Metaphysics Articles.
(Disjointed Ramblings)

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Articles include:-
Science And Mysticism
Belief Verses New Knowledge
Hyper Conscious Cats?
The Paradox Of Time Travel
Thoughts On Some Of The Problems Of Reality creation

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It seems to me that almost 100 years ago science came SO close to what some folks call 'mysticism', that the scientific establishment has spent a good deal of the intervening years trying to prove that it didn't. Closely followed by 'The Establishment', who didn't want to acknowledge that anything that could rock the boat, disturb the status quo, cause an outbreak of free thought, or otherwise cast doubt on big time conservatism with a small 'c' could possibly be worth looking into.

This is a great pity because it has held back the evolution (too strong a word) or possibly I should say development of the common man (indeed the whole of mankind) this past century. Other world shattering and changing events were of course the two World Wars, both of which changed the word by an inestimable amount. Who can say what our individual daily lives would be like today without either of the two big wars? I think the world is a better place today as a result of the change wrought by both wars, and perhaps that goes some way to making up for the huge amount of misery they caused.

Around the turn of the century Einstein was thinking the things that would lead to quantum physics. Granted the first World War was upon us before there was much to interest the populous at large, but it would have been nice if the 'implications' of quantum physics had been brought to the publics attention and interest. Quantum physics says the world is a) a very strange place, and b) it doesn't work one little bit like the way we have been brought up to believe it does.

A year or two ago I saw a T.V. documentary about alternative medicine, in which a medical doctor, with a computer sat on his desk said "I don't believe in homeopathy, they say it works by quantum mechanics but I don't believe it..." I'm paraphrasing of course. Now I know it's customary for educated middle aged people to suggest that if they personally weren't taught it between the ages of 18 and 24, it can't possibly happen, (The history of science is positively littered with cases of old scientists putting the breaks on new research 'cos they don't understand.) but if quantum physics and it's implications had been commonly talked about this past 60 or 70 years, even the most dim-witted of us would know that both computer processors and homeopathy work in accordance with quantum principals.

One hundred years later, or now as we call it, science is once again coming perilously close to mysticism. I say "perilously" because the old guard (and the surprisingly not old at all guard) will not allow the two to meet with out a fight. 'Over their collective dead body' if we are particularly lucky! Any way round, it is happening now and the momentum becomes greater with each passing day. This is a good thing.

This is a good thing because the truth is so much harder to hide than it was, even five years ago. Obviously the people in charge of hiding truth are getting better at it, what with the use of modern technology etc. But the fact remains that 1) attitudes have changed BIG TIME over the last few years and 2) Generation X, who are far more amenable to new ideas, are growing up and 3) today's technology makes hiding the truth far more difficult now than at any other time in our history.

The question then becomes: "What happens when, or at least immediately after science and mysticism merge?" I'm not at all sure, it's a bit like saying "What would the world be like if the two World Wars had not happened?" I'm sure there are plenty of people who would speculate about that one, but I shan't bother. I will however speculate about the merger of science and mysticism. I think that the so called 'life sciences' ... biology medicine etc. are going to be left trailing far behind, since, well they are miles behind any way, but mostly because they are already so resistant to the implications of quantum physics never mind any thing else. After they have fought (and lost) their rear guard action and been dragged kicking and screaming in to the 20th century - a mere 100 years behind the rest of us, things will settle down a bit.

As things stand at the moment you have to get your kids a good education if you want them to succeed. Once science and mysticism merge however, on it's own education will not be enough. Intelligence will be the key and education will be very secondary to that. Once that is realised, educated people will try like crazy to 'genetically engineer' intelligent offspring. I have no basis for saying this, but I've just got this feeling in my water that you can't genetically engineer intelligence. Therefor the whole balance of power will shift ... eventually. This will be a good thing. This is a momentous piece of history and it is happening now! Your choice is 'in what way are you going to participate?' Are you going to try and slow this whole thing down? (out of fear). Or are you going to hurry it along and welcome the future with open arms? Go with the flow I say.

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Belief Verses New Knowledge

Our beliefs are truly the underpinnings and foundations of our lives. In much the same way that shaking the foundations of our houses causes cracks to appear in the walls, shaking the foundations of our beliefs causes cracks to appear in our lives. We are not only talking major philosophical blockbusters here, but also little tiny bits of new information on any subject you care to name can have the same effect too.

