Marisa Ryan, Certified Psychic Medium Tackles Big Picture Questions |398|

The real question for me is whether there's been enough time (according to the current consensually accepted estimate, which may or may not be so) for abiogenesis (and subsequent dissemination to earth) to have happened anywhere in the entire universe. 13 bn years

Awesome question. One which abductively suggests that we might be one of the first lifeforms in this Universe. But we do not have enough foundational epistemology, nor ability to assemble a testing mechanism, nor ability to draw intelligence, sufficient to mature that question into an actual hypothesis.
 
If there is something that is intermediate, I'm not aware of it. There seems a stark contrast between even the most complex non-living, and the most simple living, systems. They're about as far apart in complexity as one can imagine.

This is the purpose of the blog article Embargo of the Necessary Alternative is Not Science. The XXX codex, without XX codex precedent IS the 'something that is intermediate'... it is a set of footprints in the snow, laid before anything was around which possessed the feet necessary to make them. A set of logical actions which precede the first qualified life on earth, because we have no fossil record of a XX codex based life. Therefore the logic embedded into the assembly of that code is our only and best clue of a pre-life context.

And counter to the social argument over the 3rd letter of the XXX codex, my point in the blog article is that it is the second letter of the codex which bears the uncanny mystery. Not the third. We have missed this - and it takes a cryptographer at times to spot such a curious pattern as exists with the second digit of the XXX codon.

very fun too
:)
 
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There's a little more to this than you know about, but unfortunately my hands are tied and I can't say more.

Wait... What is this supposed to mean? The statement is agressively ambiguous and implies a threat. If you are not intending to threaten or bully me here, I suggest you clarify what you have written.

And I re-read the article comments you referenced. They were speaking about the material depth and difficulty - and NOT my writing style as you contended ('unfamiliar terminology' & 'articles are getting pretty deep on average').

Let me make this point very clear: I am not impressed at all with the reception you have given me here. I believe a little damage control is in order on your part.
 
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To reiterate, Jerry worked as a psychotherapist in hospitals and the US prison system, principally with schizophrenics. He came to believe 'the voices' were (for the most part) parasitic entities generating then feeding of negative human emotion. He also talks about how they can use deception, pretending to be spirit guides or ascended masters, whatever a person was seeking.

See also the works of William Baldwin - Spirit Releasement Therapy
 
I mentioned that Jerry had said there was no evidence of a chemical imbalance in the brain to a friend but he said that there was in the dopamine system. Of course that doesn’t explain why the voices are for the most part so nasty and tormenting but I would like to hear Jerry’s comments.
 
Under the discipline of scientific hypothesis, I am not tasked with ascertaining the reality nor lack thereof, of abiogenesis on another planet. I am only tasked with falsifying it as the null hypothesis on Earth. Panspermia is a SET of alternatives, all of which falsify abiogenesis. There is no Wittgenstein definition for 'off Earth abiogenesis' - so it is not scientific. We have no definition, pretext nor context for it.

Abiogenesis does not have a meaning outside Earth context, ...yet. So to venture there requires me to stack risky sets of brash assumptions which I cannot make - therefore establishing the idea as pseudo-hypothesis.
Well abiogenesis does have a meaning outside of the context of Earth. For example, if it could be established that biological material was dispersed in space, it could be argued that abiogenesis could have taken place on any one of a huge number of planets in the galaxy, each of which could have used some fraction of the age of the universe (13 billion years) to 'try' to produce beginning life. The 2 million years available for the process on Earth, could be expanded to permit billions of years on who knows how many suitable planets.

This is not something I think is likely, but in discussions about evolution it is worth exploring just how far it is possible to nail down the argument against evolution by natural selection preceded by abiogenesis. The really interesting question is surely, whether life could have arisen by random processes in any way at all. - at least that is what I find interesting - do we have to invoke a designer (one or several) or is there any other alternative?

My view is that Darwin's theory was sunk the moment that the structure and function of DNA became obvious.

BTW, if you haven't listened to James Tour's video, that Michael supplied, I'd really recommend it.

David
 
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How sad the book wasn’t finished Richard, has any of it published, perhaps as an article?

It must have been almost twenty five years ago that the work of Professor Marius Romme became known in the UK, workshops were held, and the Hearing Voices Movement began. Marius wrote books together with Sandra Escher, the first, Accepting Voices, was published by the charity Mind who were keen to promote their work. Sandra went on to do ground breaking work with children who heard voices. Their books are worth reading, also one called Hearing Voices by John Watkins. If Jerry does come back to answer more questions I would love to know if their is an equivalent organisation in the USA.


