WalterTrull
Godfella
Ya know... If it's a mental universe, jou jou is real. Aspirin - strong jou jou. Beads - weak to moderate jou jou.
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More about Jou Jou
- Thread starter WalterTrull
- Start date
WalterTrull
Godfella
" ...a spiritual belief system incorporating objects, such as amulets, and spells used in religious practice, as part of witchcraft in West Africa." - Wikipedia
Thanks. That's quite helpful.
WalterTrull
Godfella
Hmmm... not quite sure how placebo fits, but maybe.
What I'm saying is that if the universe is mental, the machines and contructs we build are mental. Jou jou would then be a reasonable description of the relative sturdiness of a mental construct, like aspirin.
There would be levels of reality though, and there would be consistent realities (like ours) and inconsistent ones (such as are represented in crazy drawings). Aspirin would fit with the consistency of our reality, so I think it would not be jou jou. Maybe if it affected reality then yes.
WalterTrull
Godfella
If you take an aspirin and your headache goes away, isn't that affecting your reality?
I have to use this term 'perception'. If I take an aspirin it affects my perception, but I never have had a direct experience of reality. Reality has this meaning to me of something that is, so its more solid than my own perception. On the other hand I'm not saying reality can't change or that its real. I don't think my perception changes it however. Now...I admit I have had moments where I have experienced telekinesis. 2 times actually, very small acts of telekinesis, experiences which I do not believe in but which I remember clearly. I guess its possible aspirin could change reality, but I just don't think so.
Add: the whole trouble with belief is that it affects perception. If you believe hard enough it may affect your perception, so you may experience things like telekinesis falsely. You can perceive things that aren't real. Reality then goes on without you, but again that is also a perception. Uncertainty is just part of the whole thing. You can't know for sure.
Suppose that a loved one dies. That may be enough to give you the emotional power to overcome your perception of reality and believe in miracles. You may in fact accomplish a miracle, or you may think that you do. You won't know which, and if you fail and there's no miracle or perceived miracle then you still won't know if you have changed reality or not.
WalterTrull
Godfella
The mental universe folks claim there is no underlying reality, - that the only reality is perception.
Its an easy and profitable claim to make. They can make those claims, but there are some problems analogous to time travel problem. You have to assume no causality, that causality is just perception. That mean then that the universe is chaotic not continuous; but the bulk of my experience indicates otherwise. It indicates causality, continuum and also vulnerability. Somebody can wreck my world any day if they feel like it. I'm fragile, like a leaf on the wind.
WalterTrull
Godfella
If you ask whose perception and come up with some form of deity, then chaos is eliminated. Also, you start wondering about the function of prayer. Just sayin'
That is different from the question posed in the OP. Any kind of reality works if you fit it inside of another one, and that is equivalent to your deity idea. For example if we are all inside of a big videogame or are all in the mind of God, either way there's neither causality required nor chaos in our subset of reality. The question posed in the OP was about the larger reality I thought -- the reality of the deity or of the outside and whether thoughts could change that.
Jonathan Ainsley Bain
Logical Positivist
I think the glass of water that one has with the aspirin does more good than the aspirin.
There are various layers to the interaction between mental and physical.
The aspirin has a physical effect, but most people do not realize the extent to which
its effect is powerfully placebo as well. Just the recognition that one requires medication
reinforced by taking the aspirin reinforces the person to resist toxic foods,
and get more exercise.
There is also the deeper mystical side to how the Thoughts of God could alter the
nature of the physical world - or even how the expansion of the Universe is slowly
altering the laws of chemistry. Are these last two really so different?
Milton Platt
Well-Known Member
Until one can conclusively demonstrate that the universe is a mental construct, what is to be gained by the speculation?
WalterTrull
Godfella
Speculation is where it's at. Never-the-less, some folks feel that they have demonstrated that. Alain Aspect and Anton Zeilinger on Unreality
WalterTrull
Godfella
I think the argument is that there is no physical universe, only the perception of one.
WalterTrull
Godfella
Might be drifting here, oh well. My thought is that there can be only one reality and levels are perception Maybe cause and effect are the same thing observed from opposite poles? If reality is mental, how do we walk around in it? Constructing a mental path would allow us to travel it. Jou jou would be sort of a mental path, as would be aspirin.
I think we come alive through our relationships. Its starts with a mother or whoever takes care of us as baby. 'Reality' as a perception is about relationships. We care about reality, because it matters in our feelings. Take away those feelings and reality is gone with them, no matter how extensive your knowledge or how many veils you can see through. It also doesn't matter if you are in a video game. If you have real relationships then to you its real. Damage those relationships and you will question reality.
WalterTrull
Godfella
Interesting thought. Might be. Have to wrestle with that. Not following the rest. Don’t necessarily disagree, just don’t follow.