradiction of opinions, as it is always our own personal experiences that lead us to contention. And if your Jesus is a proponent of the following, then we have nothing to quarrel about.
Matthew 22.
That same day the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to him with a question. 24“Teacher,” they said, “Moses told us that if a man dies without having children, his brother must marry the widow and raise up offspring for him. 25Now there were seven brothers among us. The first one married and died, and since he had no children, he left his wife to his brother. 26The same thing happened to the second and third brother, right on down to the seventh. 27Finally, the woman died. 28Now then, at the resurrection, whose wife will she be of the seven, since all of them were married to her?”
29Jesus replied, “You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God. 30At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven. 31But about the resurrection of the dead—have you not read what God said to you, 32‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’ b ? He is not the God of the dead but of the living.”
33When the crowds heard this, they were astonished at his teaching.
The Greatest Commandment
34Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. 35One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: 36“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
37Jesus replied: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ c 38This is the first and greatest commandment. 39And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ d 40All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
LOVE means never having to say you're sorry!
Is consciousness produced by the brain?
If I asked same question while dreaming, what would be my answer?
So, which brain? My dream-me's brain ...? My awake-me's brain ...? What is the role of my dream-me's brain? What is the role of my awake-me's brain?
I see consciousness as a dimension on which I focus my awareness, as a personality. Me in the dream is where my personality's awareness is focused when I dream. Me while awake is where my personality's awareness is focused when I'm awake. None of them are the Me. They're projections, each a focus of awareness, as is each "me" when I imagine myself in the past, in the future, in a daydream.
Baro-san, You have a interesting view point and have somewhat hit the nail on the head. There is a old saying So above so below. Basically what this means is everything here in our physical dimensions has it's astral counterpart in astral matter. Which is why at first the dead don't realize their dead right away.
So within the astral body we also have a copy of the physical brain composed of course of astral matter which is much finer than physical matter. When we sleep our consciousness shifts inward and centers itself within the astral body. As we fall asleep the etheric body expands and releases the magnetic hold on the astral body which this now allow it to float above the sleeping physical vehicle. Our consciousness is now focus in the astral body where we have some awareness of the astral world while sleeping.
I say some because the lower ego is still tied to the physical body which now must work thru the subconscious part of the mind. This tends to filter out what is truly going on while the soul its operating on the astral plane as the subconscious uses universal symbols to the mind and related the information back into the physical body. Which is why when the astral body returns and we awake from sleep we have little or no memory of the activates while out the body. This happens because we need to develop the etheric web link which links consciousness from the astral to the physicals brains and vs averse! Lucid dreaming is a part of this process and can lead to full conscious OBE. As this is my trigger to have full awareness while out of the body. However during all this time the real you (soul) is still there but is using these vehicles of expression to have experiences within the lower worlds of duality on theses various dimensions. This includes the physical, astral and mental dimensions of our universes. As man evolves over time we will have more conscious experiences within the higher dimensions of our universe. That is if we don't blow ourselves off the planet before then.
Thanks for being so observant as aware. This is why I love this site so much because for the most part there are a lot of enlighten soul here
discovering their own personal journey back home...
Love and peace. P.
Jaimie
Senior Member
this may have nothing to do with this but figure I take a chance and ask anyway... Recently when going to sleep or waking up or doing meditation I can feel a area be triggered. I think it is where some say a third eye is. One time it got stronger and stronger and I could not get pass it so I avoided doing more meditation.
Is it normal to feel this "burn", "concentration" ? It has not always been this way with me, only recently. How is it for your guys ?
/Jaimie
Is it normal to feel this "burn", "concentration" ? It has not always been this way with me, only recently. How is it for your guys ?
/Jaimie
Jaimie
Senior Member
Will do, Ken
ThanksNative Son
Senior Member
They must have brains, even if science does not recognize that they do. How else can one determine knowing where to go, when migrating? Besides, how can they use their eyes without knowing what they see? To know is to have brains, even if some have no eyes to see the logic of knowing. Obviously, it can be argued that the physical brain may be the very seat where the soul resides. However, some will argue that the heart is the seat of the soul. The truth is that unless we know how the body and soul are connected, and where, we are all left out in the cold, where there will be gnashing of teeth.