Hello Maggie, so as not to hijack this thread, I've copied and responded to your posts on one dedicated to the Mazinsky interview -

http://www.skeptiko-forum.com/threa...ession-and-freedom-with-jerry-marzinsky.4244/
 
I am fairly sure that Michael was referring to the fact that he and I discussed your writing style privately - so blame me if you like.
To be clear, this is not a question of moderation, but because you have interesting ideas, Michael and I think it is a crying shame that your style gets in the way of communicating your ideas. Clearly Alex doesn't agree.

When I write anything, I try to be as clear as possible.

I don't want to inflame this discussion by quoting examples of what I mean, though if you PM me, I will do so - I really just want you to maximise your impact on this forum, by not obscuring what you have to say.

David
wow... you really don't get it David.
 
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So I haven't even finished listening to the whole interview yet (I know, bad form) and I haven't read all 8 pages yet (but I will, probably after I write this) however I was on a bus and felt the need to stick my oar in regarding this parallel lives/serial experiences thing.

I think a lot of the confusion comes from our seemingly hard-wired (or is it culturally specified) urge to view time itself in a one-dimensional manner. Of course, if time were 1D, we could only have discrete serial experiences as souls but that is not the case. I keep visualising a loaf of bread - a 3D one - and I think we only need 3 dimensions to explain the issue. Imagine a loaf of bread, except a loaf of bread whose dimensions are either infinite, or sufficiently large enough to seem infinite from our limited perspective. Each finite 'moment' of time (yes I know there are about 70 problems with this example already, just hear me out) is a slice in the loaf. Each soul can 'consume' one crumb out of one slice, and another from the next and so on and so on - that's one life, one timeline. When we finish one life, we can go back - or forward - in the loaf, and start consuming another time'line of crumbs'. Now... there's no need to fight over these crumbs. Each soul can certainly experience a crumbline that overlaps with other crumblines... it's no problem. It's not an issue because time is not one-dimensional. It just has to seem that way to us in our largely 1D brains... it's the only way to make sense of an incarnate life.

As you are Skeptiko listeners, I don't need to point out how there are many different disciplines coming back and telling us that time doesn't necessarily run in a one-dimensional 'line of discrete marbles' ('that's my marble, I spent it, you can't spend the same marble') configuration. Actually, what am I saying. Not "doesn't necessarily"... it doesn't.

I am enjoying this interview immensely and can't wait to catch up on other episodes. I consider myself to have an intuition that goes ever so slightly beyond the purely intellectual, and I felt like Marisa was bang on everywhere except where she said the word 'impossible'. I've yet to encounter anything that I would necessarily say is impossible. 'Not likely to happen now or later in this lifetime' is the closest I can get to impossible. So when I hear it, my intuition alarms start going off.

Lastly I apologise if I have just restated ideas that are likely to be in pages 2-7 of this thread, as I say I'm off to fill out my profile, read this thread and some more, and get fully comfortable in the Skeptiko forums. However, I also need to tidy the house and sort out a lot of stuff before the owners of the house get back from their holiday and say WHAT THE FLARP HAVE YOU DONE TO OUR LOVELY HOME CHRIS

Infinite love and blessings, especially deep thanks to Alex, for Skeptiko and his open and welcoming attitude towards us his listeners (and worshippers in my case, yes, get that bunny in the pot Alex) and Marisa, clearly someone with a wealth of compassion and wisdom who doesn't hide her light under a bushell (even though she initially would have loved the simplicity of that, ha ha! Unlucky Marisa!! :D)

[edit: Yes. so I do think we can go backwards or forwards in time when we choose to incarnate. I believe that I could 'have a go' being Freddy Mercury or Shakespeare... actually I'm not sure about that. Actually yes I am. All I am really sure of is that thinking things impossible, or as anything less than infinite, is a really quaint human delusion. Remember that if you take all the atoms in the known universe, it's a big number. And you calculate all the different positions they can have relative to one another, it's another huge number. Something like a googolplex. BUT IT AIN'T INFINITE! So everything we could ever imagine, have, do be or see fits comfortably within the realm of the Infinite.]

Oh and I noticed that Marisa may be reading this thread... can I ask her, or anyone who has an intuition on this question, is it okay to be cremated? Because from the first 'murder victims' story right at the beginning of the interview, it sounded like it was more of an issue to the spirit that her old body parts be recovered. Why is that? For closure of the people she left behind? My intuition tells me there's nothing we can do in 3D physical reality that will prevent our souls from their spiritual inheritance/nature and crossing over, but I do worry, especially as someone who struggles with mental health issues, suicidal ideation blah blah blah O N E L O V E
 
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I am fairly sure that Michael was referring to the fact that he and I discussed your writing style privately - so blame me if you like.
To be clear, this is not a question of moderation, but because you have interesting ideas, Michael and I think it is a crying shame that your style gets in the way of communicating your ideas. Clearly Alex doesn't agree.

