Tackling a Popular New Age Belief

Originally posted by Michael Cecil

The problem here, Sir, is that you are applying the rules of one "frame of reference" in terms of consciousness to another "frame of reference" of consciousness where they do not apply.

What you are talking about here is logical truth and evidence which is the bailiwick of the consciousness of the 'thinker'.This is how the 'thinker' determines what truth is...but only for that dimension of consciousness.

And there are easily dozens or hundreds of other things which cannot be 'proven' which a person accepts as reality.

You cannot prove that you are in love or that someone loves you. You cannot prove that Beethoven or Mozart wrote good music. You cannot prove that you like one kind of wine more than another or blondes more than brunettes.

Nothing in poetry can be proven; the lyrics of songs are not proven.

Because none of that occurs within the "frame of reference"--or is subject to the rules of evidence and proof--of the consciousness of the 'thinker'.

A person who has received memories of previous lives does not have to 'prove' that those memories are real to anyone else. If they experience them as real, that is their reality. So, then, the question comes down to "Who or what would a person have to be to be able to deny and contradict another person's internal experiences of reality?"

And that person would have to be either God or Omniscient. Not an easy thing to prove.

Mi cha el

edit on 6-12-2010 by Michael Cecil because: spelling

Concerning proof.

An experience (reaction, emotion, perspective) is a subjective event, since perception is subjective. With that the case, objectively seeking to prove what one has experienced is like trying to establish the RGB color code of a C# musical note. Not really the proper application of the concept of color. Maybe Jimi hendrix could suggest that his phase shifter sounds like blue water, as opposed to clear water, but that's just poetry. Again, subjective metaphor - invented by a human mind.

You seem to be suggesting that reality can't be objectively defined, and due to the fact that a person's perception is subjective. However, if that's true, then nothing can ever stabilize enough to have actually come into physical manifestation in any sense of what manifestation indicates. Yes, there are those folks who've fallen down the rabbithole that allows them to demand that unless they perceive it, it doesn't exist, but that's just philosophical masturbation, and serious thinkers don't allow themselves to get lost like that unless it means getting a book deal. The fact that you can exchange unique and subjective perspectives with anyone or anything else - at any sustainable level whatsoever - is proof that there is an objective, definitive, experienceable, and sharable reality that does exist, and that if this is true, then there is a way to logically prove what did and did not happen within the confines of that objective reality.

At the sub-structural level, all that shares physical association is governed by a common logical basis. As the level of progressive development increases, and contextual relationships become relatively primordial, new logical commonalities emerge, but these never supercede the sub-structural logic basis. They can't. The foundation upon which each of these new contextual commonalities rest is shared by all equally, and that sub-structure's integrity is not just necessary, it is adhered to by existential default. It can't be violated.

If you can establish the sub-structural logic, then you can know what can happen, and what simply can't happen. Then, you can - by the process of simple extrapolatory elimination - cross off the claims that couldn't have occurred, before addressing the claims that may have occurred. Then, you can begin work on the relative logic structure per contextual environment under examination, and establish the "yes and no" of that realm. It's kind of like diagnosing a mechanical malfunction, since both are subject to the direct interplay between parts and sub-assemblies that mesh together within a tightly configured whole. Anything that's not supposed to be there - that can't possibly fit within that organized whole - will stick out as if it was spray painted neon lime green.

Human beings are epitome-level beings, and it can be difficult for them to appreciate how intensely rigid the rest of reality actually is. There's no other form of physical existence that experiences existence in the same wide open sense as the human being, and we need to keep that in mind as we enjoy ourselves within this playground. Yes, we are absolutely capable of high-level disregard for the logical requirements of physical reality, but only in the way that we imagine ourselves disregarding it. And this is what I mean by "high-level". The Intellect that our brains generate - that level. There's no structural requirement for Intellect to play by the rules. It is the ultimate in pure expression, and exists only to be expression. Nothing else in reality exists with as much freedom to simply be what it wishes to be. The rest of everything else that exists sits beneath Intellect and provides it the needed infrastructure.

This is basically how reality operates.

Originally posted by Michael Cecil

Originally posted by LeoVirgo
There is only ONE true Spirit. We are all a part of a 'one true self'.

I have heard this nonsense repeated over and over and over again, as if some kind of a "mantra" to demonstrate that one is "enlightened"

Maybe he should have worded it a little differently? Like...

All of us and everything else in existence are just smaller or bigger parts that belong to one thing, that most people call the universe.

From a universe's perspective, not only is everything in existence its body, but it does some crazy stuff with itself!


...Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, the universe has nervous systems, too. An amazing number that we can't even begin to count! How do I know? Because we have nervous systems, and we're it!

The LDS or Mormon church believe something similar to the OP. For instance we choose our parents our birth time and conditions, probably our body. But they also say that once we arrive we get the new awesome ability of agency or free will so that our soul can learn and grow.

They way I interpret this is we get a whole list of choices and even get to catch a glimpse of serious fate defining events that happen to us, but we don't get to plan out what we do. We just get options we don't get to make our own until we get here.