Tim Freke & Richard Cox, UFOs, 9-11, Climate And Truth |391|

I think it’s worthy of note that such subjects as 9/11, climate change etc are no longer encouraged on this site, or hidden from the public view on others. Yet I know Alex at least isn’t anti ‘conspiracy theories’, but quite open to them.

I have my own theories about why this might be, including the obvious one that allowing public threads on topics like these is similar to owning a rowdy bar, they tend to need someone in charge keeping things in order so that the place doesn’t get wrecked in a brawl. They aren’t quiet book shops. People get emotional about them- over emotional imo.

It’s a real shame.
Well you don't need to theorise, because I can tell you why - at least as regards 'climate change'. We used to have some vigorous debates about this subject, but these sucked in new members who just wanted to campaign about CC. They would produce huge posts with endless quotes and links, but not actually discuss them at all. One guy discovered he could cause problems by pressing the report button on anything he disagreed with. This caused me a great deal of trouble to clean up.
Beyond that, the whole forum seemed to shift away from its core questions.

With 9/11 my position is slightly different from how you portray it. In truth I am not that interested in the subject! I suspect the Neocons may have helped it to occur, but honestly I am more interested in political forces that may lesson the grip of the Neocons - for the sake of the planet. I don't try to stifle 9/11 debate on the forum.

I guess I am not a history nerd! On the other hand, I am fairly green, and I hate to see a false green campaign eclipse all the really pressing green issues.

David
 
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With 9/11 my position is slightly different from how you portray it. In truth I am not that interested in the subject! I suspect the Neocons may have helped it to occur, but honestly I am more interested in political forces that may lesson the grip of the Neocons - for the sake of the planet. I try to stifle 9/11 debate on the forum.

Wow. I find so much that I could say about the bolded sentence, but I’ll leave it.

Can I join the PM group? I won’t start wrecking the place - I promise ! ;)

I see I have been invited, thanks. ;;/?
 
Wow. I find so much that I could say about the bolded sentence, but I’ll leave it.
Perhaps I should add, that the Neocons have made trouble and war by exploiting the religious extremists in the Middle East for many decades. They also seem to have a penchant for false flag attacks, so it would not surprise me if they let that happen.

You should have an alert to join the PM group.

David
 
'Also, the other bloke seemed to confuse materiality with materialism. Being anti-materialist does not mean against the material world, just an opposition to those who think this is the basis of what is. Its such a simple matter, so why get it wrong?'

Could you give me rough time stamp for when I said that Michael? I'd like to think I said something a bit more nuanced than that.

Hey Richard I will be happy to, but please bear with me as I will have to listen to the show again. I hope you did say something more nuanced than that - but that was what I heard and responded to. Be patient, I will come back with a a transcript of your words and I will be happy to confess to error if that proves me wrong.
 
Well I did listen to the whole show. Tim's POV still leaves me a touch bewildered. I can't see the point of his arguments, at least in the context of the content on Skeptiko - and to be fair, we all need a balanced diet of other shows as well. It was a long show I found myself struggling to recall the content. His arguments about time I kind of got, but I immediately recall White (That's Stewart Edward and not Gordon) on time and sequentiality (The Unobstructed Universe) - sequentiality is the essence and time is sequentiality with significant intervals between events. At its metaphysical core an event sequence is timeless. If Tim sees time and sequentiality as the same thing then he has point only because he skips a distinction made by others. For me sequentiality of events is fundamental to ordered structure/coherence/consciousness - probably best articulated in mathematics. Time, for me, is what happens when that sequentiality is expressed in material form. But what is fundamental to sequentiality is intention or will.

In some respects this is the basis for magic - an intention that is realised without the drawn out path of expressing in material media. There is no rule that demands that a chocolate cake can be assembled only by baking. It can, with the right will/imagination arrive fully formed in an instant (allegedly). In a sense time is an aspect of sequentiality in which we are aware of the stages of expression or manifestation. This is why White (Stewart Edward, not Gordon) distinguishes between the 'obstructed' (physical) and the 'unobstructed' (metaphysical). Our perception of time is produced by the 'obstructed' nature of the physical world.

