Bah Humbug!

I am one who has never paid much attention to paranormal material (though I must say, John Travolta was great in Phenomenon and Michael...but hurray for Hollywood!!!) No, really, I am not a fan of paranormal, and I'll give you the reason.

This is the way I look at life when it comes to esp, intuition, whatever...

Life has two dynamics at work interchangably all the time, chances and choices - what may appear as paranormal is a chain of chances, and when the time is up in regards to the "chain of chances", the choice to act comes into play, and once again, the cycle repeats itself...we live our lives in a continuum, a chain of chances and choices, whether we are conscious of it/them or not.

Life, a bowl of almond joys!

[edit on 8/6/2005 by 39 drops of solder]

A great philosopher once wrote
Naughty, naughty, very naughty
Ha ha ha ha ha

There's a guy in the place
He's got a bittersweet face
And he goes by the name of Ebeneezer Goode
His friends call him Eezer and he is the main geezer
And he'll vibe about the place like no other man could
He's refined, he's sublime, he makes you feel fine
Though very much maligned and misunderstood
But if you know Eezer he's a real crowd pleaser
He's ever so good, he's Ebeneezer Goode
You can see that he's mischievious, mysterious and devious
When he circulates amongst the people in the place
But once you know he's fun and something of a genius
He gives a grin that goes around from face to face to face
Backwards and then forwards, forwards and then backwards
Eezer is the geezer who loves to muscle in
That's about the time the crowd all shout the name of Eezer
As he's kotcheled in the corner, laughing by the bass bin

Eezer Goode, Eezer Goode
He's Ebeneezer Goode
Eezer Goode, Eezer Goode
He's Ebeneezer Goode
Eezer Goode, Eezer Goode
He's Ebeneezer Goode
Eezer Goode, Eezer Goode
He's Ebeneezer Goode
He's Ebeneezer Goode

Ebeneezer Goode, leading light of the scene
Know what I mean, see
He created the vibe
He takes you for a ride and as if by design
The party ignites like he's comin alive
He takes you to the top, shakes you all around
Then back down, you know as he gets mellow
Then as smooth as the groove that is making you move
He glides into your mind with a sunny Hello
A gentleman of leisure, he's there for your pleasure
But go easy on old Eezer he's the love you could lose
Extraordinary fellow, like Mr. Punchinello
He's the kind of geezer who must never be abused
When you're in town and Ebeneezer is around
You can sense a presence in the sound of the crowd
He gets them all at it, the party starts rocking
The people get excited it's time to shout loud

Eezer Goode, Eezer Goode
He's Ebeneezer Goode
Eezer Goode, Eezer Goode
He's Ebeneezer Goode
Eezer Goode, Eezer Goode
He's Ebeneezer Goode
Eezer Goode, Eezer Goode
He's Ebeneezer Goode

Got any salmon Sorted
Ha ha ha ha ha
Ha ha ha ha ha
Eezer Goode, Eezer Goode
Eezer Goode, Eezer Goode
Oh what a carry on, ha ha ha ha ha
Eezer Goode, Eezer Goode
Wicked
Eezer Goode, Eezer Goode
He's Ebeneezer Goode

He's Ebeneezer Goode
Oh what a carry on, ha ha ha ha ha
He's Ebeneezer Goode
Eezer Goode, Eezer Goode
Wicked
Eezer Goode, Eezer Goode
He's Ebeneezer Goode
He's Ebeneezer Goode
He's Ebeneezer Goode
Eezer Goode, Eezer Goode...



It's a pocketful of Es to go with almond joys, I'm told. Never had either, Ebeneezer.



[edit on 6-8-2005 by MaskedAvatar]

There are those, including myself, that do not believe in Chance. What I see is the choices of others impacting on our lives. The problem is that life is so complex, there are so many people, so many choices, that it just seems like there is an element of randomness to it all. But when you really look it all comes down to choices.

Ever heard of Chaos Theory? It is not paranormal it is pure Science but what it describes in one of it's aspects is what mystics have been saying forever: We are all connected and there is no chance.

This is illustrated in the idea of the 'Butterfly' concept made popular in Jurassic Park 'A butterfly flaps it's wings in one place and you get rain in another'. Very hard to see, but if you trace it step by step it makes an odd sort of sense.

Take a car accident for example. When it happens to someone you love it makes no sense but each step of the way the people involved made choices that determined the outcome. Each driver decided when to leave, how fast to drive, and the moment at which one allowed themselves to be distracted by the radio. Change even a single element, and the accident will not happen.

What we call Chance is simply lack of understanding of the connectiveness of everything and as time goes by we realize this more and more. It is simply easier to say 'it was just random chance' when something we do not see the reasons for happens, but that does not make it truth.


