Your opinion please

[KittyKatBlack]

In my opinion, there is no absolutes in our universe, or should I say, there is only two. Yes or No. On or off. 1 or 0. Black or White. Is or Is Not. The concept of this, often called boolien logic, is the only absolute in the universe.

Everything exists in one of two states. Everything in the universe can be described with a series of yes or no questions. A lot of them are required for complex things, but at it's core everything boils down to this base. Existance or Non Existance.

It may be too late at night, but these statements confuse me.
You seem to be saying that while nothing is absolute, everything can be expressed in absolute terms.

Ok, maybe I should clarify. You're actually pretty close. Everything consists of smaller bits of things, (Atoms, for example). In these combined states they form something else, it could be anything at all. But because these larger things are built on a smaller structure, they are dependant, or should I relative to the parts that compose it. It's these parts that exist in an absolute state, but the object itself is not absolute because simply changing the state of one of it's parts would change the object. This doesn't just apply to matter, but it's the basic idea.

To sum it up, everything can be changed, but they will always be in one of these two states. That is what I mean by there are no absolutes except for the two states of being.

[Terotrous]

Fair enough, but that suggests that absolute statements can be made about things which are irreduceable, a catergory in which most religions would place entities like God and the immortal soul.

Of course, this presupposes that these things are irreduceable in the first place, but if religion happens to be right here, that would make a number of their arguements deductively sound.

[KittyKatBlack]

Fair enough, but that suggests that absolute statements can be made about things which are irreduceable, a catergory in which most religions would place entities like God and the immortal soul.

Of course, this presupposes that these things are irreduceable in the first place, but if religion happens to be right here, that would make a number of their arguements deductively sound.

God itself is not an absolute, even by these terms. Since God is an undifinable entity and is irriduceable, he still falls under the catagory of 'Exist' or 'Not Exist'. Basicly meaning that God is not an absolute. He is still bound by the very nature of being in a state of existance or a state of non-existance. But the absolute is that he can only be in one of these two states. There is no third. We just don't know which one it is for sure.

[Terotrous]

Oh, I think I now see what you meant by "absolute" is "can be known with total certainty", whereas I was thinking more along the lines of whether "statements of fact" about an object could be made and still account for all the potential variation.

So it seems you're saying the one point of knowledge that can be known absolutely is "nothing can be and not be at the same time", which I believe was called "the rule of consistency" in my Philosophy class or something.

[KittyKatBlack]

Oh, I think I now see what you meant by "absolute" is "can be known with total certainty", whereas I was thinking more along the lines of whether "statements of fact" about an object could be made and still account for all the potential variation.

So it seems you're saying the one point of knowledge that can be known absolutely is "nothing can be and not be at the same time", which I believe was called "the rule of consistency" in my Philosophy class or something.

Pretty much. The absolute is the two states themselves. Nothing can be both of them. They have to be one or the other. And there will never be more or less than these two states. That is the only constant in the universe.

[Yeahduff]

I believe the Bible contains an anecdote where Jesus says along the lines that if people had the simplicity of trust and faith demonstrated in a child then there would be paradise on earth. Maybe we do not have to question so much as try to understand from what we already know...just a timid suggestion.

I always hate when god and Jesus criticize humans and go on about how evil and shallow they are, as if they had nothing to do with how they turned out.

Guh. Gotta go.

[Skylark King]

If you're reading a book to tell you what to think and do and feel then you're already screwed. That's not a critisism of the Bible, mind you, but rather a critisism of how people use the Bible. Christianity isn't defined by a book, though most people will use that book to define it.

We're all english speaking freaks (for the most part) so to think that a book that has several dozen DIFFERENT ENGLISH trasnlations alone is accurate is foolish. Most of us have done the abblefish thing where you take something, translate it into a different language and then translate it back to english you see that it's very different from the original text. Furthermore, it doesn't matter.

So, for the most part I refuse to take the letter of the bible seriously, thought the spirit is pretty evident. And THAT'S what matters because THAT'S the point. When you die, the bouncer at the gates is not going to ask you biblical trivia questions or drill you on Bible verses, because he doesn't give a fuck. He'll want to know if you got the point. God doesn't care if you read the Bible, as long as you understand the message.

and don't get me started on churches... as near as I remember there's only one Bible story where Jesus even set foot in a chruch and it ended with him trashing the place.

Bottom line... you take from your religion and what yuou are tought what you take from it. Don't let to mindless prattlings of anyone, including and especially myself, sway you unless you believe we are right. You are your convictions and beliefs, NOT the convictions and beliefs of others.

[Jesusabdullah]

As near as I remember there's only one Bible story where Jesus even set foot in a chruch and it ended with him trashing the place.