We in physical form can't know timelessness (unless we are having fun). In astral form we are still attuned to the habits of material perception. Beyond that we have immense difficulty in getting non spatial and non temporal consciousness. White (yes, SE, Not G) demonstrated that and DeMarco does the same thing. In fact we have immense difficulty thinking outside spatial and temporal contexts because, as beings in physical form, that is where our consciousness is at - for essential and pragmatic reasons.

I struggle to get Tim's insistence on coming up with ideas that are not as good as others - and which do not seem to fit a need beyond his belief they do. Of course I am the first to admit that the same criticisms have been thrown at pioneers. but they have also, more often, been thrown at people who turn out not to be pioneers.

I was also struck by the degree to which Tim seemed not to be comfortable with a bunch of things that Alex raised. The nature of the reality of ET (by whatever name) is pretty bloody serious. It fucks with all of our heads in various ways, and for Tim to seem to place himself outside that community suggests to me that he is probably better off dealing with an entirely different audience.

I do not want to appear to dismiss or belittle Tim. The marketplace, like the cosmos, is big enough for all of us to live happily in our own bubbles. I just don't think that Tim's marketplace embraces the denizens of the Skeptiko forum to the degree that he might like, or we might like (we are such an inclusive bunch).

Tim struck me as having quite an intellectual focus - thinking that reality follows a linear structure. It doesn't and probably nothing demonstrates that better than metaphysics - which moves from either/or to both/and with annoying ease. Post temporal and spatial logic does not obey spatial and temporal rules.
 
Sorry to too down on Tim, but right at the start we had this:

(The 'it' refers to time)
Tim Freke: I don’t even know what that means Alex. What do you mean, it’s not real? No, not real in the same sense as in measurement and all the rest of it. But look, even to say the words, “Time is not real,” you must have time. To experience anything, there must be a sequence of events that start with this and end up with that, and every single moment, without exception, ever, that you have ever experienced, has two qualities which are marked time. One is, it’s completely new, it’s a realization of new possibility and it includes within it everything that’s happened before. That’s time. Reality is time. It is time, that’s what it is, look, it’s happening now.
When I heard him say that, my heart sank because surely he knows that a proportion of people who have NDE's report that time stops for them, and even more report that they can see their whole life in a glance - sometimes including the rest of their lives that they have yet to live?

Something similar happens to some who take entheogens , and timelessness also features in some mystical experienc

He didn't even mention that evidence! I once read a book about how to write a good science fiction story. Among all the good advice, the author (Sorry I forget who it was, except that he was himself an SF writer) pointed out that if you want your fictitious spacecraft to exceed the speed of light, that poses no problem provided you make some glancing reference to Relativity, such as:

In the assembled space fleet, every craft was equipped with an SX762 - the latest and most efficient space distorting device , based on the crude version invented in 2208 by John Smith that demonstrated in practice that Einstein's theory is incomplete in deep space.
Without such a reference the reader would assume the author was just ignorant, and not enjoy his book. With the SX762t, the reader would happily continue reading.

David
 
I don't take a position on 9/11, but I too think climate change is fundamentally phoney. Because discussions about climate change have become unruly in the past - and distract from the core subject of Skeptiko, I don't debate it (much) in the forum, but I have a PM with a number of people, discussing the evidence, and you are welcome to join if you wish.(Alex, you can join too, of course).

Being a 'Climate Denier' doesn't mean I am against environmental concern, but nothing is gained by pursuing a non-environmental issue when there are so many obvious environmental concerns to think about.

David

I'd be very happy to join the climate change group David, thank you. I have vague intention to do something around it on my podcast one day, but it won't be for a long while. I am more drawn to 9/11 and issues of war and terror and am just getting what will hopefully be a 9/11 series of the ground now.
 