It would seem that the way we view our world gets 'set' in our brains, as I understand it, things we think cause neural pathways to be created within our brain and the more we think the same or similar stuff the stronger these pathways become. London cab drivers are a good example of this, for unlike cab drivers in any other city in the world, you can't drive a black cab until you have passed the knowledge.

Basically a London cabby has to prove that he knows the route from say The Edgware Road to Kensington Gore, or Oxford Circus to Camden High Street. By the time these people have passed the knowledge they are the proud owners of some serious neural pathways. So, imagine if you will, trying to convince a bunch of cabbies that Admiralty Arch is actually just at the end of The Ballspond Road! Clearly we can't tell someone that place a) is now at place b) and to be fair as an example this whole thing is rather overstated, but you can see what I'm getting at.

In much the same way that we take it for granted that places will always be where they should be, we take a lot of other things for granted too. For instance, if the national average for junk food is six burgers per week, those of us who only eat three a week will compare ourselves to that average and deem ourselves not to be at any health risk. Society is a rapidly changing place, so if in a year the average jumps to fourteen, those of us eating seven will still consider that at only half the national average we are still at no health risk.

Food is a good case in point so let's stick with it. It is very comforting to know that there are a whole bunch of laws concerning food safety. Also it is very easy to believe that because of these laws, no one could possibly get away with putting stuff into food if it was in any way harmful. We all know that food is serious big business, but because of the way individual products are advertised ('country fresh goodness') we tend not to think the C.E.O. of a food company is under the same pressure to turn a quick profit as the C.E.O. of a pharmaceuticals company. But they are.

There is one particular food additive (that I'm not going to name) which is particularly nasty on the one hand, but on the other hand amazingly cheap!!! When I first heard about it I had no trouble believing that it might not be very cleaver to eat this stuff. Of course my neural pathways are quite ok about most if not actually all food additives being a bad thing. I have been busy believing you shouldn't put anything except food into food for ages now. So as I suggested to my friends and work colleagues that it was not a good idea to eat products containing this substance, I was surprised by their reaction. These varied from at best :- " I don't have that much of it .... so it's ok." through "Well you can't worry about everything you eat" to outright denial that it would be a problem.

Of course, me saying "Don't eat this stuff it's very bad for you" is hardly any reason to change your eating habits, so to prove my point, I was with only a minimal amount of research able to quote 'chapter and verse' about this additive, and it turned out to be even worse than I had been saying. The big surprise then was that still no one believed there could be something this nasty allowed in food. Or is it really that simple?

The first thing to remember is that the one thing most of us really don't like is a smart ass. We really really just don't like to be told, particularly if it involves someone telling us to stop doing something. The second thing is that as a general rule we fear change, at least we do if it is change of someone else's making.

Once a belief gets in your head it can be very hard to alter, and that's even when you know it is wrong. For instance, I spoke to a friend who is trying to give up smoking and she said that in spite of knowing how and why it is bad for her and in spite of knowing that when you smoke a lot of people think you are the sort of person who doesn't get out of the bath to have a wee .... , well in spite of all that she feels that when she is driving her clapped out old car, if she wears dark glasses and smokes, it makes her look amazingly cool!

You might argue that that's simply the power of advertising and you would be right. The purpose of advertising is to change beliefs, it does this by grinding you down, showing you the usually psychologically clever message over and over again .... "Smoke Macho Gaspers and have the kind of adventures only a Gaspers man can have. Smoke Girlie Gaspers and have big hair and legs to die for". It looks ridiculous written here but that's essentially what cigarette advertising is saying. Also without having to say anything more it is saying by inference "You non Gaspers smokers are neither cool and trendy or bright young things". There are three other things that do this too, politics, religion and .... er, magic! Yes, politics, religion, advertising and magic are in many ways very similar.

So what do you believe? Where did you get those ideas from in the first place? And who exactly is it who wants you to believe this stuff? Because it's no earthly use any one telling you any different, you simply wont believe it.

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Hyper Conscious Cats?

About fifteen years ago we were having a lazy day at home, the two of us and the two cats, Sarbi (properly spelled Saabie - don’t ask.) and the Sabre Cat. We were sitting reading and the cats were curled up fast asleep on the best seat in the house beneath the window. Suddenly Sarbi awoke with a start and looked around like he expected to see something exciting, something not usually to be found in our house on a dull autumnal afternoon. Whiskers twitching Sarbi leaped up and dashed out through the cat flap, the noise of which woke the Sabre Cat who also dashed out, closely followed by me. I had to open the door of course and by the time I had got down the stairs and around the corner, Sarbi was coming out of our next door neighbours gate carrying a mouse in his mouth! I must point out, it was not possible for him to have seen out of the window.