To return to the serious side of things, and also be frank, since I was trying to humor some here with the above paragraph. It's really knowing that somehow, the soul needs a body, and a body needs a soul in this physical world of senses in order to function, whether instinctively, as does jellyfish, or not instinctively, as man seems to do more than any other animal on our planet. We are told by many that the astral world is quite different from this one, primarily because there only soul is allowed to exist, as the physical body must remain here. It seems that the astral world is the real one, since there, there is no time for anything to change and is eternal. Whereas here, it's all in constant flux, alternating by coming and going, being born and dying, combining and separating of the basic particles, hot and cold, hard and soft, big and small, tall and short, positive and negative...in other words, our physical world is an ever changing one of contraries, and everything in between, which at some point in time, all come to a state of equilibrium. It's a Question of Balance of body and soul. The body is here just for the taking by the soul, where the immortal combines with the mortal. Soul comes first because soul is immortal (eternal) and has always existed, but the body has not, since it comes into being.
Physical Nature, along with its physical Laws, is not reality. This physical Nature is far from real truth, in reality. In the physical world magic is not real, but it is in the astral world, since it's the physical laws that are not real in the astral. In the Astral TIME does not exist for any of the physical laws to take place, for one. The Last shall be First, and The First shall be Last!
Plato's Laws.
CLEINIAS: You are right; but I should like to know how this happens.
ATHENIAN: I fear that the argument may seem singular.
CLEINIAS: Do not hesitate, Stranger; I see that you are afraid of such a
discussion carrying you beyond the limits of legislation. But if there be no other
way of showing our agreement in the belief that there are Gods, of whom the
law is said now to approve, let us take this way, my good sir.
ATHENIAN: Then I suppose that I must repeat the singular argument of
those who manufacture the soul according to their own impious notions; they
affirm that which is the first cause of the generation and destruction of all things,
to be not first, but last, and that which is last to be first, and hence they have
fallen into error about the true nature of the Gods.
CLEINIAS: Still I do not understand you.
ATHENIAN: Nearly all of them, my friends, seem to be ignorant of the
nature and power of the soul, especially in what relates to her origin: they do
not know that she is among the first of things, and before all bodies, and is the
chief author of their changes and transpositions. And if this is true, and if the
soul is older than the body, must not the things which are of the soul’s kindred
be of necessity prior to those which appertain to the body?
CLEINIAS: Certainly.
ATHENIAN: Then thought and attention and mind and art and law will
be prior to that which is hard and soft and heavy and light; and the great and
primitive works and actions will be works of art; they will be the first, and after
them will come nature and works of nature, which however is a wrong term for
men to apply to them; these will follow, and will be under the government of
art and mind.
CLEINIAS: But why is the word ’nature’ wrong?
ATHENIAN: Because those who use the term mean to say that nature is
the first creative power; but if the soul turn out to be the primeval element, and
not fire or air, then in the truest sense and beyond other things the soul may
be said to exist by nature; and this would be true if you proved that the soul is
older than the body, but not otherwise.
Native Son
Senior Member
Perhaps it's an excuse, but it's not Plato, it's the "music." And philosophy is the highest musical expression for the LOVE of truth.
I believe I'm posting to make a case for the soul as actually being the very "consciousness" of our more modern advocates of life after death. Deepak Chopra is one of these moderns, as an example. Again, using Plato, we can see that intelligence (mind/consciousness) is of the soul, and not of the body (brains). It's not a new argument, this matter of consciousness and the connection to the brain. It's the old question of which came first, the body (brain) or the soul (consciousness)? Plato/Socrates gave us the reason as to why consciousness is not generated by a body part, and it's a no-brainer, believe me.
Plato's Timaeus
Now the deeds of the best could never be or have been other than the fairest; and the creator, reflecting on the things which are by nature visible, found that no unintelligent creature taken as a whole was fairer than the intelligent taken as a whole; and that intelligence could not be present in anything which was devoid of soul. For which reason, when he was framing the universe, he put intelligence in soul, and soul in body, that he might be the creator of a work which was by nature fairest and best. Wherefore, using the language of probability, we may say that the world became a living creature truly endowed with soul and intelligence by the providence of God.
I wonder! Is there anyone here on this forum that may have reasons to believe to be the reincarnation of Plato, or possibly Socrates himself? Or is there anyone here who has heard of anyone making the claim elsewhere? I'm certain that it would be a very interesting case of discussion. Can one imagine the interest it would generate in the world of the skeptics, if the reincarnation case of Plato/Socrates could be proven to the point of no return for the skeptics? Why, they would, in the words of one of our posters, be shocked by a world-wide earth shattering earthquake.