When I write anything, I try to be as clear as possible.

I don't want to inflame this discussion by quoting examples of what I mean, though if you PM me, I will do so - I really just want you to maximise your impact on this forum, by not obscuring what you have to say.

Do you know how many times I have run into pseudo-methods of critique professionally over my career (just like this)? This one is called an ignoratio elenchi argument. I did not just fall off a turnip truck. People who do this are bullies, and are a dime a dozen.... I don't care how many anecdote examples you can spin from my material - it is not fashioned to help and is not sincere in the least.

This form of forum patroling is one of the reasons I stopped coming here briefly 5 years ago (then unfortunately I lost my password). You will notice that I am a caring, sincere and affable guy - but there are certain ill motivated activities which I see right through... and this is one of them.

I would advise you and ML to drop this line...

And if you have any doubts about my ability to write a clear point. Please reread this post.
 
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Wellcome to the forum, Chris,
My intuition tells me there's nothing we can do in 3D physical reality that will prevent our souls from their spiritual inheritance/nature and crossing over, but I do worry, especially as someone who struggles with mental health issues, suicidal ideation blah blah blah
My intuition is the same as yours. However, I do think you want to bear in mind that this forum is not necessarily a safe place for someone with mental health issues. I suggest you take it carefully and pull out if you think all the robust discussion is getting you down.

You might try sending a private message to DMitch, who is a mental health nurse - or of course anyone who you think might help.

David
 
I would advise you to drop this line...
I probably will, but I can assure you, you would make a greater impression with me, and presumably others, if you wrote more clearly.
And if you have any doubts about my ability to write a clear point. Please reread this post.
You ability is not in doubt, nor do I doubt you can make a useful contribution here - as I have already explained.

David
 
Well abiogenesis does have a meaning outside of the context of Earth. For example, if it could be established that biological material was dispersed in space, it could be argued that abiogenesis could have taken place on any one of a huge number of planets in the galaxy, each of which could have used some fraction of the age of the universe (13 billion years) to 'try' to produce beginning life. The 2 million years available for the process on Earth, could be expanded to permit billions of years on who knows how many suitable planets.

My contention was that abiogenesis does not bear a scientific Wittgenstein definition outside of earth (not simply meaning). Yes it does have a meaning as a construct and is fun to speculate about. But as an idea, it does not possess the features of hypothesis it needs in order to become a scientific alternative. It is like comparing soccer and professional wrestling. Soccer is a real competition, wrestling is just for fun.

Of course what you speculate is solidly inside the domain of possibility, but we do not have a prior art which extends there and allows us to develop an incremental question. It is also possible that intelligence is the substrate of our universe, and that this intelligence used the lossless protocols between each realm to breach its Planck boundaries and fabricate DNA as a means to 'crack this realm open for its use'. But I cannot formulate a hypothesis out of that (yet- LOL!). What this means is that the universe is just exotic enough that - stellar abiogensis may not be the only explanation we encounter.

The scientific, parsimonious, critical path, question at hand is "Did XXX DNA ACTG life originate from empty set upon Earth?' :)
 
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My view is that Darwin's theory was sunk the moment that the structure and function of DNA became obvious.

BTW, if you haven't listened to James Tour's video, that Michael supplied, I'd really recommend it.

This is a very important and well posed point. Thanks David.

I had crafted a poster on the wall in our lab huddle room (the thought did not make the prime-time conference room in the executive offices, hehe...) which read "He who truly understands an idea, should also be able to offer its most profound critique". This is a principle I call intra ludio.

This does open a whole new track of discussion - but should we place it into a separate thread? I am not sure of the protocol here. I hate hijacking Marisa's thread for all this.
 
My contention was that abiogenesis does not bear a scientific Wittgenstein definition outside of earth (not simply meaning). Yes it does have a meaning as a construct and is fun to speculate about. But as an idea, it does not possess the features of hypothesis it needs in order to become a scientific alternative. It is like comparing soccer and professional wrestling. Soccer is a real competition, wrestling is just for fun.