Sorry to too down on Tim, but right at the start we had this:

(The 'it' refers to time)

When I heard him say that, my heart sank because surely he knows that a proportion of people who have NDE's report that time stops for them, and even more report that they can see their whole life in a glance - sometimes including the rest of their lives that they have yet to live?

Something similar happens to some who take entheogens , and timelessness also features in some mystical experienc

He didn't even mention that evidence! I once read a book about how to write a good science fiction story. Among all the good advice, the author (Sorry I forget who it was, except that he was himself an SF writer) pointed out that if you want your fictitious spacecraft to exceed the speed of light, that poses no problem provided you make some glancing reference to Relativity, such as:


Without such a reference the reader would assume the author was just ignorant, and not enjoy his book. With the SX762t, the reader would happily continue reading.

David

That's why they have 'Heisenberg Compensators' in Star Trek, to explain how the teleporters can work. Apparently it's a running joke at conventions, someone will ask 'How do the Heisenberg compensators work?' and always be answered 'Very well thank you.'

I wrote a little poem about what I experience as the paradox of time:

GRASPING TIME

That we move through time
Is the most apparent of all things
Like Flowing down a river
We move from past, through present to future

But try and grasp it

Try and capture time
Like dust, between your hands
It slips away

Smaller and smaller units
Until we are left with just...

Now

Time is something that exists
Only when we don't look at it

Was time ever really there at all?
 
This is how daft we are.
Well.....not really, if you are reading fiction you want it to hang together. Imagine reading a detective story where the victim was called James Jones, and then for no obvious reason everyone started calling him Sam Smith!

David
 
Sorry to too down on Tim, but right at the start we had this:

(The 'it' refers to time)

When I heard him say that, my heart sank because surely he knows that a proportion of people who have NDE's report that time stops for them, and even more report that they can see their whole life in a glance - sometimes including the rest of their lives that they have yet to live?

Something similar happens to some who take entheogens , and timelessness also features in some mystical experienc

He didn't even mention that evidence! I once read a book about how to write a good science fiction story. Among all the good advice, the author (Sorry I forget who it was, except that he was himself an SF writer) pointed out that if you want your fictitious spacecraft to exceed the speed of light, that poses no problem provided you make some glancing reference to Relativity, such as:


Without such a reference the reader would assume the author was just ignorant, and not enjoy his book. With the SX762t, the reader would happily continue reading.

David

I think when you spend many years pondering alternate views on reality and listening to other people talk about them, then eventually the ordinary naive realism view of reality starts to seem a little refreshing. I've experienced this same thing myself.
 
I'd be very happy to join the climate change group David, thank you. I have vague intention to do something around it on my podcast one day, but it won't be for a long while. I am more drawn to 9/11 and issues of war and terror and am just getting what will hopefully be a 9/11 series of the ground now.
Super - I'd encourage newcomers to read all (or at least some!) of the stuff that has accumulated there, before posting.

David
 
Well.....not really, if you are reading fiction you want it to hang together. Imagine reading a detective story where the victim was called James Jones, and then for no obvious reason everyone started calling him Sam Smith!

David

Yeah I suppose daft wasn’t the right word to use. ‘How easily fooled’ might have been more accurate. We sweep aside unanswerable questions with a meaningless phrase, blinkers firmly in place. Still, it is better that at least there is the meaningless phrase there to remind us of our ignorance.

And by ‘ignorance’ I’m not trying to put a downer on human beings, I think that even with all our flaws we’re awesome. Just that the mysteries of life are truly amazing/awesome too, and they don’t appear to have flaws.
 
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I think when you spend many years pondering alternate views on reality and listening to other people talk about them, then eventually the ordinary naive realism view of reality starts to seem a little refreshing. I've experienced this same thing myself.

Maybe we’re being nudged toward something. Not to worry too much about metaphysics but to consider more down to earth things, like being kind to each other.

