im not callin it god

[funk63]

but theres something out there. something that binds us together, fate, something. i feel it now.

[icy manipulator]

string theory bro, string theory

[hitmonlee]

i think its something to do with the fact we are all from the same species

[camo]

string theory bro, string theory

that we're all puppets...

[mikizee]

All matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration, we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, there is no such thing as death, life is only a dream and we are the imagination of ourselves.

[na§tee]

string theory bro, string theory
chaos theory muthafuckah.

[roosta]

Gmile (http://www.newscientist.com/channel/opinion/mg19826556.000-perspectives-why-humanity-needs-a-god-of-creativity.html?DCMP=ILC-hmts&nsref=specrt10_head_Inventive%20God)

[na§tee]

Gmile (http://www.newscientist.com/channel/opinion/mg19826556.000-perspectives-why-humanity-needs-a-god-of-creativity.html?DCMP=ILC-hmts&nsref=specrt10_head_Inventive%20God)
=
He envisioned a "demon" - an intelligence which, if supplied with all the current positions and velocities of all the particles in the universe, could, using Newton's laws, compute the entire future and past of the universe.
!

[camo]

I hope there is somewhere after death.

[Planetary]

i hope it's just like a long sleep. i could do with one...

[camo]

...but with the waking up part please.

[funk63]

were all connected like a Lego set, one equaling one together like a croquette
so whether we have or have not yet met well it aint no thing and it aint no sweat

[mate_spawn_die]

humans are like one huge shit smear on the dinner table...

[paul jones]

we're all devo

[sercomdj01]

but theres something out there. something that binds us together, fate, something. i feel it now.

Stoooooooooooooneeeeeeeeedddd!

[cookiepuss]

All matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration, we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, there is no such thing as death, life is only a dream and we are the imagination of ourselves.

I like this explanation/idea.

the vibration part is what gets me on board...but to explain why...i might sound a little nuts.

I had an experience after my father died. yes, a ghost experience. one feature of that experience was a low vibration that shook the bed I was lying in. it's like there is some sort of frequency associated with the paranormal. the vibration was followed by an overwhelming emotion that was not my own. I was experiencing sadness and despair and then slowly this emotion of pure love took over, but it wasn't coming FROM me. there's more I'll stop there.

as beautiful as the experience was it frightened me a little...because if it was real then there's no doubt that some part of us still exists after death, and if it's not real then I'm just plain crazy.

[mikizee]

I have experienced/seen/felt/heard MORE than enough weird and paranormal shit to know without a doubt FOR A FACT - that life exists after death.

[hitmonlee]

hi mikizee

were you fully awake at the time of these happenings?
did they happen at night?

[Dorothy Wood]

I hope there isn't life after death unless it rules or something.

[mikizee]

hi mikizee

were you fully awake at the time of these happenings?
did they happen at night?

There have too many to mention. Some have been at night, some during the day, some when I was by myself and other time I have been with friends etc and they saw/heard the same things too.

OK so I'll detail one such example.

I was at my friend's townhouse in Semaphore. I had always suspected it was haunted, it just gave off that 'vibe'. Anyway, one day I was over there one afternoon after class, and we were having a coffee.

I was standing in front of his mini hifi, (which wasn't turned on). I can't remember why I was standing there, maybe looking thru CDs on his rack.

So on top of one of the speakers there were a few papers and some stacked cassette cases. All of a sudden one of those cassette covers flew off at great speed, as if it had been struck, and smacked me square in the chest. None of the cases underneath the top one were disturbed in any way.

I said 'Whoooaaa!!! Did you see that man??? Fuck!!!' My friend had seen the whole thing. It spun me out a bit but because I have experienced a fair bit of strange things I just sorta shrugged it off.

Anyway so about 10 mins later my friend was upstairs in the shitter or something and I was just sitting in the downstairs lounge zoning out. I was staring at this metal ashtray, shaped like a globe of the world on top of his shelf. Suddenly the ashtray flew off the shelf and hit the ground with a massive clang, a good 6 or 7 feet from where it was sitting on the shelf. Cigarette ash and butts went everywhere!!

I was like "FUUUUUUCCKKK!!!! JESUS!!' My friend came running down the stairs saying 'What?? what??????!!' I told him what happened.. then we sat there in silence for a good half hour, kinda freaked out.