Of course what you speculate is solidly inside the domain of possibility, but we do not have a prior art which extends there and allows us to develop an incremental question. It is also possible that intelligence is the substrate of our universe, and that this intelligence used the lossless protocols between each realm to breach its Planck boundaries and fabricate DNA as a means to 'crack this realm open for its use'. But I cannot formulate a hypothesis out of that (yet- LOL!). What this means is that the universe is just exotic enough that - stellar abiogensis may not be the only explanation we encounter.

The scientific, critical path, question at hand is "Did XXX DNA ACTG life originate from empty set upon Earth?' :)

My feeling is that evolution by natural selection may itself be in doubt - see this book, due out next month:

https://evolutionnews.org/2019/01/behes-new-book-darwin-devolves-stunning-and-absolutely-convincing/

This argues that natural selection can only really damage an organism in a temporarily useful way - e.g. damage red blood cells because there is a lot of malaria about. It can't constructively build anything - because most of the steps required to build a novel protein are not beneficial - you need the finished protein or something very close for it to be actively selected. Also, even when a protein is active, it might be selected against because the associated control mechanisms are not present. For example, consider the evolution of a novel protease. Without the control mechanism, it eats the cell up!

If evolution by natural selection is not possible, then we don't need to worry about the harder question of abiogenesis - where no selection mechanism are plausible.

Perhaps it is more productive to discuss what ID could actually mean. Feel free to open a new thread to discuss this.

David
 
I probably will, but I can assure you, you would make a greater impression with me, and presumably others, if you wrote more clearly.

You ability is not in doubt, nor do I doubt you can make a useful contribution here - as I have already explained.

David

I do not believe you are being sincere. Sorry.
 
I do not believe you are being sincere. Sorry.
Why don't we concentrate on constructive discussion?

I mean what do you anticipate ID might actually mean. The idea of Yaweh sitting on a cloud doing biochemistry doesn't really appeal to me - not least because some areas of evolution involve an arms race between two species!

David
 
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Hi Chris... Welcome and thanks for this awesome first post.

I think a lot of the confusion comes from our seemingly hard-wired (or is it culturally specified) urge to view time itself in a one-dimensional manner. Of course, if time were 1D, we could only have discrete serial experiences as souls but that is not the case. I keep visualising a loaf of bread - a 3D one - and I think we only need 3 dimensions to explain the issue. Imagine a loaf of bread, except a loaf of bread whose dimensions are either infinite, or sufficiently large enough to seem infinite from our limited perspective. Each finite 'moment' of time (yes I know there are about 70 problems with this example already, just hear me out) is a slice in the loaf. Each soul can 'consume' one crumb out of one slice, and another from the next and so on and so on - that's one life, one timeline. When we finish one life, we can go back - or forward - in the loaf, and start consuming another time'line of crumbs'. Now... there's no need to fight over these crumbs. Each soul can certainly experience a crumbline that overlaps with other crumblines... it's no problem. It's not an issue because time is not one-dimensional. It just has to seem that way to us in our largely 1D brains... it's the only way to make sense of an incarnate life.


I totally get where you're coming from... and tried to float something like this out there with Marissa. I found it interesting that she pushed back pretty hard. not that she's right and were wrong, or vice versa, but it's just interesting that someone who has this much experience talking to dead Spirits feel so certain about this.



I am enjoying this interview immensely and can't wait to catch up on other episodes. I consider myself to have an intuition that goes ever so slightly beyond the purely intellectual... So when I hear it, my intuition alarms start going off.
right on to that :)

Lastly I apologise if I have just restated ideas that are likely to be in pages 2-7 of this thread
this is never a problem. I encourage anyone is to jump in a thread wherever they find it. Conversely there's no obligation for people who posted earlier in the thread to repost. It's all very organic :-)

Infinite love and blessings, especially deep thanks to Alex, for Skeptiko
yr so welcome... It's great to have you here!
 
I do think you want to bear in mind that this forum is not necessarily a safe place for someone with mental health issues.
Hi David. I really appreciate your concern, but I don’t quite understand why you would say that! Is it because of the depth of the issues presumably under debate, or of the ‘robust’ness of said debate? To me, being able to discuss these issues, honestly and in good faith - whether or not one is agreed with - can only promote better mental health, in my view. Of course, if I notice that for any reason participating here is causing even a slight decline I will absolutely take your advice on board. Once again, I really am grateful for the concern and to me this bodes very well for my future enjoyment of the Skeptiko Forum! Hell yeah! Wait, no... Heavens YEAH!
 
Chris,

All I meant, was that the discussion isn't tuned explicitly to helping people, but to trying to get at the truth.

However, feel free to enjoy it and join in!

David
 
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