---- Original Message ----
From: "J Dunlop" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, July 26, 2002 10:09 AM
Subject: Re: [HP3000-L] OT: Darwin, Satan & Macintoshes

> Yes. I, personally, can see no link between technology and religion
> (or superstition). I also have a problem with "Science" which professes to
> broaden our knowledge of the life and the universe (and indeed does in some
> directions) but ignores any phenomena that cannot be measured by physical
means
> therefore eliminating huge areas of the living experience.

You should not be having such a problem. Science is not, and does not claim to
be, the answer to everything.

There are massive spheres - mathematics, ethics, religion, philosophy to name
but four - that cover 'huge areas of the living experience', and on which
science would not presume to trespass. Indeed, the fears that many religious
fundamentalists have are either because they believe - wrongly - that science
would presume to trespass there, or because they themselves are trespassing on
science from a misplaced view of what the sphere of religion encompasses and
demands.

As you say, there is no necessary link between technology and religion; they
are orthogonal to one another, to use the jargon.

> Indeed, some of these
> "unmeasurable features" are closer to everyone's daily experiences
> than most people realise. For example, all living beings use energy. I
> would like to know how that energy is stored and how it is used.

Well, that *is* science, and can be related in explicable biochemical and
biomechanical processes. There is a device called a calorimeter, in which a
human can be placed and in which his/her energy intake and output can be
measured, and which will demonstrate that the principle of Conservation of
Energy, from the branch of science called physics, holds for living creatures
as well as for inert matter.

> How do the Buddhist monks use this energy to perform incredible feats? We
all use this energy
> unconsciously and effortlessly when we are children and our "channels" are
not
> blocked. It is only as we get older and block these channels that we
"forget" how to
> use the energy in such a way.

> Having practised Tai Chi Chuan and Aikido for a
> number of years and "felt" and directed this energy, I feel that I have
> recaptured, in some part and for short periods of time, the effortless
movements of my
> youth. This is just one example, in my personal experience, but I'm sure
that
> it wouldn't be hard to find many cases of confirmed intuition etc without
> delving too deeply into the shadowy realms of psychic phenomena.

Science does teach us to deeply distrust intuition as an objective measure;
and you are moving into the realms of metaphysics here.

But equally, it also teaches us how to measure such things. I'm not sure what
incredible feats the Buddhist monks perform, exactly - but let's assume
psychokinesis. Calorimeter experiments could rapidly determine whether the
energy involved in moving something outside the calorimeter, by psychokinesis,
was being burned up within the calorimeter - i.e the monk was using his own
energy but exerting it at a distance - or not - which would imply channelling
of outside energy. But I really wouldn't expect any such phenomena - no matter
that we couldn't explain the exact mechanism - to lie outside the principle of
Conservation of Energy.

In the area of psychokinesis, you might notice that poltergeists are almost
always associated with the onset of puberty in girls. You will find, among
others, a reference to this at
http://ncnc.essortment.com/ghostpoltergeis_rmqn.htm, which I think manages to
get the whole thing exactly backwards.

I think that 'poltergeists' are the awakening in those persons of
psychokinetic powers, along with all the other awakenings that are going on.
But for those other awakenings, we can offer guidance; for the psychokinesis,
none. So it is uncontrolled, unfocussed, unchannelled and unpredictable, and
things go 'bump' in the night....

As with your channelling above, the powers fail to develop due to lack of
guidance, and atrophy within a year or so :-(

But if such powers exist, I am sure that they will be amenable to the
disciplines of scientific measurement, and eventually of explanation too. They
might be mysterious, but they won't be mystical....

--
Roy Brown

Posting with the OEnemy, tamed by OE-QuoteFix
http://jump.to/oe-quotefix

* To join/leave the list, search archives, change list settings, *
* etc., please visit http://raven.utc.edu/archives/hp3000-l.html *