Anyway later that evening, around dusk, we were jammin on acoustic guitars in the loungeroom. Because we were both playing, neither of us had gotten up to turn on any lights, and it was starting to get dark inside. then we both saw what looked like a reflection of a dot of light on the wall. My friend thought it was light reflecting off one of his tuning pegs on his guitar onto the wall, and he moved the guitar around to make it move... but it didn't.

So we started moving everything around trying to figure out what this dot of light was on the wall.. and all of a sudden it CAME OFF THE WALL. We were standing up at this stage and we both just looked at each other...then this ball of light passed between us, went to the foot of the stairs and we followed it as it went up the staircase and disappeared around a corner. We ran up there into the bedroom it went into and.... nothing.

I was pretty speechless.. and said to my friend that maybe its time I went home.


So there's just one of experiences.


In the last week though at my house, I have had the strongest feeling that a middle aged tall man has been hanging around in my house. I keep on seeing him in the corner of my eye, and in the last few days there have been footsteps, knocking on interior and exterior doors, and lightswitches being flicked on and off.

My housemate said he woke up the other day and felt like someone was pinning him down by his shoulders, which he thought was his girlfriend, and he forced her off and got up and opened his eyes, and no one was there.

[hitmonlee]

also (to the believers) have you heard of or are you familiar with lucid dreaming/sleep paralysis?

Definitely night terrors/sleep paralysis.

I used to get regular sleep paralysis as a kid and then when i first moved out of home. I was convinced I was being abducted by aliens. There was always someone holding me down on the bed and heaps of weird background noise with whispering and murmuring, i couldn't speak but tried to and just mumbled like a spaz. Turns out its a medical condition where the conscious part of your brain doesn't switch off properly when you start to go to sleep so you move around in your dreams and can look around the room while hearing the sounds in your dream. I could hear full conversations and people walking around my bedroom but the room was empty. Used to scare the shit out of me, but after a while I looked forward to it cos its a bit of a rush.

[mikizee]

Yes I have heard of that. I'm thinking what my housemate experienced was possibly this.

Oh yeah, I'm not a believer, I'm a knower. I know. One day you will too.

[Dorothy Wood]

this isn't helping me fall asleep :(

[hitmonlee]

mikizee: prove it.

list some experiences.

[hitmonlee]

"the mind tends to perceive what it wants to, if you go into a place like freo prison believing in hauntings, supernatural experiences and ghosts, you'll interpret that dark shadow as a moving figure, you'll pay more attention to the fact that it is cold, or that there is wind

there have been a number of tests around this phenomenon, one recently involving wine, people's brain activity changes when they're told the wine they are drinking is more expensive, even when it is the same wine - people perceive it to taste better. this is because the brain makes it taste better

the same goes for ghosts, ESP, tarot cards, astrology: all one big delusion"

[mikizee]

To be honest I have absolutely no interest in proving anything to you.

List some experiences? I just did!

Its like you asking me to prove to you that butter is yellow.

Its fucking yellow, what else do I need to say.

If you don't believe in those sorts of things I mentioned then thats your problem.

I'm not going to enter into a completely unnecessary debate on it.

[HAL 9000]

"the mind tends to perceive what it wants to, if you go into a place like freo prison believing in hauntings, supernatural experiences and ghosts, you'll interpret that dark shadow as a moving figure, you'll pay more attention to the fact that it is cold, or that there is wind

there have been a number of tests around this phenomenon, one recently involving wine, people's brain activity changes when they're told the wine they are drinking is more expensive, even when it is the same wine - people perceive it to taste better. this is because the brain makes it taste better

the same goes for ghosts, ESP, tarot cards, astrology: all one big delusion"

Have you heard of the experiments where people a shown photos of their childhood and asked to describe the scene in question? The experimenter puts in a manipulated photo of the person as a child taking part in an event that never happened for example going on a hot air balloon ride. Often, the person seeing the fake photo of themself will give at in depth account of the day they went on the balloon includiing details like who took the photo. They are later shocked to learn that the event in the picture never took place. Similar effect goes on with the false memories being planted under 'hypnosis'.

