Synchronicity Anyone?

Originally posted by Epsillion70
The reality is we co-create it in every moment in time and space... You either spend your waking time thinking (cause) of either negative or Positive situations then either of these will be the effect and eventually will be the scenarios in quantum superpositions that will reveal it self in that alternate reality and hence the synchronistic life outcomes etc. [effect]

I disagree. Certainly positive thinking can deceive us into believing that we are on top of our problems and everything is going as we wish. But such self-deception is of a temporary nature; pretty soon, the uncompromising reality of life--the hard facts--break through the delusion and strip it away.

We can certainly change our beliefs, but that will not change what is true.

That stuff about 'quantum superpositions' and 'synchronicistic life outcomes' has no basis in science. Please don't snow me under with links to What the Bleep Do We Know?, articles by Roger Penrose and web sites promoting 'quantum consciousness'; I have a physics background, I've been hearing about this stuff for years now and I solemnly assure you it is all a crock. Nothing in the science of quantum mechanics promotes these ideas.

Accepting that wishes don't come true is one of the most important bridges people have to cross on the journey from childhood to adulthood. Some people, quite understandably, try to avoid making the crossing. But this just stunts and distorts their perceptions and ultimately their personalities.

It is better to accept reality and adapt to it (or rather, allow it to adapt you) than to reject it and be forced to fight a losing battle with it, in misery and resentment, for the rest of your life.

Originally posted by Astyanax
'Causes go infinitely far back in time' will do. Time itself does not extend backward to infinity, but to a fixed point. Still, you will say, there must have been a First Event. What caused it? Who knows--perhaps it caused itself. If I had known I was going to meet a philosopher I would have said 'all events but one have causes'.

The question hardly seems settled in any way. Personally, I lean more towards the third option where nothing was actually created nor never didn't exist and never will not and talking in temporal terms about option three is simply folly. We just see a slice of it at any given "time", time being a subjective rather than objective property. Everything exists but given its completeness, there is no "destiny" or restriction of freedom in the structure since all possibilities exist now. Just to be clear, my difficulties here are more lingual than conceptual and some understandings are not concepts since concepts have relationships to other things.

The second option has a common thread with the third but is a "becoming" totality rather a "being" totality. First option is the extreme of a "becoming" totality. Option two is how I understand branes.

"Something from nothing" is resolved from a weak sense (quantum foam) of nothing that really is quite a something, since it is definable, more like the second option and perhaps is option 2.5, somewhere between temporal and atemporal. Still, it's a particular way-things-are leaves me wondering why is should have any favor over any other over ALL realities if in fact it's true, that is, true within our own reality set.

Your view seems to take on a mystical quality as t approaches 0. As I see it, if it caused itself, it still is. I AM THAT I AM. It's really quite the same as saying, "If God created the universe, then what created God? God created God."

So, are you on option 1.5 perhaps? How is it we have an age for the universe and yet causes go infinitely far back? I can envision such a limit if there's always an infinite number of event to traverse back to 0, as if always dividing the distance in half and approaching a limit asymtotically.

[edit on 1/25/2010 by EnlightenUp]

[edit on 1/25/2010 by EnlightenUp]

reply to post by EnlightenUp

All this is way off topic, but...

How is it we have an age for the universe and yet causes go infinitely far back? I can envision such a limit if there's always an infinite number of event to traverse back to 0, as if always dividing the distance in half and approaching a limit.

Like Xeno's paradox? I don't think we have to resort to such desperate measures. You spoke of chains of causation extending 'infinitely far back in time.' Time (as we understand it) is a continuum, therefore infinitely divisible, and can accommodate an infinite number of causes and effects. The number of such that have occurred since the origin of time is no doubt finite, but for all practical purposes it is infinite, and potentially it has every right to be so, since causal chains branch and interact.

It's all right to say 'God created God' as long as you then accept that the statement 'God created the Universe' is thereby cast into serious doubt. If something more complex than the universe can create itself, why can't the universe do the same? You might as well be saying 'The universe created the universe'. Entities need not be multiplied unnecessarily, as the blade has it.

If time began with the original singularity, then the concept of 'before the singularity' is meaningless. There was no time for anything--or nothing-- to exist in. Something didn't 'come from nothing'. Something was, and that was that.

