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Metaphors Prove It Is More Than Merely Physical

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Posted by Michael W. Pearson on October 27, 2005 03:30:08 UTC

Hi, Richard,
As I skim through the science-related speculations you posted (quoted in italics after this post), I feel irony.

The body of words you and she have posted IS a "body."
It is rich in references to theories and particles.
There is also a "mind" in the universe. Not just a brain, but a mind. Yes, probably many of them. Not just a body or bodies. I have conversed about this before on this website.

Still, it seems the science, just cited in our exchange, does not touch on the central purposes of religion.


I believe an occupational hazard of many accomplished persons is that they experience difficulty seeing a bigger picture. Physical structures are not the whole question and answer rolled into one. The ambiguities of words like "love" and "justice" may be a cause of confusion, yet a truly scientific big picture must treat these two topics with great depth.
I love it when you and your friend talk...
This was a "bonus" post. I await your feedback
to my first response.

Warm regards,
Mike Pearson

Richard wrote:
Hi Mike,

Now here is a sample of constructive criticism by my good friend Bonnie, a very good fifer.

Richard

---------------------------------------

Yanniruism.edit


Yesterday on NPR I heard of a new religion based on thumbsucking that may or may not be sweeping the country. Well, they did make a movie out of it. And religious principles were used to overcome the thumbsucking by the principal of this new religion. Seems it stopped after he got married and had children and established close emotional ties with loved ones.
[OK, first question is: I would like to know your definition of religion, and ‘religious principles’. Did NPR call it a religion, or did you? Also, “it stopped” – you should clarify whether you mean the thumbsucking stopped or the new religion stopped. You should decide whether you will assume the reader saw this movie or not, to know how much detail to include in this paper.]

My new religion may be just as attractive because it is based on both science and superstition. [This sounds like an oxymoron!] Superstitions are allowed and are practiced. [Where are they allowed? And by whom? A reference or example might help.] After all, any atheistic scientist would claim that everything of a religious nature is superstition. To fold science into religion, I must also adopt the prevalent scientific attitude about religion. [Why would you want to do this? This is where you are beginning to lose me!] For example, believing that a supernatural world exists is clearly a scientific superstition. [And I would question this statement – I do not believe that it was very “clear” at all. I’ve seen many TV shows that give evidence to the contrary.] Yet that is the basis of my religion. I call it ‘yanniruism’, which means the 'light of wisdom' in sanskrit.
------------------

Response to Bonnie:

Yes. it was the thumbsucking that stopped, even in the movie, and NPR did call it a new religion. I like to claim that religion is a way of thinking about the universe and all that is in it that goes beyond the limits of experimental physics into what theoretical physics has to say about the basic nature of the universe, and understanding the consequences with regard to religious beliefs and practice.

No. It's not an oxymoron. Science and superstition has existed and been practiced side by side for ages. Everything beyond experimentally verified theory enters the realm of belief and superstitution, because they are believed to be true by many scientists, but are actually just 'possible natures'. Only experimental verification can tell you the actual nature. Even God is a possibility, at least based on the Intelligent Design concept.

Rational beliefs are based on extrapolations of experimentally verified theories. Superstitutions are based on postulated world views that are subjective and beyond experimental verification. The many scientific cosmologies are rational beliefs but near the border with superstitutions as they are world views and beyond experimental verification except by very indirect means not yet discovered.

The latest, greatest comology is by young Ms. Lisa Randall of Harvard, a real babe, merci, who together with Professor Sundrum of John Hopkins, theorized that our world resides in a larger world of at least two extra large dimensions. Ref: Scientific American, October 2005. But that is just a possibility until experimental verification, which comes in small degrees of uncertainty. Certainly we mortals can never see the large dimensions.

So my numerology on the number of dimensions plus the string theory result that when 6 of the dimensions compactify or collapse, particle/anti-particle pairs are generated and 3-d space expands.

Big bang cosmology theory predicts two possible inflations.
I claim that the first inflation produced the larger dimensions, which should be 3 in number, concurrent to the compactification or collapse of 6 dimensions of the 24 string theory space dimensions.
The second inflation of the 3-d space of our world happens with simultaneous compactification of two sets of 6-d, resulting in a world of physical particles and a world of supersymmetry partners. In string theory, both sets (of particles and partners) must be created at the same time.

Entanglement is a property of particle pairs and also the main property of superfluids, composed of particles that very little motion in space or mass, so that their wave functions all overlap. The size of the wave function determines where the particle could exist. Actually quantum mechanics says that the particles existence is spread out in space. Hence, when you get a bunch of particles together with overlapping wave functions, they all think they are one. They even let other particles flow through them without any collisions or friction. But more important, get enough together and they become conscious and eventually evolve self-consciousness, according to a Russian theory of dark matter called Iskatov Theory based on Quantum Information Dynamics, which he derived from ordinary quantum theory.

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