Anyway, definately agree it is all a big delusion. Particularly with ghosts, I mean anyonne who has had experiance with drugs or elderly people going through mental decline know that the brain is what we are - people 'die' before their bodies because of failure of the brain, so whatever part of me could exist after my brain, it is not conscious and has no other property that I think of as a meaningful part of 'me'.

string theory bro, string theory


String theory seems to be falling out of fashion very quickly these days. It has some major problems specifically that it offers no realistically testable predictions about the universe and it has no explanatory power anyway as it can be reformulated for the near infinite number of 6 dimensional Calibi-Yau spaces that back it up – as a result it’s a theory that can and is fit to observed fact rather than a theory that has facts fit to it. A good theory should make predictions that match the world not be able to mould itself to whatever facts happen to be observed. I suspect that unless we have another ‘string theory revolution’ (and the last one was about 13 years ago), then physicists are going to start quietly walking away from this)

[Schmeltz]

All delusion. The very idea that your life, or anything that you think or do matters at all, is a delusion. Your thoughts are an accident, your feelings are an illusion, your emotions are bullshit, your experience is immaterial, your dreams are exactly that. Why fight it? Take it for what it is.

[mate_spawn_die]

also (to the believers) have you heard of or are you familiar with lucid dreaming/sleep paralysis?

holy shit! i had 2 or 3 lucid dreams... they always seem to happen when i'm sick. i was sleeping in my bed in the basement when i lived with my parents and i woke up but i couldn't move and everything was in slow motion... i looked at the stairs and there was this little girl i've never seen before standing on one of the top steps just staring at me! so damn freaky...

[cookiepuss]

To be honest I have absolutely no interest in proving anything to you.

List some experiences? I just did!

Its like you asking me to prove to you that butter is yellow.

Its fucking yellow, what else do I need to say.

If you don't believe in those sorts of things I mentioned then thats your problem.

I'm not going to enter into a completely unnecessary debate on it.

I have to say the same. I've done plenty of research on both sides of the paranormal argument, and then I draw from my personal experiences.
the bottom line is my experience is MY reality. Doesn't matter if anyone beleives me. and quite frankly it doesn't matter if I'm wrong either.

[ericlee]

goddamn! Page 2.

[HAL 9000]

There have too many to mention.


I hope this does into cause offence but do you think the fact that you have ‘too many of these stories to mention’ whereas most people have none, could suggest that you are the cause of these events (either through exaggeration, inaccurate memory or delusion) or do you think that it is something about you that attracts these sorts of things (or maybe you are just lucky/unlucky to keep being in the right place at the right time)?

[cookiepuss]

I hope this does into cause offence but do you think the fact that you have ‘too many of these stories to mention’ whereas most people have none, could suggest that you are the cause of these events (either through exaggeration, inaccurate memory or delusion) or do you think that it is something about you that attracts these sorts of things (or maybe you are just lucky/unlucky to keep being in the right place at the right time)?

I know you aren't talking to me, but I do have a response to this...

while sure, it could be delusion, inaccurate memory or a barrage of other things you mentioned...why can it not also be that some people are more in-tune to these expereinces than others? Just as some people are good at working at numbers while others have difficulty grasping it? Some people can grasp abstract thought, others can not.


and now many of you will really think I sound like a loon here but:

to be honest, I don't think we are suppose to know what exactly happens in and after death. If everyone knew, it might change how we live and more importantly how we learn. Each individual discovers things exactly as they are suppose to, when the time is right. How does a Chick know it's ready to hatch out of the egg? it just does, not a momment too soon or a moment too late. it's simply the order of the universe. Somethings just aren't meant to be explained.

[hpdrifter]

I think heaven is a place where I can eat whatever I want and I never get full or fat or heart disease. And no animals suffer in the making of food.

:p

I definitely believe in existence after death. I'm not sure what form it takes but I agree with the comments about us being basically energy which we know (as much as we can), cannot be created or destroyed but merely changes form.

[HAL 9000]

I think heaven is a place where I can eat whatever I want and I never get full or fat or heart disease. And no animals suffer in the making of food.

:p

I definitely believe in existence after death. I'm not sure what form it takes but I agree with the comments about us being basically energy which we know (as much as we can), cannot be created or destroyed but merely changes form.