You may well be right that time is merely a subjective perception. I imagine the phenomenon of entropy might call the hypothesis into question, but I will give it to you nonetheless--if you will agree that it implies a place where time is not. Indeed, we already know of such places--any object beyond an observer's relativistic light cone must remain forever unknown to him, cached in a place beyond time. Less empirically-biased minds than mine might further hazard that only what is apprehended by consciousness can lie within the ambit of time.

But this is also the place where physics and metaphysics conduct a monstrous secret liaison; decent, clean-living folk like us cannot linger there long. Consider that it is duration, if anything, that is the percept; time as a geometrical dimension that separates objects and events is at least as real as space. When time is considered thus, the original singularity defines a limit (possibly, if duration is as illusory as you suggest, the only and completely circumscriptive limit) of the plane of the axis t. It defines the limits of reality, in other words. There was no 'before'. The First Cause had no cause, but that is not to say it caused itself. Thus: all effects but one have causes.

Okay thought this was interesting as it is in a thread here on ATS. It is the thread about celebrities who were thought to be dead but in fact are alive. Well 2 of the celebrities mentioned in the thread were Nancy Karrigan and Gary Coleman, of whom BOTH were in the news today,I read this thread yesterday all 29 pages, and then forgot about it till I saw the news tonight and those names were mentioned. This happened after another odd incident, it's either synchronicity, or something more profound even. I was at the local hospital with my friend who was having chest pains, I had driven her, so I was waiting in the ER waiting area. Well a man comes over and says "weren't you running in here yesterday saying your son is in here?" I say "No that wasn't me, but I always get that I just have one of those faces" "Ok," he then says' "ok sorry A lady looking like you ran past me yesterday saying something about your son was in this hospital"(a few years ago my son had a seizure in school and they were going to call an ambulance and they prob would've taken him to that hospital as it is the local one) Then he goes wherever he was headed. Ok now that isn't anything cause like I say, Everywhere I have EVER been someone knows a person who looks just like me. I even went through basic with one of my look alikes...or did I look like her? We were the same age so I don't know whom looked like whom, lol. But I still had this odd feeling. Then he then comes into the ER waiting area again and asks if I would like a cup of coffee. I say no thank you, And he says "ok, well let me know if you need anything." This is getting weirder I am starting to think, and I was thinking he probably was trying to hit on me. After he gets his own cup of coffee and starts to head in another direction he returns and says, "this coffee is hot I am going to put it down here a sec", there was a empty kiddie chair across from me and he set the coffee down on that, "I'm going to sit next to you for a minute, I'm not hitting on you or anything, I have a girlfreind." Oh he never says his name that was weird,He then tells me how he is there with his aunt who was in the hospital recently and got out thursday and then on saturday he was there and helped her by doing things around the house for her etc. And then sunday she needed to be admitted again. then he went into how she bought him his first guitar at 15... OK now it's getting really flippy, my son is 15 and his aunt bought him his first Guitar bought specifically for him, My hubby had two guitars that he gave to my son prior to this, but they were bought by hubby for hubby, then he just decided to hand them to our son. OK. the guy tells me he's 42, my hubby is 43 at the moment. Anyway, I felt like this odd feeling that you know how you look at a picture and something just doesn't look right like it doesn't belong? Well that was the feeling, but I couldn't put my finger on why. Then I noticed some things about him seemed familiar, the way he moved his lips and the other movements of his body seemed like I'd seen them before. Not a synchronicity, but an oddity. The other things though were pretty synchronistic.

Originally posted by Peloquin
The really interesting question is: Is it possible that my thoughts about the movie and Noahs Ark got any resonance, that played out as described?

resonance

that's it right there!

resonance -
in physics is defined as:
The increase in amplitude of oscillation of an electric or mechanical system exposed to a periodic force whose frequency is equal or very close to the natural undamped frequency of the system.

there is so much more to it (resonance) - read the many entries on this page at thefreedictionary.com

vibrational energy (waveform)
the fractal universe ("be fruitful and multiply")
synchronicity (co-incidence)
serendipity ("good luck")

the basic principles in physics (from quantum- to astro-) are universal and unified: METAphysics

As I questioned in my previous posts: Is there the possibility, that we're capable of shaping the (objective!) reality around us just by thoughts?

not only possible but very logically probable!
in all likelihood, absolutely YES...
( that's what makes it objective! )

Once someone said: "Energy follows attraction."