By my estimation the whole of the above took less than 30 seconds from waking up to coming through the gate with the mouse. So, the question is, ‘what do we have here?’ One of two things I think.

1) Cats spend a serious amount of time asleep and I guess quite a bit of that time they are simply .... well, asleep! But I reckon at least some of that time must be spent in what we would call ‘out of body experiences’. We have out of body experiences which, in our case, are in spite of our cultural background. In fact, it is only now that we can speak of such things without being branded a crank. Look at it this way, cats don’t read or watch T.V., they don’t do politics or religion either, nor do they organise their society the way we do. It is those things that stop us from having out of body experiences, those things that cut us off from nature and indeed from our very ‘creature hood’.

I think in this case the cat was getting on with some 'out of body' cat stuff he had to do when he came across the mouse. According to my observations (which are by no means definitive) if this happens the cat mostly does not wake up. BUT, in this instance he did and the rest as they say, is history .

Or:-

2) The foregoing makes the assumption that the cat in his out of body state either, a) got lucky and just happened to find a mouse. Or, b) was deliberately out hunting without his body. Perhaps cats only bother to wake up if they find a mouse within easy reach of their sleeping body; I don't know I'm speculating here. Either way there has to be an ACTUAL mouse going about it's lawful business for this to work. The other possibility is that he WAS dreaming and on dreaming a mouse right there in his own hard won territory, he either by accident or design woke up and did the whole predatory animal thing. Now, what I'm saying here is that I participated in a piece of reality created consciously or otherwise by my cat!

Or did I? What does your cat do when you are not observing it? How does it do it? Do trees really make no sound when they fall if there is no one there to hear? Perhaps the cat was participating in a piece of reality created by me, why not? After all I'm quite a bizarre dude!

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The Paradox Of Time Travel

Having invented a time machine you travel back in time and in a bar you meet your own grandfather. He is a young man, long before he ever met your grandmother.

Due to one thing and another (but mostly alcohol) a fight breaks out and to cut a long and tedious story short .... you kill your grandfather.

Conventionally the story should now go something like this:- Because you kill your grandfather, your parent and therefore you, will now not be borne, so it is impossible for you to invent a time machine and travel back in time .... Ergo time travel is impossible. Or, if it is , not in your case! I’m not about to argue in favour of time machines, but consider this: Right after you kill your grandfather you flee to the time machine with the local constabulary in hot pursuit. Caring not for the possible consequences of being caught drunk in charge of a time machine, you press the button that links the metaphasic anti-dismodulation thingy with the other bit, and foom, there you are gone, right back in your own time. With some trepidation you climb from the time machine, expecting a huge, noisy temporal vortex (with flashing lights and strange swirly things) to swallow you up at any moment. But no!

Finding your self to be inexplicably temporally present and correct you make a phone call.

"Hello Gran, how is Granddad today?" you ask.

"Same as usual" she replays,

"He’s down at his allotment, throwing brusselsprouts at the pidgins".

How can this be? Surely you have seriously interfered with the time line, thus making pidgins safe from brussel sprout molestation’s.

Time, as we all know flies like an arrow and fruit flies like a banana. It is also (erroneously) generally well known that the ‘winged arrow of time’ moves only in one direction. Well it certainly appears that way doesn’t it? Howsomever the arrow of time is less monodirectional than first it appears. Not that that is the point in case in this case.

We perceive time to move in only one direction, but things that happened in our past are still changeable. The amount of change being dependent on the individuals belief. For instance it may be relatively easy to convince your self that as a child you were very popular at school. Once you have done this then for you time has gone backwards and then forwards again. Persuading your self that the video recorder you had stolen last week is still sitting on top of the T.V. is a different jug of hares altogether. It may be impossible for you to believe this, in which case you cannot have time go backwards then forwards while you sort your life out. Ergo the V.C.R. is still stolen.

Getting right back to our murdered grandparent and assuming we travel back in time to commit ‘grandparentocide’ the result would be this:-

Everything in your original time remains the same BUT at the point where you kill your grandfather a new time line is created. One which reacts to the result of some stranger with a time machine killing some dude in a bar. Following that time line you would find that minus one grand parent you would of course not be borne and so the world would be a different place, particularly if you were the person who went on to develop a cure for management consultants and stupidity. Of course it should be obvious, but probably isn't, that once the time machine takes you back to your 'proper' time you are once again in the original time line where no one murdered your grandfather. The bottom line, - and I really hate that expression - is that time is an illusion and that reality is the product, more or less of belief.