That is true insofar as matter and energy are conserved. You are right in that the atoms making up your body will continue to exist after you die but I think you are suggesting that something more than your atoms will survive such as a soul or consciousness and here I am afraid the laws of nature are not on your side – thought and personality come from complexity in the arrangement of matter and energy rather than the matter and energy itself and I am afraid that the second law of thermodynamics prohibits the conservation of complexity unless additional energy is added to maintain it.

Who knows what happens next – from what I recall the last time I was dead (ie the 13.5 billion years that passed prior to 1978) were fairly uneventful and more like a deep sleep. I expect it will be like that again – only forever this time.

[HAL 9000]

I know you aren't talking to me, but I do have a response to this...

while sure, it could be delusion, inaccurate memory or a barrage of other things you mentioned...why can it not also be that some people are more in-tune to these expereinces than others? Just as some people are good at working at numbers while others have difficulty grasping it? Some people can grasp abstract thought, others can not.


and now many of you will really think I sound like a loon here but:

to be honest, I don't think we are suppose to know what exactly happens in and after death. If everyone knew, it might change how we live and more importantly how we learn. Each individual discovers things exactly as they are suppose to, when the time is right. How does a Chick know it's ready to hatch out of the egg? it just does, not a momment too soon or a moment too late. it's simply the order of the universe. Somethings just aren't meant to be explained.

It could be that a particular person is ‘in tune’ with the paranormal – it is difficult to say because it is rarely clarified what in tune actually means (are we talking about vibration? If so what is the medium, what is the wavelength and frequency of these vibrations what is the mechanism that causes them to be different for different people etc)? – Rhetorical questions by the way!


I personally do not think the universe has any particular purpose and if it does, it has nothing to do with you or I. We can know whatever is within our intellectual and technical capacity to find out (which includes knowing why chicks hatch when they do btw:) ). The answer to whether or not there is life after death is probably unknowable but the simplest answer is that this is all there is (so make the most of it)

[cookiepuss]

You are right in that the atoms making up your body will continue to exist after you die but I think you are suggesting that something more than your atoms will survive such as a soul or consciousness and here I am afraid the laws of nature are not on your side – thought and personality come from complexity in the arrangement of matter and energy rather than the matter and energy itself and I am afraid that the second law of thermodynamics prohibits the conservation of complexity unless additional energy is added to maintain it.


well that is lovely and true for this universe...I think people who tend to beleive in an "after-life" tend to think that we're talking about another dimension (perhaps overlapping our own) where the laws of nature and thermodynamics which we hold to be truth are not necessarily law.

[cookiepuss]

(which includes knowing why chicks hatch when they do btw:) ).

where I'm coming from with the chick hatching thing is a bit more abstract. yes we know the chemical reasons and elements needed for the chick to hatch. but as for the exact moment...can that be explained? How about human birth? if it were so simple to define and predict we'd be able to give people more than just an estimated date of birth. we'd be able to tell and expectant mother that her child will be born at 8.55 pm on July 26th. there's and element to these events that we are unable to put our finger on. why that particular moment and not 30 seconds earlier?

of course you sound like someone working of a basis of chaos theory...so that probably does not matter to you. I'm guessing you would say the moment it happens is completely random and insignificant. might be true.

the beauty of it is that we just don't know.

[hpdrifter]

Well I'll defer since I am not intimately familiar with the second law of thermodynamics.

:rolleyes:

And as you said, it doesn't matter anyway.

[Waus]

I'd have to agree with the "random and insignificant" theory of 99% of human events.

Why do you scratch an itch when you do? It just occurs to you, and through whatever circumstance you acquired the itch you come to a point where you just reach for it. There's no destiny, no fate - nothing but an infinite number of factors that makeup the "present."

[cookiepuss]

^ that still leaves 1% for coincidence & synchronicity. and that's good enough for me.(y)

[Waus]

^ that still leaves 1% for coincidence & synchronicity. and that's good enough for me.(y)

I was thinking more divine intervention, since coincidence is just that; coincidence.

[cookiepuss]

does divine intervention mean I have to beleive in god? cause I don't beleive in "god" in the sense of an omnipresent spirit who occasionally play a direct role in our lives.

I have something more abstract in mind...