EXACTLY.

like follows like is the way i have heard it, but really the same idea.

What if, if it isn't so much different from something, that - in other contexts - is called magic (and I'm not talking about tricksters...).

What if, if there's a kind of mechanism to shape reality, that has yet to be discovered (or maybe rediscovered)?

yep....WHAT IF?!?!


According to Arthur C. Clarke, emphasis mine:

1. When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
2. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Maybe we're already practicing it, just in an unconscious way.

that's my understanding.

The answer to the question of who's the sender of this "answer" certainly depends on the faith someone has chosen.

well, yes, i see what you are saying.
and my response to you, to think about, is this:
does it really matter who's sending it?
if it's being sent in such a way, then surely it is GENUINE, whatever it is?

to just believe in the possibility of the action is a start, the way i see it.

That there's a god and any sense in this world.

i think that there is - because of my own personal discoveries - but since that's my own, it holds little or no value for you
and so...i can offer you only one reasonable suggestion, and that is what i wrote, right above:

to just believe in the possibility of the action is a start

i've also heard this:
"To believe in God, one must first believe God IS."

and it can't hurt...it isn't like there is any true loss associated with gambling on the possibility that there IS a sentient higher power that is sincerely looking over us, as the human race.

either there IS deity...in which case none of this really matters
or there IS NO deity...in which case none of this really matters

Originally posted by Astyanax
That stuff about 'quantum superpositions' and 'synchronicistic life outcomes' has no basis in science.

what about Bell's Theorem, then?

that's true science, without a doubt.

For me it was like a trickle effect that started some 15 years ago that initially sent almost sent me insane (didn't have ATS then!). For sure during those early days paranoa in me was rife.

But then I started to take in my stride, now I kind of live for it, and no matter where I am or what I am doing it's like I'm a sychronistic time bomb. In trance which I practice say once a week the whole experience is mostly sycronistic and includes as the OP mentioned (which was brave and I appreciate it ) TV, radio etc.

Personally I feel as though we are experiencing the higher dimensions of no-time. Where all thoughts are sychronistic. If not a higher dimension its definetly involves a complicated array and convergence of timelines!

Makes you think don't it!?

Originally posted by queenannie38
what about Bell's Theorem, then?

Yes, what about it? Epsillion70 said:

Originally posted by Epsillion70
You either spend your waking time thinking (cause) of either negative or positive situations then either of these will be the effect and eventually will be the scenarios in quantum superpositions that will reveal it self in that alternate reality and hence the synchronistic life outcomes etc

If I understand this correctly, he or she is saying that the positive or negative character of a person's thoughts will somehow select between different life scenarios (conceived of as being superposed like quantum states in a wavefunction) and propel the thinker into one that corresponds to his thoughts. In other words, that people's thoughts select the realities they inhabit.

I'm not sure how he brings synchronicity into it, but let's not go there. It's enough to note for now that the above is what I was responding to with the comment you quoted. So tell me, then, how you believe Bell's Theorem shows that such a thing is possible.

Two points you will have to address:

1. Before we apply quantum mechanics to objects larger than an atom, we have to show that quantum effects occur at those scales. And not just any effects, either, but the kind of effects we're saying do take place. Is Bell's Theorem of any use here? Is anything?

2. Also, Epsillion70s remarks imply that the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics is true. Is Bell's Theorem of any use in proving this? is anything?

By the way, I have a little formal education in quantum mechanics. I am also well aware of the use that has been made of it in popular culture by people who don't know any physics.

reply to post by harrytuttle

At about 3:00pm I get a random phone call. It's a girl I gave my phone number to on a match book 3 years ago. She never called me until today...

I ask what her name is. She says her name is Solara... I've never in my entire life known anyone who has that name "Solara".

Two hours later I'm at the movie theater, watching "Book of Eli". About 20 minutes into the movie the lead female character/actress is introduced. Guess what that character's name is? You guessed it: Solara.

What are the frickin' odds of that happening?

Pretty short, I'd say.

A woman calling a man she met once three years ago just to talk may not want to give too much away all at once. So she gives a false name: the first one that pops into her head.

She's seen The Book of Eli two hours hours before she made the call, so the first name that pops into her head is... Solara.

Call her back and find out whether she's seen the movie.

