Spirituality and the human life force

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
Life is not energy. There is no "conservation of life" principle.

Can you prove that it is'nt? Seriously, can you demonstrate this belief of yours?

Nyxie

Originally posted by Nyxie
Can you prove that it is'nt? Seriously, can you demonstrate this belief of yours?

Nyxie

No. Can you prove anything?

Is there any reason to believe in this 'conservation of life' principle? Why not a principle where the amount of 'life' doubles every twenty seconds?

Originally posted by vistesd
RB,

In another thread, you said: "Who says dead people are in Heaven, they are more alive then we are." So why couldn't they communicate the way Nyxie is suggesting?

Well in another Thread, I said I believe that God would not want his Children there to see this sinful world.

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
No. Can you prove anything?

I am not the one who made the statement. I am simply speaking of beliefs and I have asserted none of them here.

You said your statement with such certainty that I expected you to actually have some proof.

Nyxie

Originally posted by RBHILL
Well in another Thread, I said I believe that God would not want his Children there to see this sinful world.

That was a direct quote, RB, that I cut & pasted from another thread. Granted, I took it out of the context of the thread (it was in the context of your debate with Nemesio about asking Mary, or others, to pray for you), but my question still remains.

Originally posted by Nyxie
I am not the one who made the statement. I am simply speaking of beliefs and I have asserted none of them here.

You said your statement with such certainty that I expected you to actually have some proof.

Nyxie

The reason I said what I said is that there is no evidence for a conservation of life principle or an equivalence of life and energy. Possibly I wrote with too much conviction. I don't absolutely know that this principle and equivalence don't exist.

You stated

The energy which is conciousness

I don't think that conciousness is energy. I think it probably comes from a certain organization of matter and/or energy. Organization, or ordered arrangement, can be destroyed.

When you wrote

Energy cannot be created or destroyed, so how can or life force cease to exist?

You very strongly implied that "life force" is energy. I don't see any reason to think this is true and I don't think you do either. If you do I'd like to hear your reason for thinking this is true.

I apologize if I misled you by not putting qualifiers in my statements. However, as nothing can be proved, it becomes awkward to have to put qualifiers on everything we say.

"There's an apple in the fruit bowl, I think. Mom's working, I think. I haven't eaten today, I think. I have blue eyes, I think. I am six feet tall, I think." Etc.

But maybe I should have used such qualifiers anyway. I am saying I know of no evidence supporting your implied claim, and so it is most reasonable to assume it's probably not true.

Do you think life can be converted to electricity and used to power a light bulb?

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
The reason I said what I said is that there is no evidence for a conservation of life principle or an equivalence of life and energy. Possibly I wrote with too much conviction. I don't absolutely know that this principle and equivalence don't exist.

You stated

[b]The energy which is conciousness

I don't think that conciousness is ene ...[text shortened]... y not true.

Do you think life can be converted to electricity and used to power a light bulb?[/b]

In simplistic terms I believe that a live person can produce energy yes. We are in essence modifiers of energy. We can turn a wheel that can power a light. We can produce force and we have mass. Are brain patterns are seperate enough that they can be measured in a medium of energy.

Thought is energy? This is perhaps a better question to ask for the scientific way that you view the subject.

Nyxie

Originally posted by Nyxie
In simplistic terms I believe that a live person can produce energy yes. We are in essence modifiers of energy. We can turn a wheel that can power a light. We can produce force and we have mass. Are brain patterns are seperate enough that they can be measured in a medium of energy.

Thought is energy? This is perhaps a better question to ask for the scientific way that you view the subject.

Nyxie

We can take energy from the outside environment and use it to do work. This is different from using our own life to power the work. If life or conciousness are energy, then we are batteries, and we can 'use up' our life to do work. I think it's more accurate to look at humans as machines which can redirect energy.

All the energy we use to turn wheels that power lights comes from the food we eat. Claiming that life itself is energy is entirely different.

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
We can take energy from the outside environment and use it to do work. This is different from using our own life to power the work. If life or conciousness are energy, then we are batteries, and we can 'use up' our life to do work. I think it's more accurate to look at humans as machines which can redirect energy.

All the energy we use to tur ...[text shortened]... r lights comes from the food we eat. Claiming that life itself is energy is entirely different.

We use the energy we aquire, yes. We do not create new energy. We do not destroy energy. I guess that's where the conservation law fits in.

Do we affect the energy? Can we change it's direction and it's output?

We are concious and in that we affect through our choices. These choices are not set. Our thought patterns are measured as energy. Synapses of the brain registered on an ecg. These patterns are not the patterns of energy that entered our bodies. I say these patterns continue past the point of the modifier (us) because the energy can not be destroyed.

Nyxie

Perhaps it is mind itself that continues on after so-called death.

Originally posted by Nemesio
I've never heard of anyone but a Christian claim to be 'slain in the Spirit' or
'speaking in tongues.'

These are viewed as occult by non-Christians.

Who are you to say that your 'supernatural experiences' are True and that
other people have 'Demonic ones?'

Opinion, not fact.

Nemesio

Because my 'supernatural experiences' line up with Scripture and theirs do not.

The day you become a Christian, Nemesio, I'm sure there will be loud rejoicing in Heaven.

Originally posted by Darfius
Because my 'supernatural experiences' line up with Scripture and theirs do not.

Please list your supernatural experiences.

Thank you.

Originally posted by Darfius
Because my 'supernatural experiences' line up with Scripture and theirs do not.

The day you become a Christian, Nemesio, I'm sure there will be loud rejoicing in Heaven.

If being in heaven means having to spend an eternity with you, Darfius, then I think it would start to resemble hell very quickly.

Originally posted by Darfius
Because my 'supernatural experiences' line up with Scripture and theirs do not.

The day you become a Christian, Nemesio, I'm sure there will be loud rejoicing in Heaven.

How do you respond to the situations in which Jesus had supernatural experiences that did not line up with that day's understanding of Scripture?

Originally posted by Nyxie
We use the energy we aquire, yes. We do not create new energy. We do not destroy energy. I guess that's where the conservation law fits in.

Do we affect the energy? Can we change it's direction and it's output?

We are concious and in that we affect through our choices. These choices are not set. Our thought patterns are measured as energy. Synapses ...[text shortened]... s continue past the point of the modifier (us) because the energy can not be destroyed.

Nyxie

Hi Nyxie,

Do you think that the patterns of electrical energy underlying a computer program persist even after the circuits in the computer hardware are physically destroyed?

It seems there is little reason to.

Do you believe that the patterns of electrical energy underlying a soul persist even after the neurons in the organic brain are physically destroyed?

It seems there is little reason to.

I once saw a documentary on brain surgery. In it, a neurosurgeon was featured excising a tumour in a man's brain, as well as some ambient neural tissue. The neurosurgeon had to cut out a little brain to minimize the possibility of a malignant tumour growing back, because if he missed any of the tumour, it would likely have grown again. As a safety measure, the patient was kept conscious, so that the neurosurgeon could judge for his responses when the excision was beginning to go too far. The man eventually started becoming unable to name simple objects like watches, and started maundering on like a moron. (Happily, he recovered most of his mental agility after the operation).

You can't watch an operation like that, where the exquisite and complete dependence of the mind on the brain is vividly illustrated, and continue to endorse simplistic models of soul-body independence.
Our souls are hooked up in an intimate though mysterious way with the mush in our heads, and though it might be nice to imagine otherwise, all the evidence is that if you mess with the mush you screw with the soul.