I tend to think of life as a learning process. the purpose of this learning is somewhat unknown. coincidence & synchronicity are tools of this learning...little clues pointing out things you need to learn about yourself or others.

whatever you learn is what you'll need when you join the Collective Consciousness. I don't really think theres a god but i do think there could be a Collective Consciousness. (do you get that I like abstract ideas? yes I really do)


you know...
the tibetan buddhists beleive that the soul stays in the vicinity of the body for approximately 30 days before moving on. this is why when someone dies they read to the body from the book of the dead for several weeks, which is meant to help them transition on. and they can do this since tibet is cold and obviously that slows the decay of the body, but that's not really the point. the point is they beleive that there is something between our world and the next and that the soul needs assitance to prepare for it.

[Yetra Flam]

I like this explanation/idea.

the vibration part is what gets me on board...but to explain why...i might sound a little nuts.

I had an experience after my father died. yes, a ghost experience. one feature of that experience was a low vibration that shook the bed I was lying in. it's like there is some sort of frequency associated with the paranormal. the vibration was followed by an overwhelming emotion that was not my own. I was experiencing sadness and despair and then slowly this emotion of pure love took over, but it wasn't coming FROM me. there's more I'll stop there.

as beautiful as the experience was it frightened me a little...because if it was real then there's no doubt that some part of us still exists after death, and if it's not real then I'm just plain crazy.

wow, i recently experienced something very similar to this a week after my mother died.
let me point out, i do not believe in this by any means. i don't believe in spirits or the existence of an afterlife at all.
i was in my bed and i experienced this similar kind of vibration. ordinarily, i would have made some kind of explanation as to why this was happening, and i wouldn't be freaked out at all. but with this, it was like i knew it was something paranormal. i just felt fear, nothing else but fear.
the people i've told have just said that i was tired and upset and my mind was playing tricks on me. but i was so so so lucid and aware of what was going on. and as i said, i'm not the kind of person who would automatically think "oooh it's a ghost"
i really want to doubt myself, but i truly believe there was something there.

however, i don't believe there is anything that ties us all together. we are just living organisms. when we die, we die.

[pshabi]

All matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration, we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, there is no such thing as death, life is only a dream and we are the imagination of ourselves.

see sig plz

[HAL 9000]

wow, i recently experienced something very similar to this a week after my mother died.
let me point out, i do not believe in this by any means. i don't believe in spirits or the existence of an afterlife at all.
i was in my bed and i experienced this similar kind of vibration. ordinarily, i would have made some kind of explanation as to why this was happening, and i wouldn't be freaked out at all. but with this, it was like i knew it was something paranormal. i just felt fear, nothing else but fear.
the people i've told have just said that i was tired and upset and my mind was playing tricks on me. but i was so so so lucid and aware of what was going on. and as i said, i'm not the kind of person who would automatically think "oooh it's a ghost"
i really want to doubt myself, but i truly believe there was something there.

however, i don't believe there is anything that ties us all together. we are just living organisms. when we die, we die.

I think Sleep Paralysis has been mentioned already but you might be interested in this article http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A6092471

The events you describe (vibratng bed, strange presence, lucidity, strong emotional response) are classic symptoms.

It is strongly associated with times of emotional stress (like when a close relative dies) - many people interpret it as being 'filled with the holy ghost' and then become born again christians.

Anyway, I hope this helps make sense of what must have been a traumatic experience

[cookiepuss]

again i have no interest in validating my expereince to anyone...but I do not beleive my expereinece to be a lucid dream or sleep paralysis and I'll tell you why... I was not even close to being asleep or falling asleep or anything like that. I was lying on my side, crying uncontrolably at the time. quite awake and cognizant.

you could argue that I was halucinating...because the part I didn't talk about was a visual confirmation. two of them. one was the bed sheets being pulled away from my face and the second was seeing my fathers face...

you don't have to beleive it's was my father. you can beleive it's brain chemistry all you want. but for me...it was him. it just was.
it's just not something anyone can take from me and I don't care how many logical and scientific reasons you give for my experience.

I'm quite alright with being delusional, thanks.

[funk63]

hey, i was fairly high when i made this thread, sooo you can stop contemplating the mysteries of the universe now.