Guys I got a serious question to ask. I've had two cases of sychroncity of extreme concern to me. Both times they happened in trance and both involved Nasa footage.

Now as the OP admitted I to have experience (a lot) of sychroncity with various forms of media. I try not to take on board the magnitude of what is at play to bring about such a phenomenon but suffice to say it's real to me and the timing is always impecable in terms of when feeback comes in.

So I am in trance and watching Nasa footage, the first scene is in the Apollo 13 control room at Kennedy Space Center. I think something relavant to the launch and of esoteric importance (can't remember what exactly) and I sense each and every persons attention in that room turn towards me in that instant.

The next scene is Apollo 13 in space as it about to land on the moon. This time I think something about something else momentarilly and bamm instantaneously one of the astronauts I'm not sure who reponds immediatly with the thought I have in mind.at that very moment.

No I know this is a little off the charts but then so much is isn't it. That doesn't make it any less real! Obviously the incident worries me because if real I have to ask certain really profound questions of myself, as I am sure many on this thread are asking too.

So tell me this, what are the questions we are affraid to ask of our sychronistic experiences?

reply to post by Astyanax


I can only go by own metaphysical understandings in my life thus far and as such the absence of evidence does not preclude the evidence of absence.

It has been a 100 years since technology and alternate understandings that seemed totally void of all logic and reasoning have taken giant leaps where by now we have automobiles that can drive at 300+ miles per hour. And other assorted flying machines that defy gravity when at one point a 100 or so years ago (1 and 1/2 lifetimes ago) Any one with Wright brother thinking would be swiftly bound and gagged and taken to the local Sanitarium post haste.
Remember; What is Science fiction today may become Science fact tomorrow. It just takes a someone or an anyone who has lateral, inventive and adaptive way of thinking and who may or may not have had titles and degrees in that relative field of study as one
Albert Einstein did.

[edit on 26-1-2010 by Epsillion70]

2010 is the golden year the golden year of synchronicity where all thing come to thous who listen.

Enjoy.

Originally posted by Astyanax

Originally posted by queenannie38
what about Bell's Theorem, then?

Yes, what about it?

you tell me - you said:

That stuff about 'quantum superpositions' and 'synchronicistic life outcomes' has no basis in science. Please don't snow me under with links to What the Bleep Do We Know?, articles by Roger Penrose and web sites promoting 'quantum consciousness'; I have a physics background, I've been hearing about this stuff for years now and I solemnly assure you it is all a crock. Nothing in the science of quantum mechanics promotes these ideas.

how do you figure that 'quantum superposition' has no scientific basis?
it is all about (here's that phrase again) vibrational energies...what about the Huygens principle and Schrödinger's cat?

Epsillion70 said:

i'm not really addressing what Epsillion70 said, to you; if i were addressing his words, i'd be addressing him.


just saying

2. Also, Epsillion70s remarks imply that the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics is true. Is Bell's Theorem of any use in proving this? is anything?

i'm not saying that Bell's Theorem can prove anything - it has its own proofs that remain unexplained and not understood.

but certainly there must be something to the idea that one thing can affect another thing, when the two are seemingly unrelated and discrete - otherwise Einstein wouldn't have felt there was something spooky going on.

WHAT IT MEANS, who knows?
but i have no doubt it does mean something

and it IS science - defined by repeated outcomes following what was revealed as a consistent pattern.

that's me .02 anyway!

This thread is really interesting. I know a few people who this has been happening to lately. Funny cuz I didn't actually know the term for this until a couple of days ago when I read this thread.

Yesterday I was driving down the road, and just had a passing thought about a friend who I haven't spoke to in a month or so. We really don't have anything to talk about. lol But anyway, I'm sitting at home last night and get a text from her. I instantly thought of this thread.

I have said this many times on many threads now. 2010 is going to be an interesting year! S&F!

I just had my own synchronicity event that involved 7 different people, 5 of which I have never met or have ever noticed before because they're on these forums. The other two were my girlfriend, and another friend of mine who I have been talking to tonight.