What if our fellow reincarnation researcher, @ssake, has actually hit upon a grand idea? His idea that a believer/advocate of reincarnation left clues, HOPING that they would be found and understood by a future reincarnation of himself. Not only left clues, but specifically, clues which only his future self could decipher them correctly, since they were hard-coded, written clues. However, here, it's not just some insignificant and obscure literary figure of a mere 150 years ago, but rather someone from 2,500 years ago. Someone who we all know was the, undisputed, author of the material where the clues were embedded. Written material from the mind of a real literary genius, and the material so brilliant and interesting, to assure in being preserved to posterity, and to be still very much applicable today, as it was 2,500 years ago, so as to survive the test of time and obscurity. All of Plato's written work is extant today. If anyone was out to prove reincarnation of the SOUL, let us not look any further than our dynamic duo, Socrates and Plato, our true champions for the battle of "EVERMORE", as the Raven keeps repeating, proving reincarnation is the proof that life is eternal, and a question of how body and soul are connected. What we have in Plato/Socrates is really what we refer to as, THE Message in the Bottle. The bottle with the message within, containing the very proof of reincarnation, which was, 2,500 years ago, tossed into the sea of time, and which has now reached our shore. And the proof is not merely one of subjectivity, but one that is overwhelmingly OBJECTIVE, if logical reason prevails.
Again, Plato's Republic, with Socrates speaking to Glaucon.
Socrates: Why, I said, what was ever great in a short time? The whole period of threescore years and ten is surely but a little thing in comparison with eternity?
Glaucon: Say rather ‘nothing,’ he replied.
Socrates: And should an immortal being seriously think of this little space rather than of the whole?
Glaucon: Of the whole, certainly. But why do you ask?
Socrates: Are you not aware, I said, that the soul of man is immortal and imperishable? He looked at me in astonishment, and said:
Glaucon: No, by heaven: And are you really prepared to maintain this?
Socrates: Yes, I said, I ought to be, and you too–there is no difficulty in proving it.
Would not this very old question of, "where is the seat of consciousness, the brain or the soul", be settled to the satisfaction of the majority, if Socrates/Plato can come to prove that one of them is here with us now, on the shore of today? Should we not open the bottle and see what the message is? Especially when that message is an SOS to the whole world?
Native Son
Senior Member
Does your "You" refer to me? Or are you referring to a collective "you"? Are we to assume that you have had only 4 short and quick, subjective, glimpses into a past life self all these many years of this current life of yours? Therefore I must also assume that you have reinforced your belief in reincarnation from others' subjective and objective visions of past lives.
If you were directing the expectation at me, I would reply with this; darn right I expect more information from a recall, if one's recalled past life is meant to prove "that the soul of man is immortal and imperishable." What I have doubts about my "recall" is, just how to make the case so that "there is no difficulty in proving it." I believe a total recall would alleviate the difficulty. If I can recall enough to prove that we are in the night phase of a day in paradise, we can all wake up from the dream we are all having, collectively. Or perhaps it's like Meher Baba put it; God is having a dream, and we are all in his dream, dreaming ourselves to be physical bodies. And when God awakens, we too awaken to see reality. The reality that we are the gods, the immortals. I don't know about you, but ever since I began stirring from my deep slumber, and had a glimpse or two at reality, I realized that I was only dreaming, and know that I'm a soul man, an immortal god in mortal man's clothing, and so are you, collective you. And as Socrates stated to Glaucon: Are you not aware, I said, that the soul of man is immortal and imperishable? He looked at me in astonishment, and said:
Glaucon: No, by heaven: And are you really prepared to maintain this?
Socrates: Yes, I said, I ought to be, and you too–there is no difficulty in proving it.
It's clear, very clear, that none of us ever gets more than just a glimpse, or two, of our past lives. Although there are those that believe that regression/hypnosis allows then to see much more than just quick glimpses into their belief of recalling a past life. Be as it may, but proving reincarnation, objectively, and using the scientific methods, which the skeptics demand, requires a "Total Recall" and not mere glimpses, regression or no regression. But perhaps I'm being too harsh on regression. Regression may be of assistance to individuals, and the individual's need for pacification of whatever ails them, due to their belief of the ailment being rooted in an event of a perceived past life. That's fine!
But are you, collective you, those yous here putting forth recalling a past life, really prepared to maintain that the soul of man is immortal and imperishable? What preparation is needed on your part, so as to there being no difficulty in maintaining that you have lived before, and are likely to live again?
