Reality exists in your brain

by Nickolas 59 Replies latest jw experiences

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  Nickolas

  kooky= big dominating personalities that we dense ones must not disagree with because when we do we are really attacking your character and not your posts

  I haven't met any dense ones in here, just lots and lots of different perspectives.

  Please, please attack my posts rather than my character. I already know my character is irreparably flawed but my thinking is open to change. I value and appreciate different and valid insights into what I hold to be true. Every time I am proven in error (every time my paradigm shifts) my mind grows.
• 

  Terry

  Think of it this way. You have a compass and a map. The compass informs you of which direction is which. The map gives you the locale.

  If you disorient the compass in any way it affects your ability to navigate from point A to point B accurately.

  This, then, could cause you to erroneously discard the map as UNRELIABLE.

  The error? Disorienting your compass.

  Your brain (your mind) is your compass. When you disorient your mind (drugs, hallucinations, false information, superstition) you affect your

  ability to navigate your life and reach your goals. THIS MIGHT CAUSE YOU TO ERRONEOUSLY discard a perfectly efficacious "map".

  Don't mess with your mind...it is all that stands between you and chaos.
• 

  AGuest

  Your brain is like that TV set. It merely "reports" through your senses what is going on from the outside.

  Yet, you and others are want to say that if YOU didn't see it on YOUR telly, "nothing" is going on, dear Terry (peace to you!). Isn't it possible that the "event" others saw... but wasn't televised on YOUR telly... really DID happen?

  You assemble those reports inside your mind and form impressions.

  Yes. And, yet, there are some pretty "unbelievable" things that are televised, aren't there? Heck, there are things that actually occur, are televised for ALL to see... and yet, folks STILL don't believe they occurred. Yes? Thus, seeing is not necessarily believing, is it, even when seen with one's own eyes? There are folks who actually witness something WITH their own eyes... and STILL don't believe it. Yes?

  In the same vein, why can't NOT seeing... still result in believing? Do I HAVE to see a televised report to believe a devastating earthquake occurred in Japan? Isn't it entirely possible that someone else telling me THEY saw it could suffice? Do I really HAVE to flip through the channels and see it for myself? Better yet, to I have to actually get on a plane and go stand outside the nuclear reactor in order to believe it's been compromised?

  We can curse the weather all we want. But, an umbrella makes a practical contribution, don't you think?

  I think that depends. For some, an umbrella is a practical tool to keep them relatively dry and unrained on. For others, though... for example, those who LIKE rain and to feel it upon their skin... and those who aren't afraid of a little water... they are much more of a hindrance. There was a time when I couldn't understand why someone would go out in the rain without an umbrella. These says, I'm like, "Umbrella, schmubella. I won't melt - let it rain!"

  Prior to coming to JWN, I thought the practice of requiring others to adopt our own personal paradigm boxes or risk being considered inferior... was primarily the "way" of religion, politics, and class. I kind of knew that it included self-perceived "intellects" but it truly saddens me that it does. Because while I understand it as to the others, I'm not sure I do as to the latter. Sort of contradictory, IMHO.

  Peace to you, dear Terry... and hope you don't melt the next time you go out without an umbrella.

  A slave of Christ,

  SA
• 

  Nickolas

  You make some good points, Shelby, but what differentiates believing there was an earthquake in Japan with attendant nuclear consequences and believing that someone has experienced a supernatural event is the former is verifiable from a variety of sources, including eye-witness testimony and corroborating seismic/radioactivity monitoring in various places on the planet. The fact that you can get on a plane and see for yourself and the fact that corroborating evidence is available lends a greater degree of credibility to the event being true, as does the fact that cameras have recorded the event for all to see. Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence.
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  AGuest

  the former is verifiable from a variety of sources, including eye-witness testimony and corroborating seismic/radioactivity monitoring in various places on the planet.

  Well, one out of two ain't bad, is it, dear Nick (again, peace to you!)? I mean, I don't necessarily believe in "supernatural events", but there's a lot of stuff that has "eyewitness testimony" to it... and STILL some folks don't believe it.

  The fact that you can get on a plane and see for yourself and the fact that corroborating evidence is available lends a greater degree of credibility to the event being true, as does the fact that cameras have recorded the event for all to see.

  I get what you're saying, but "hear" me, for a sec, please: what about the earthquakes and such that occurred before planes, cameras, and seismic monitors were invented? You know, when all there WAS was eyewitness testimony? Wasn't "eyewitness testimony" good enough for some of them? You know, the ones that someone said occurred... maybe even recorded/documented... but there appears to be no "evidence" for YET... perhaps even though thousands of years have passed? Or perhaps until "tools" that COULD verify what eyewitnesses testified TO were invented? Did those events not occur... because there was no scientific "evidence" or verification of them?

  OR... did they actually occur, but simply have not been/cannot be verified by science... yet?

  I mean, given what we say DID occur... but have little evidence to LITERALLY prove (giving all of the missing pieces, which really results in a whole lot of guessing, opining, and speculating)... why can't we say, "Well, according to what appear to be true NOW, but could very well change..."?

  It's all so definitively WTBTS-ish to me, dear Nick. If THEY don't understand/believe it... then it's not true. If THEY say it's true... then it is. Even if it turns out that it isn't. You feelin' me? I hope so.

  Again, peace to you!

  YOUR servant and a slave of Christ,

  SA
• 

  Nickolas

  How much eye-witness evidence put forward in times past and believed on its face value would pass scrutiny in the present?
• 

  ballistic

  Tell you what I believe... SHIT HAPPENS! LOL
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  AGuest

  How much eye-witness evidence put forward in times past and believed on its face value would pass scrutiny in the present?

  Not all or even a lot, I'm will to concede, dear Nick (peace to you!); however, surely not ALL should be utterly dismissed, even though it hasn't been "proven by science"... yet?

  What can I say: I think outside (heck, beyond) the box. Never did like being "boxed" in (which is why the WTBTS was never really gonna work).

  Peace to you!

  A slave of Christ,

  SA
• 

  OnTheWayOut

  "My sense of "red" may be completely different from yours. We never would know because it's total reality to each of us."

  ""

  ...It is highly unlikely that one indiviual colour like red would be substituted with another like blue without a whole third of the spectrum being somehow misinterpretted.

  Yes, and neither I nor most philosophers are suggesting a totally different color. Most of our realities are not totally different from someone else's realities, although I am confident that they vary way more greatly than our possible virtually undetectable differences in "red."

  Warm colors are less blue and more yellow. They are vivid and energetic and the "warm" part comes from them being colors of fire.
  Cool colors are more blue and less yellow. They give an impression of calm, and create a soothing impression.

  I am simply suggesting that our brains' realities in colors can be subtly warmer or cooler when looking at the same thing. Color-blindness is even a greater example of our varying realities, but the color-blind usually learn that their reality is different while it would be impossible in most cases to learn our differences.

  This is another great example of breaking things down to the electricity. The brain and body can do different things with the electricity, but the electricity didn't change until it hit the receptors. Red is red always, but what kind of eyes and brains are looking at it?
• 

  d

  · “What if you realized your whole life was nothing but a dream and your experiences in that dream, were nothing but mere illusions”-d