This synchronicity started about 20 minutes ago as I was reading an ATS thread about Bin Laden being dead (US Openly Accepts Bin Laden Long Dead). The thread itself really isn’t the important detail. There was someone there by the name of Dorian Soran, who has his avatar as the fourth doctor, Tom Baker from the show Doctor Who. He posted four times so I saw the picture four times and then there was another person by the name of “thetreasurehunter” who has the avatar of John Pertwee, who was the third doctor on the show. Right after seeing this, a friend of mine who I was talking to on AIM said something about the doctor being able to explain well how time works because we were watching season 5 of Lost, when they go back in time. Now I can think logically about this and try to examine it. Doctor who is a pretty popular show now especially with the renewal of the series in 2005. The fact that I watch it as well as my friend and the other people isn't hard to imagine since it is popular now. The thing that gets me though is literally 2 seconds after I see these pictures, I get a message completely unrelated to it. I never mentioned doctor who but she decides to pick that to explain it. It was about time travel, but to come up with that 2 seconds after I see it just kind of makes it a little harder to think it's complete coincidence. I could definitely understand if even an hour went by and she mentioned it, I would think it was funny that she did, but I would definitely think it were more coincidence then because we both like the show. I leave that thread after I was finished with it and then go to this thread about synchronicity. I move down the page and I read a post of Etcetera007's, who was having their own synchronicity in the thread about somebody else who said something in the thread. Then, after this, I go to pick up my phone to tell my girlfriend about the synchronicity because we like to talk to each other about out personal ones, and they happen often so it’s a fun conversation for us. Just as I pick up the phone I get a text from her saying that she was going to bed and was saying good night. We also do this a lot where we think of each other and the second one of us gets a text message, we were just thinking of sending that person a text. Now, this is still pretty tame as a synchronicity having two of them occurring in about 10 minutes time. After reading her text, I look back at the synchronicity thread and this is the first thing that I see when I look at it “Ex: Thinking of someone and receiving a SMS a second after, etc”. I just found it really strange that all of these things would culminate right in a matter of about 15 minutes as it seems that the patterns are getting closer together. It really is an amazing thing, and it really makes life enjoyable to sit back and actually look at what’s going on around us. And now I’m reading page two of this and right after I saw the whole receiving a SMS thing I looked up and laughed because I thought it was really funny, then on page two I read “You spoke about something that made you smile. I guess, many of us who experienced synchronicities saw things that made them laugh.” by the poster Peloquin. So if you are going crazy Etcetera007, then I am as well, and a few other people I know as well. A year ago, I wouldn't have believed it, but I have had my own experiences that tell me that there is something going on here.

[edit on 27-1-2010 by Sirius20]

If we are going to have a conversation, queenannie38, let's keep it honest, please.

As I have already made clear, my remarks about superposition were made in a specific context, in regard to a specific statement by Epsilion70. Superposition is a key concept in quantum mechanics; I would be a fool to deny it. But talk of quantum superposition influencing 'synchronisistic life outcomes' is pure moonshine, and that is what I did say. Kindly refrain from trying to distort my meaning.

It was you who brought up Bell's theorem. Your doing so suggests that you think it has relevance to the concept of superposition. And it does; it's a theorem about what happens when the superposed states of entangled particles collapse. But the concept of superposition is not derived from or explained by it, so I wondered why any person knowledgable about quantum mechanics would bring it up in the current context. I was also curious to know why you thought it implied that the character of an individual's thoughts can alter objective reality.

But I understood better when I read this:

it is all about (here's that phrase again) vibrational energies...what about the Huygens principle and Schrödinger's cat?

Huygen's Principle is nothing to do with quantum mechanics. 'Schrödinger's Cat' is just a thought experiment; nobody who understands it thinks real cats actually exist in superposed states of deadness or aliveness until the box is opened. I realize now that you don't understand what these things mean, any more than you understand Bell's theorem. This being so, there is little point in continuing our discussion; I am not interested in discussing pseudoscience. Thank you for your courtesy in replying to my earlier posts.

Originally posted by Astyanax
I was also curious to know why you thought it implied that the character of an individual's thoughts can alter objective reality.

surely you can admit that we are both truly only voicing our own opinion, in opposition - and my answer to the above question must be taken in the same context.

which is:
because i know that thoughts CAN and DO, constantly, alter objective reality

therefore it isn't much of a reach to understand.

reply to post by queenannie38


Ahhh...but thoughts don't have to alter anything at all to do everything. More on that later. I'm working on putting what I can into an intellectually tangible form. It's no cakewalk.