Really? If that's true, then that's pretty badass.

Though, I bet it was a synagogue <spelling?> and not a Christian church. I could be totally wrong though, I'm just guessing here.

[Blackaby]

How in heck do you know there won't be a bouncer at the gates asking you Biblical trivia?

[Nanda]

Though, I bet it was a synagogue <spelling?> and not a Christian church. I could be totally wrong though, I'm just guessing here.

Pretty safe bet, since there was no Christianity before Christ.

[Guildmaster Van]

There is no third. We just don't know which one it is for sure.

You're assuming there is no third form of existance.
Based on your assumptions of "existance" and "nonexistance" you forget the supernatural ideas that could be called "unexistance" ("Un" similar to "undead"; not "in" as in "inexistance") - which is that souls, spirits, and the like which don't physically exist in our plane of existance do exist in another plane of existance or fourth dimension which we as third dimensional beings cannot see or comprehend.

And that's just one of many possibilities.
When speaking about undefinable things it's best if you don't examine them with easily definable rules.

Science refuses to acknowledge anything that cannot be measured or examined in the conventional sense, so why bother applying scientific rules to something that cannot be measured or examined? If you insist on applying rules to such things you much apply those rules which are contrary to science - if not you're just going in a hopeless circle which creates no answers other than "god exists" or "god does not exist" when the preternatural nature of the universe clearly allows for an infinite amount of answers so long as you stop trying to define everything by bendable and breakable scientific rules.

Since you understand and believe the universe to works only in a certain way you close the doors to the possibility that the universe works in a multitude of ways and has no rules that cannot be broken by the right circumstances.

Alchemy, for example, has been thrown out the window in modern day because it's simply unscientific as the entire point of alchemy is to break the rules that science has set. Who's to say that transmutation is an impossibility? Science says so - but even then science does acknowledge that you can create your own elements and transform one element into another via nuclear reactions. Given that science does acknowledge a form of "transmutation" what makes something that was studied for hundreds upon hundreds of years a worthless "unscience"?

Because science does not devote nearly enough time to the preternatural and scoffs at all who do how can they ever come up with a cohesive answer to that which defy science?

That said; I believe the universe is obtuse and the rules mankind has set for it are based out of a narrowminded perspective of "constancy" - that damnable mathematic equation that a variable must equate to something.

Viva el nonlinear dynamics!

[War]

Alchemy is chemistry. Alchemical transmutation is impossible.

[K-Dawg]

How in heck do you know there won't be a bouncer at the gates asking you Biblical trivia?

Well unlike everyone else I'll be prepared; thanks to these guns!
*kisses his muscles*

[Guildmaster Van]

Alchemical transmutation is impossible.

Pfft, didn't you watch Disney as a kid? Nothing is impossible!
Just click your heels together two time and say "Smells like brain damage"

[Blackaby]

Alchemical transmutation is impossible.

Pfft, didn't you watch Disney as a kid? Nothing is impossible!
Just click your heels together two time and say "Smells like brain damage"

To get brain damage, of course, or at least some form of malignant tumour, the trick is to click your heels and say, "Smells like burning feathers."

[Rkolter]

A fourth dimension, if it exists, to conform with what we see in three dimensions, has some very specific limitations. In fact, we can design objects in four dimensions, talk about what happens to matter in four dimensions, and simulate energy moving in four dimensions.

Ghosts that interact with us in a three dimensional world are bound within this world to it's laws. Thus for example, a ghost who is visible to the human eye must be visible to a camera sensitive to the same wavelengths of light. A photon is a photon.

If there were some special "human only four dimensional photon", it could not interact with three-dimensional matter as a four-dimensional photon. It would interact within the limitations of three dimensional space. This is why (as a related example) you cannot show a sphere to a two dimensional society no matter how hard you may try. The 3d sphere interacts in two-d space with two-d creatures in a two-d way - it starts as a small circle, expands, then contracts.

This arguement holds true for five, six, seven... as many dimensions as you like. Ghosts are not four dimensional. Adding an extra dimension makes things sound scientific, but really helps only rarely.

[Mercury Hat]

As near as I remember there's only one Bible story where Jesus even set foot in a chruch and it ended with him trashing the place.

Really? If that's true, then that's pretty badass.

Though, I bet it was a synagogue <spelling?> and not a Christian church. I could be totally wrong though, I'm just guessing here.

It was because there were money-changers in the temple. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_and_ ... y_Changers . They'd turned a holy place into a site of business and that pissed him off so he ran them out.