Just another day, and night, in paradise. My aunt, my special uncle's wife, always said that, one does not know what it has until it's lost. In the night we dream of what we had. At dawn we all awaken to what we never lost....everlasting life. We live to dream and to awaken, which is just another day in paradise! We are eternal spiritual beings having a dream of being physically mortal beings. Awaken to enlightenment, as the cock has began to crow a new day in paradise....Those who dream to have lost the most will be the ones to appreciate more what we have. The poor, the down trodden, and those most abused will be gladdest of all when we awaken to reality. However, not as glad as those poor souls 4who will dream of having gone to hell, as the final judgement and the sentence to be served is that period just before the morning breaks, and is called the Astronomical dawn, and is the time when the geometric center of the Sun is at 18 degrees below the horizon. Before this time, the sky is absolutely dark.
Plato's Phaedrus.
I will endeavour to explain to you in what way the mortal differs from the immortal creature. The soul in her totality has the care of inanimate being everywhere, and traverses the whole heaven in divers forms appearing–when perfect and fully winged she soars upward, and orders the whole world; whereas the imperfect soul, losing her wings and drooping in her flight at last settles on the solid ground–there, finding a home, she receives an earthly frame which appears to be self-moved, but is really moved by her power; and this composition of soul and body is called a living and mortal creature. For immortal no such union can be reasonably believed to be; although fancy, not having seen nor surely known the nature of God, may imagine an immortal creature having both a body and also a soul which are united throughout all time. Let that, however, be as God wills, and be spoken of acceptably to him.
And now let us ask the reason why the soul loses her wings! The wing is the corporeal element which is most akin to the divine, and which by nature tends to soar aloft and carry that which gravitates downwards into the upper region, which is the habitation of the gods. The divine is beauty, wisdom, goodness, and the like; and by these the wing of the soul is nourished, and grows apace; but when fed upon evil and foulness and the opposite of good, wastes and falls away. Zeus, the mighty lord, holding the reins of a winged chariot, leads the way in heaven, ordering all and taking care of all; and there follows him the array of gods and demi-gods, marshalled in eleven bands; Hestia alone abides at home in the house of heaven; of the rest they who are reckoned among the princely twelve march in their appointed order. They see many blessed sights in the inner heaven, and there are many ways to and fro, along which the blessed gods are passing, every one doing his own work; he may follow who will and can, for jealousy has no place in the celestial choir. But when they go to banquet and festival, then they move up the steep to the top of the vault of heaven. The chariots of the gods in even poise, obeying the rein, glide rapidly; but the others labour, for the vicious steed goes heavily, weighing down the charioteer to the earth when his steed has not been thoroughly trained:–and this is the hour of agony and extremest conflict for the soul. For the immortals, when they are at the end of their course, go forth and stand upon the outside of heaven, and the revolution of the spheres carries them round, and they behold the things beyond. But of the heaven which is above the heavens, what earthly poet ever did or ever will sing worthily? It is such as I will describe; for I must dare to speak the truth, when truth is my theme. There abides the very being with which true knowledge is concerned; the colourless, formless, intangible essence, visible only to mind, the pilot of the soul. The divine intelligence, being nurtured upon mind and pure knowledge, and the intelligence of every soul which is capable of receiving the food proper to it, rejoices at beholding reality, and once more gazing upon truth, is replenished and made glad, until the revolution of the worlds brings her round again to the same place. In the revolution she beholds justice, and temperance, and knowledge absolute, not in the form of generation or of relation, which men call existence, but knowledge absolute in existence absolute; and beholding the other true existences in like manner, and feasting upon them, she passes down into the interior of the heavens and returns home; and there the charioteer putting up his horses at the stall, gives them ambrosia to eat and nectar to drink. Such is the life of the gods; but of other souls, that which follows God best and is likest to him lifts the head of the charioteer into the outer world, and is carried round in the revolution, troubled indeed by the steeds, and with difficulty beholding true being; while another only rises and falls, and sees, and again fails to see by reason of the unruliness of the steeds.
KenJ
Moderator Emeritus
My old eyes are reluctant to wade through that ocean of text. I will address only what I read.
We both came here from different happenings - mine from the many parapsychological things that I experienced while you had an OBE and Plato to direct you here. It isn't a competition.
I will continue my thought in another thread that is more relevant to my last months of this current lifetime.