Just as a starting point, if thoughts are strictly a product of brain activity, then in fact they do alter "objective" reality or else none of the research being done on a functioning brain would be possible.

Additionally, perhaps the heat generated by my brain when thinking about existence was causing all those snow storms over in England. If a butterfly can do it, why not I?

Originally posted by EnlightenUp
Just as a starting point, if thoughts are strictly a product of brain activity, then in fact they do alter "objective" reality or else none of the research being done on a functioning brain would be possible.

A reader could take your meaning at least two ways.

1. Brain activity is physical, and therefore thought implies a change in physical reality;

2. Human beings translate thoughts into actions, which occur in the physical world. Therefore thoughts change the physical world.

The first premise is true, but to interpret as suggested by your sentence would be to confuse cause and effect. I don't believe it is in question that brain activity precedes rather than succeeds thought. The brain activity comes first by a measurable margin in time, then the thought is experienced. This is implicit in what I wrote earlier:

Inside your brain (and mine), a great deal of unconscious processing is taking place. Some of this is completely automatic... These... processes constantly come up against situations which require a more difficult choice or a more sophisticated response than any unconscious subroutine can provide: these decisions get referred to consciousness.*

The second premise is undisputed.

However, I don't think queenannie38 has either of these uncontroversial situations in mind. She (or he) is referring to what you may call 'causal singularities'. Also known (not to be too precious about it) as miracles.

I await your detailed exegesis of the matter we are discussing with some eagerness. Meanwhile, about synchronicity: Jung specifically defined it as 'acausal', meaning Don't Go Looking for Any Meaning in Here, There Isn't Any. Would you agree with that, or do you believe that, in some realm of transcendence beyond the reach of plodding, obsessive reason, It's All Connected?

[edit on 28/1/10 by Astyanax]

reply to post by Astyanax


I intended it to be taken by the reader in complete form, under materialistic assumptions. Most namely the cultural bias that thought and action are different. In a strictly physical aspect, thought is action, though an action that normally requires specialized equipment to detect, like an fMRI or the brain itself, and such actions lead to other actions such as moving an arm or building a skyscraper.

Brain activity cannot proceed thought if thought is brain activity neither can thought proceed brain activity if brain activity is thought. That's sheer nonsense if they are equivalent. I suppose you're saying there is brain activity that isn't thought and all thought is brain activity, a subset thereof, therefore brain activity that is not thought proceeds brain activity that is thought. If you say "brain activity proceeds thought, then thought is experienced (which is brain activity)" what's experiencing it? Other brain activity? What about experience that isn't thought?

Why would a "conscious" subroutine need to be conscious and what make such a thing more capable of difficult decisions than a configuation of neurons and associated electrical patterns that do the same but is not conscious? Where's the dividing line? Is there one? It seems obvious conscious experience would change if the unconscious processes were changed thus leading one to wonder if there are in fact truely unconscious processes at all. It simply may be a case of losing track of it, ie. not to be remembered in the following moment.

My subjective experience is that of a virtual world, not brain activity itself, and brain activity is at least partially responsible for computing the form that world takes.

With whatever I plan on saying, I'll get on to the idea that the causality is as coincidental and meaningless (thus just as meaningful) as is the synchronicity. Yep, causation is acausal at least in the material realm, not to imply that it isn't elsewhere either.

You mentioned that there must be a place where there is no time? Yes, that is in fact this material world. Time is comparing one apparent movement pattern against another. There are clocks. The brain is a clock as well.

And, well, yeah, it's all connected. It hit me all on my own that strictly multiple consciousnesses (the kind that is not a philosophical zombie) make no sense at all.

And yes, plodding obsessive reason has limitations but must not be discarded as worthless. It is not. It is a critical tool in forming a synthesis. I've hit beyond it myself, however briefly, and cannot easily use it to convey what opened up to my awareness. I am left only with impressions. If I were in that awareness now, I could not converse with you. My personal take on it though is those that had trancendent experiences simply went too far in the past in interpretation for the level of knowledge they possessed at the time; religion was borne of it, misconstrued as an absolute (map for territory) and exploited. I think this is still occurring.

Exegesis.

On that note, one more question: to what level do you compare non-reductionist/non-materialist ideas to stereotypical Abrahamic notions like "God is a separate, personal and authoritative entity"?