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Thoughts On Some Of The Problems Of Reality creation

If we create our own reality as we go along.... which we do.... and if we are aware of this.... which obviously we are, well some of us are anyway.... then it is reasonable to assume that conscious reality creation of things the way we want them, must be easily doable. For the vast majority of us however, this is simply not so.

The things that stand in our way are our beliefs, which on the face of it sounds too simple. Amongst the things we believe, things that stop us from creating ‘nicer’ reality’s, are first and foremost a whole bunch of beliefs about ourselves, off the top of my head here are a few.

Most of us hold a sort of general ‘unworthiness’ belief, this is the one that says ‘good things don’t happen to me’. Clearly good things happen to everyone, but this belief is one that ‘set’s limits’. For instance we may fall in love and be happy, which most folks would agree is a good thing, however thereafter we find it very difficult, if not impossible to improve our lot in life. We are prevented from getting ahead because more specifically we believe we don’t come from the right background. We are not well enough educated, or maybe we are just plain old ‘unlucky’!! The ‘unlucky’ belief can and does wreck lives, but any one who allows ‘self created reality’ is unlikely to go too far down that road. The ‘unlucky’ belief then, is replaced by the negative version of the ‘it won’t happen to me’ belief. In the end this one breaks down into ‘poor me’ syndrome, because ‘It won't happen to me’ says; "No matter how hard I work or how good the plan is, I still wont succeed".

The other class of belief is the external type, for instance it is the actions of other people that prevent us from getting ahead. Sometimes these are specific individuals, but often large groups such as bankers or the government. Often this becomes the ubiquitous ‘they’, whose actions are giving us such a hard time. Then there is the fabric of society, or indeed the very fabric of the universe that causes things to ‘have to be’ the way they are because ‘I’ can’t cause influence over one other person, let alone many. In the end we get down to victimhood and myrterhood then finally back to ‘poor me’.

Another belief held by many people is that there is some outside force that interferes with their reality creation, weather they call this God , the universe or simply an aspect of their higher self is not important. The end result is a fuelling of the fires of ‘poor me’.

We believe the things in our reality to be ‘too real’ , the more real we make them the more difficulty we have manipulating them. As we fail to manipulate stuff we see this as conformation of their realness and also as a reinforcement of our ‘poor me’. ‘If only I was in a different situation to this, then reality creation would be easy, I wouldn’t have to manipulate ‘heavy stuff’.’ In the end it is all the same, ‘poor me’, or ‘self pity’ as it is properly called.

Most of us have a mental block when it comes to admitting we are in self pity and although the bottom line for all our problems is always self pity, we are mostly even less inclined to admit to doing the other major thing most of us do, which is martyrhood. Like ‘bad luck’ ‘martyrhood’ wrecks lives. We all do it from time to time, and some of us do it for extended periods. I suspect martyr is a form of ‘reverse outside validation’, instead of saying to the world "See, look how great I am doing all this stuff .... tell me how good you think I am ....". The martyr is saying "Look what a hard time I’m having here, busting my ass all day long with nothing to show but heart ache and a peptic ulcer .... tell me how good you think I am ...." The question is, who are we doing it for? Which person, alive or dead, one of your close associates or some one out of touch with you for 20 years is supposed to be impressed by this?

What we fail to realise when we are doing martyr (apart from the fact that we are doing it) is that other people don’t like it one bit. The energy surrounding a person in martyr is not very nice, as the martyrhood grows we find we really don’t want to be too near these people. Every one else can plainly see we are giving our selves a hard time and generally doing everything the hardest way possible. Eventually, when we have become really good and dedicated martyrs, we also get good at hiding it too. Casual acquaintances think life has dealt us an unpleasant hand, but unfortunately those who know us well, still think we deliberately do things the hard way. Those who know us really well will say to each other "You can’t help people who won’t help them selves".

In the end everything boils down to self pity. The reality surrounding us and even the emotions within us are all our own creation, (Granted our emotions really are real, even when they are misplaced.) what we must get a thorough grip of, is the fact that it is all the outside manifestation of our inner state. Whatever we don’t like ‘out there’ can ONLY be changed from in here. Simply disliking it only goes to strengthen our self pity.

jenrik@dircon.co.uk

Ó Rik Dent. You may use this material as you wish but only in full, do not edit.
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