I'll play along with your musical addition thing by adding one that has been prevalent to several times of my life.
We both came here from different happenings - mine from the many parapsychological things that I experienced while you had an OBE and Plato to direct you here. It isn't a competition.
I will continue my thought in another thread that is more relevant to my last months of this current lifetime.
I'll play along with your musical addition thing by adding one that has been prevalent to several times of my life.
4d4m
Senior Member
I understand all that but, jelly fish have nerve bundles, not brains. Even a brain is nothing more than a collection of cells that transmit electrical impulses. Using chemically created electrical currents transferred to other cells that are all exactly alike. There is an experimental line of robots made by Mike Tilden. The "brain" is based on a neural network, there's no computer. They are solar powered and he claims they actually seek light to keep charged up. The idea is, if you created an artificial brain, attached cameras for eyes, microphones for ears and etc, could it learn? Could it walk, talk, think, respond, obey and all that?
Some of those questions depend very much on how we define terms such as "think", "learn" and so on. At one time it was considered that a computer capable of passing the rather antiquated 'Turing Test ' would be thinking. In fact some rather basic computer algorithm has already, in somewhat limited circumstances, successfully passed that Turing test. But no-one really believes the machine was thinking. It was simply an exercise in mimicry, in creating a surface appearance.
The nature of consciousness itself is harder to define. Perhaps it is related to the ideas of being aware of being aware, and of being able to experience. These things don't seem to be derivable from anything else, but could be considered fundamental in their own right.
Native Son
Senior Member
An ocean of text? It was just a very tiny wave. And most of it was merely quoting Plato, someone who should be waded through, whether it's through old or new eyes. But then, earlier, you had giving me the impression that you had waded through Plato's work with much younger eyes.
I agree that we both came from different locations, whether happening or not. And I have to also agree that we are both here, since we are. However, I believe you have gotten the wrong impression about a competition between us, I take it as a discussion. But to be fair, I have to say that I was competing for your attention.
I don't know if I can follow you there, as my own old eyes fail to see where you have been in those last months of yours. Besides, you will have to point out which thread your thoughts are heading to.
That's a great song from Jim Croce. Time in a bottle. However, since you believed there was some sort of competition between us, which there is not, would not the same artist have been used more to the point with this one? Life and Time is at the center of my ocean of text, as is also prevalent in your reply.
I'm enjoying whatever is going on between us, as it's always a joy for me to exchange/share matters of reincarnation, or musical perspectives. Truth does matter!
Native Son
Senior Member
Are we aware that this argument is a matter of argument for others as well? Would it not suit the thread better if anyone putting forth thoughts or questions on the argument get familiar with the more conscious minds in the field? It is also a question where subjectivity and objectivity comes into play. I don't take sides with either of these two in the discussion, and by posting the link I'm just pointing out that there are open discussions that either side fails to win over the other. And as I have tried to point out in my posts, I don't believe the matter will ever be settled, unless the skeptics like Sam Harris are shown overwhelming scientific evidence of reincarnation. Still, I suppose that we can still amuse ourselves here with our own opinions, should any of us put forth any novel argument. I'm assuming that many here are privy to much of the similar material available on the internet, as the link below is just one of many.
Native Son
Senior Member
Here is another link for a discussion on the nature of reality, and subjective and objective circumstances on Ultimate Reality.
Native Son
Senior Member
The following link is one where a compromise if sought by two who are of opinions which are in 180 degrees opposition, and are seeking further understanding of what consciousness is to each of them. Further, they are attempting to find just where consciousness is, or from whence it comes from, as it relates to what is consciousness? In the discussion, the two indicate just how many years they have been going at it, and both have failed to bring the other to their opinion. And it's apparent that there is not an agreed upon scale of truth that would be, without bias, used to measure their two opposing opinions, as to which of the two is "Closer To Truth."
https://www.closertotruth.com/topics/consciousness
https://www.closertotruth.com/topics/consciousness
KenJ
Moderator Emeritus
Polaris the competition I was talking about was the methods/experiences that brought ALL of us here to this forum.
About the difference between the ocean and a wave - "And have we not a right to say in his defense, that the true lover of knowledge is always striving after being--- that is his nature..." No need for the remaining 100 words that follow that in the same sentence!
About the difference between the ocean and a wave - "And have we not a right to say in his defense, that the true lover of knowledge is always striving after being--- that is his nature..." No need for the remaining 100 words that follow that in the same sentence!