A.T
(-)

Okay, let me break this down a bit. Even though I dug what A.T. said, and I understand the idea of everything as one (actually, it's a cool idea, a very peaceful idea and a very "all for one"/"one for all" idea...all's cool, really). But let me give you the example of a brick.

A man is walking down the pavement. He decides to walk left around the oncoming corner, but he remembers that he must pick up his wife who is waiting at work (before going to pick up his suit at the dry cleaners), and so he decides, quickly, to stand at the corner.

As he waits on the green light to change, BAM, a brick (then) another brick, then another, until many bricks come crashing down behind him (later, it was found out, an old building's wall came crashing down), it startles him. He is lost in a complete daze...he stands before the green light, bewildered, shook up...the green light turns red, and instinctively, yet in a dream-like state, he proceeds to cross the street while he is still thinking about what just happened. He quickly turns because he think another brick fell (it did not, but out of fear and panic he is moved to do so), and in that instant he turns back, a car swerves to miss another car (to prevent an accident) and winds up hitting the mesmerized man, killing him instantly.

The man did not make a choice to turn, he was wrapped up in a shocking situation, like almost a Post Traumatic Stress Disorder type deal, and in that instant he turned his head because he thought he heard something when really it was in his own head, he is killed. This is one point, like for instance, a person who is sleep-walking and gets killed by walking onto a highway and is killed by oncoming cars.

Another point, he chose to turn right, and if he (could have) chose not to turn to the direction of the brick falling, then he would not have been killed.

Or if he chose to turn left, he would have been killed or maybe not. He could have walked faster, missing the bricks. Or he could have walked just "right" and got hit by the bricks.

It's a nice idea to think and believe everything and anything has meaning because everything and anything is interrelated. Nice and tight summary of life. But it is not that simple. To wake up one sunny morning only to find your house under water because the river overflowed (hurricane having passed), may appear to be some type of coincidence, but really, all it is is, certain forces that a person has no power over.

I had a choice to post a reply, now I await your response...while a wave crashes into the sand and a seagull gets the fish...and you post your reply, and I read it and I say: no way is that wave and that seagull relative to my reply, his reading it, your reply and my reading it. It's a calculation that is beyond human capacity, unless you consider yourself all knowing, all seeing...and that is a calculation, I am unwilling to make

Life is full of chances and choices...as a fellow man, I can only hope each of us makes the right one...the rest is left up to chance.



[edit on 8/7/2005 by 39 drops of solder]

Very interesting reply, you think clearly and well. My compliments.

But you see I did not say that everything has meaning, nor did I say that we can understand why everything happens. The very fact that life is so complex and we cannot rationally think it all through is what gives rise to the notice of Chance. It is also supported by the failing in humans that so often leads us to blame others for things that are clearly our own fault.

Your brick example was good but it puts us in the middle of the accident when choices do indeed narrow. Once the other car impacts on yours you have little left to choose. In your example, did the man not choose to walk? If he had indeed chosen to drive or take a Bus he would never have been in the situation. He put himself in the path of the bricks did he not?

Now I realize that if you do not believe he had any way to know this would happen then he did not know what he was chooseing. But he did choose, no one made him walk.

As far as the house and river. Who bought the house? People who choose to live by the Sea or a River know they are taking a risk. They choose the risk because they either feel nothing will happen (a somewhat foolish idea but sometimes it works out) or they think they can do something to prevent problems. When something does indeed go wrong, are we to blame the River?

This is a two-part idea. The first is as I have explained, we choose to be where we are, and to do what we do. But there is another aspect as well, it is better to believe that we are totally responsible for our own lives. Because if we are not, if there is indeed Chance, then we are at it's mercy. Why bother to live a smart life when at any moment it could be taken away by something that is out of our control. It is sooo much easier to blame others for our lousy life but when we do that we give up the possibility that we could have made it better.

I do not claim to be able to understand why every single thing that happens to us happens. I do not even claim to be able to do that for myself. You are quite correct when you say the calculations are sometimes beyond us. But that does not change the nature of what is. Before we knew the word Gravity it still worked, things fell when we dropped them.



A.T
(-)

Well, thanks too for the reply.

First of all, I am very into taking responsibility for our actions. We all must take responsibility for our actions, and thoughts. Let me tell you something, I am an atheist. And arriving to this way of believing, pointed out that, the reason people join a religion or believe in God(s)/god(s) is because, they do not want or have the capacity to take responsibility for their own actions, beliefs, and/or thoughts. The blame is shifted to a higher up who will make the problem (whatever it may be) better, will heal the problem, will make the problem go away, and if it does not go away, then it is because of the devil or satan. And beings this is the way this planet goes about its business, it points to a very sad fact in human history, that very few take full responsibility for their own actions and thoughts. Take the big One out of the picture, the big One who is only by faith, that needs no thinking, needs no justification, needs no reason for being, or it is just there as if by chance, because it so happens to be. It just is. Like a blip on the horizon.