[Guildmaster Van]

A fourth dimension, if it exists, to conform with what we see in three dimensions, has some very specific limitations. In fact, we can design objects in four dimensions, talk about what happens to matter in four dimensions, and simulate energy moving in four dimensions.

Ghosts that interact with us in a three dimensional world are bound within this world to it's laws. Thus for example, a ghost who is visible to the human eye must be visible to a camera sensitive to the same wavelengths of light. A photon is a photon.

If there were some special "human only four dimensional photon", it could not interact with three-dimensional matter as a four-dimensional photon. It would interact within the limitations of three dimensional space. This is why (as a related example) you cannot show a sphere to a two dimensional society no matter how hard you may try. The 3d sphere interacts in two-d space with two-d creatures in a two-d way - it starts as a small circle, expands, then contracts.

This arguement holds true for five, six, seven... as many dimensions as you like. Ghosts are not four dimensional. Adding an extra dimension makes things sound scientific, but really helps only rarely.

I understand the ideas of dimension, but you made a wrong assumption - if ghosts truly exist they would be formed from electrons, not photons or neutrons. While the whole debate is purely speculative ghost hunters, demonologists and other paranormal investigators read energy signatures given off by these entities, as it seems spirits are self-aware entities made from pure energy, similar to your character ABOL.

This explains how entities (The common name for all the different types of spirits) can interact with their environment by using their energy to push and pull objects. Similarly, when you look at "psychics" or "telekenetics", you get the feeling that the cognitive portion of man, the mind, is energy based. I mean, thoughts and feelings are passed by chemical-electric reactions in the body after all so it is no long stretch to say that the entierty of the mind itself is formed not by the brain but rather the energy given off by it (Which could explain why people can live relatively normally without large portions of their brain). This also explains why some people can see auras; theoreticly the body's energy surrounding a person that is readable to determine everything from mood to illnesses.

My ideas on a fourth dimension is that it is composed of energy rather being a physical dimension. Of course; that's just a random unproveable theory of mine. It's sort of my way of explaining the afterlife, in that we exist simultaneously in all dimensions but our energy remains in the fourth after our bodies die.

Going back to my points about entities, since they do not possess an actual physical form, they can only be seen when they manifest themselves through energy since energy can be seen depending on what form it takes. That said; if the fourth dimension is energy entities can manifest themselves from the unseeable fourth dimension into something we in the third can see.

Of course; science can't truly measure or examine any of this, so these theories remain on the fringe left to other preternatural investigators.

[Rkolter]

I understand the ideas of dimension, but you made a wrong assumption - if ghosts truly exist they would be formed from electrons, not photons or neutrons. While the whole debate is purely speculative ghost hunters, demonologists and other paranormal investigators read energy signatures given off by these entities, as it seems spirits are self-aware entities made from pure energy, similar to your character ABOL.

I think you misunderstood me on one point - I was not suggesting ghosts had to be made of photons, only that if a ghost is visible to a human being, it must be visible because it is emitting photons the human eye is sensitive to. And a camera should see them too. A photon is a photon.

So when someone says, "I saw it, but it didn't show up on film!" what they saw was probably not a ghost. Or "I saw it clear as day but the film is blurry" - maybe they were frightened and jiggled the camera.

As far as what they're made of? I've got no clue and wouldn't care to hazard a guess. Perhaps they are nothing more than areas where the conditions are right to affect nearby electrical currents. Not ghosts so much as places where the conditions are right to affect the electronics of a brain. It'd explain why animals seem to see ghosts.

[KittyKatBlack]

On the topic of ghosts, I would have to say that my best explination is (again this is not really based on any type of research, just an idea.) that since only a small portion of the human brain is actually used, that means that there are probably parts that have uses we don't know of yet. It is also speculated that some animals, such as dolphins are capable of some sort of telepathy. That being said, I would venture a guess that ghosts are not really intelligent enties at all, but more like emotional 'burn marks' on areas that some people can pick up through parts of their brain. Which would explain why someone may see something but not be able to get it on camera. Because it's not really there, it's just their brain triggering an effect that only they can see, much like a hallucination. Most ghost analyizers will tell you that ghosts tend to appear in areas where a very emotional state was reached. My theory is that emotional energy has imprinted itself in that area and lingers for a set period of time (I have no idea how long, but since no one's ever seen a ghost of a cave man as far as I'm aware, I figure it will eventually disapate.) Of course, not everyone who passes by will pick up this imprint. Most likely it would be a random event that just happens to be triggered by a random reaction in the brain. It would explain why ghosts tend to be doing the same thing over and over again that they did in life, and why most tend to 'ignore' the living. Those that seem to interact may be altered by the person's own imagination, but that's also just speculation.