Blip

Also, people are raised to project their shame or hate or anger onto others, never reconciling the problem at hand, until it winds up, after years, into a bias or a"reality" that even more people buy into.

Humans are rather a simple breed. We so happen to have a thumb and four fingers, and a brain that can think abstractly. We also have the ability to learn from a previous time or point because of written language (and now, a computer with memory). In other words, we do not have to start now. It has begun, and when we grow up into adults, we have all that information that we can appreciate. But we do have our faults, and one of those big faults is, we hardly ever think. This is the reason for Ghandi, for Hitler, for Jesus, for the Pharaoh, for Blair, for Bush, and/or for any mass following one (or millions of people following one person blindly); because a lot of people just don't think. They cannot reason. They cannot abstract. They cannot reflect. They are plain average thinking, run of the mill slaves. (And not to get off the topic, the select few or the elite feed off these people who make up the majority).

And so, where I am going with all this? Yes, choice is the supreme quality of humanity. I agree 100% Even if one takes apart the saying by Descartes: I think therefore I am...the therefore in itself is a moving or turning or a point that makes I think into I am, therefore, it is a choice, that is, the phrase itself (I may be getting too abstract here . Anyway, the point I am maiking is, we all make choices, but only a few of them of only a few people on this earth make choices that benefit humanity as a whole in a good way (a progressive free way) than do the majority of people who make choices that are either based on some unseen force (God/god), because someone is of a different race, or someone hurt me in the past, or someone deserves it because their big and fat and ugly, or whatever the reason.

So, I believe I made the choice point clear. I am very much into making good choices, and I strive to help others in my life do the same (and by the way, I do it without any benefit coming my way; other than knowing he or she is doing best).

As for chances...to say that our choices make obsolete chances is not within reason. Because, for instance, we do not have the power to stop a 20 foot wave coming crashing into a house, we cannot, no matter how many choices we make, place our hands high in the sky and say, stop! and attempt to hold the water back. Stuff happens in life that we have no power or no control over.

Now, I agree 100%, we as humans amongst other humans have control and/or choices to stop things from escalating to the point of a serious problem. Point made, point taken, point understood completely. But we do not have choice or control over "mother nature" (which by the way, I respect so very much...if some guy wants to go chase a storm or a tornado, and gets killed in the process, I feel sorry for the family, but I do not give a pellet about him or her. To chase a tornado for money and fame is insane); things or events that are not in our control, be it storms, comets, sharks, or anything other than a human, are out of our responsibility arena (so to speak).

Now, it is true, we can minimize the chance of getting hit by a tornado or by a hurricane by either not living in an area that has more of a possibility of such an event from occuring, or we can choose places and things that will be less likely to do us harm. I agree 100%

As I always say, anything is possible but is it probable? Those who live on the Carribean islands have a much better chance to get hit by a hurricane than one who is placed in an oxygen filled cast iron, 10 feet deep walls, on all six sides, who is immersed in a cave somewhere in Missouri. No matter how many hurricanes, this person will survive. Guaranteed. (I know it's a strange example, but it makes the extreme point of a perfect habitat in case of a hurricane So yes, chances become less when we make more (better) choices.

One more example, for instance, the space station. Now I would imagine that the engineers of the space craft have pretty much thought out all the ways that if the space craft goes deeper into space or more away from the earth, that the possibilities of a storm or comets or whatever will not damage and kill the entire billion dollar project in a matter of a second (or two would be (nearer) to an impossibility. So the more calcalutions we can do, the better off we are (like in a game of chess).

But who knows what awaits the space people (I know that sounds funny once they are billions of miles away from planet earth without the power or control to have a rescue mission help them out. Who knows what is on the other side of the eye of the Milky Way, no one knows something that is infinite. We've been able to use fuel to project an object into space, and a remote control line of communication that is really no different than the remote that powers a tv set. To me, not very progressive for a space station that someday will go into unknown territory. But hey, they chose it, so it's their ax (to grind...double meaning to ax, but hey, this is G-rated, and I respect that). It's like the tornado chasers, the knowledge in the search is a bit more plentiful as with space people, but the point of risk is the same.

And now I will end this on this note, insurance companies make money because, in their plans, the chances of something happening badly is rarer than something that happens for the good (or the good outweighs the bad, 10 to 1). In other words, they make money, big bucks, I mean huge off a racket (that our State laws protect), and that is, we give them, let's say $100.00 a month, we haven't had an accident in 5 years, the total number of people who fall into this category is 10,000. The insurance company computes those figure against the, say, 5% drivers who have had an accident, who have a bad driving record, therefore, are paying, say, $200.00 a month. The good drivers paid into the company, for one month, all together, $1,000,000.00. The bad drivers are paying $200 a month, therefore, the amount per month is $2,000,000.00. For 20,000 drivers, over the year, the insurance company makes $36,000,000.00. The 5% of the bad drivers, wind up costing the company about, let's say, $15,000,000.00, give or take a mil (to be fair). The company profits stand at, say, $20,000,000.00 because they had the foresight to calculate the chances that were for the company not against it. So insurance companies are in business to make money off things they know will never occur. They've calculated the odds.

Anyway, this subject always amused me, and I do thank you for taking the time to think abstract with me. I have a good feeling not many can do this, but then again, this is part of being a human, not everyone had the good fortune of being born with a brain that thinks for itself (rather than to have been thought of

Thanks A.T

[edit on 8/7/2005 by 39 drops of solder]

Originally posted by 39 drops of solder

Life has two dynamics at work interchangably all the time, chances and choices - what may appear as paranormal is a chain of chances, and when the time is up in regards to the "chain of chances", the choice to act comes into play, and once again, the cycle repeats itself...we live our lives in a continuum, a chain of chances and choices, whether we are conscious of it/them or not.
[edit on 8/6/2005 by 39 drops of solder]

Who's choices? The observer or self?

Medical science has tried to pinpoint the observer throughout history. We have looked in every hole of the body, every region of the brain, every tissue, every lobe, every cortex .....

And we have found nothing we can hold in our hand and say: "This is the observer".

So, how then can you continue to judge this world as real when the self that is determining it to be real is intangible?

further more:

If I were to shrink you doen to the size of an atom and ask you to reach out and grab a subatomic particle (an electron, neutron, or proton), you could not do it, because they are just condensed energy, not static material or matter.

In closing, you by the very definition of proof of existance, cannot prove to me you exist. For, the matter that makes you is not matter, just energy.

And, the observer that tells me what is possible and isn't possible is also intangible. Neither you the observer, or the body you inhabit truly exist.

So: Bah Humbug! Yes, Bah Humbug, indeed.

[edit on 08/12/71 by Esoteric Teacher]

If I determine to push a (tangible) cart, then I do exist. Without I (or the ego or the self) one is dead or in a vegetative state. I determine how much force to use, where to direct it, why I am using it, and what it is being used for. With I, I get to choose from one thing, to two things, to as many infinite numbers or calculations/combinations of ideas, actions, and/or people, places and things around me.

I may not be able to pull the I out of my head or out of my mind or out of my brain, but I am able to think about if it is possible to pull the I out of my brain/head/mind.

I placed what I am about to say in another section on ATS, but I will place it here:

Instead of going in search of the eye of the Milky Way, why not go in search of the eye of the DNA? Because even though a space craft goes forward into time (by our own calculations) as it goes forward to the eye of the Milky Way is the same as: the best way to go about this, is to go into a lab on earth and go in search of the eye of the DNA, thereby going back into time. Because either way, forward or backward in time, whatever exists at the eye of the DNA or the Milky Way or the point of the entire existence of things can begin within who and what we are as of now.

When finding what is the absolute point, then and only then, can we truly know what is reality. Until then, all we have is self or I or ego (consciousness).

So what I am saying is this, I rather know and believe something that is based on something, this time, being the ego/I/self that has control over its own environment the best way one can do or be, rather than in something that is totally left up for speculation or conjecture.

By the way, I am an atheist, and looking at life from this perspective, maybe just maybe, this non-existent I or self or ego is God. Therefore, man is God/god. Maybe. But I am too reasonable for this, I say, I am a human with thoughts and beliefs that at times, turn into actions.

Anyway, thanks for the reply, Edward


[edit on 8/7/2005 by 39 drops of solder]

If you have never looked into Chaos Theory you might find the following quite enlightening:

www.imho.com...

From that page:

The flapping of a single butterfly's wing today produces a tiny change in the state of the atmosphere. Over a period of time, what the atmosphere actually does diverges from what it would have done. So, in a month's time, a tornado that would have devastated the Indonesian coast doesn't happen. Or maybe one that wasn't going to happen, does. (Ian Stewart, Does God Play Dice? The Mathematics of Chaos, pg. 141)

That my friend is pure Metaphysics, and now serious Science as well. We are a long way from being able to trace everything that happens but what it shows is how each action (or choice) is directly connected to what follows. Someday this will lead us to the ability to control the Weather to some degree.

I see the same mechanism in human events. What seems on the surface to be random is made up of all sorts of bits of order.

A.T
(-)