I’m sure you’re a kind guy Hurm. ;)
 
I like the way that Donald Hoffman punctures the idea of a world really being out there and exactly as we perceive it:


I know he talks about Darwinism in a loose sense, and I don't agree that Darwinism is a satisfactory explanation for evolution, but one could take it that he's not really talking about Darwinism so much as fitness and selection and those words are (unfortunately in my view) usually associated with Darwinism. There are no objects upon which Darwinism can operate; It's just a narrative Darwin came up with that is based on the (wrong) assumption that objects exist. I think he's really talking about elements in consciousness ("things-in-themselves"), being iconised as realities that we perceive, and label, as "objects".
 
I like the way that Donald Hoffman punctures the idea of a world really being out there and exactly as we perceive it:

I know he talks about Darwinism in a loose sense, and I don't agree that Darwinism is a satisfactory explanation for evolution, but one could take it that he's not really talking about Darwinism so much as fitness and selection and those words are (unfortunately in my view) usually associated with Darwinism. There are no objects upon which Darwinism can operate; It's just a narrative Darwin came up with that is based on the (wrong) assumption that objects exist. I think he's really talking about elements in consciousness ("things-in-themselves"), being iconised as realities that we perceive, and label, as "objects".

Thanks for finding that, Michael! Every time I listen to that guy speak I feel as if my head might explode!

I'd love to hear Alex interview him!

I think his point about evolution - which he more or less explained at some point - is that we are not talking about evolution operating on DNA, but on some other structure entirely - possibly a structure that is more amenable to being tweaked - i.e. a structure where the fitness function is a fairly smooth function of the tweakable variables. I wonder if he realises that conventional evolution is impossible - I suspect he does. However, I guess there is no reason why the evolution need be driven by random numbers - it might be intelligence driven. I often try to tweak software into shape - it is called debugging!

David
 
Thanks for finding that, Michael! Every time I listen to that guy speak I feel as if my head might explode!

I'd love to hear Alex interview him!

I think his point about evolution - which he more or less explained at some point - is that we are not talking about evolution operating on DNA, but on some other structure entirely - possibly a structure that is more amenable to being tweaked - i.e. a structure where the fitness function is a fairly smooth function of the tweakable variables. I wonder if he realises that conventional evolution is impossible - I suspect he does. However, I guess there is no reason why the evolution need be driven by random numbers - it might be intelligence driven. I often try to tweak software into shape - it is called debugging!

David

It would be nice if guys like you and I (who are highly skeptical of Neo-Darwinism, yet not remotely religious) could use a term other than “I.D.” It causes confusion and draws inaccurate and unecassary correlation to fundamentalism and poisons the well before a conversation can even be held, as we saw (sort of) in Malfs post earlier. I’d prefer something like (off the top of my head) “conscious/subconscious progression.” Now that I’ve put that term out there, I’ll give it a .0000001 percent chance of it taking hold and being put into the general vernacular of the masses.This is still a higher probability than a creature has it accidentally growing a useful arm and passing it onto future generations thousands and thousands of times over and over. I can’t see something like that happening even once, let alone millions of times over. The thought is seriously totally ridiculous when you consider it long and hard. And then you view the math and data on the probability of the genetics involved and learn that your intuition isn’t just a misguided feeling.

But here’s the problem with the materialist mainstream. Since they already KNOW that we are just meat robots and living in a meaningless universe with no other extended consciousness realms (my new favorite term stolen from Alex), then OF COURSE Neo-Darwinism MUST be true. It’s true not because the evidence is conclusive. Rather it is true since there is no other possibility given their beliefs concerning the nature of reality. And I would think the same thing if I had the same beliefs. There would be no other possibility.
 
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On the whole evolution question I've personally found Perry Marshall book (Evolution 2.0) and wider work informative. Marshall is an engineer* who accepts evolution but does not believe it can have come about through random mutation. Furthermore – that the level of information required right at the start implies a 'creator' of some sort.

*He claims if randomness could lead to increased functionality then we would be using it in engineering and has offered a financial prize for anyone who can demonstrate this – based on the Randi prize.

I wonder if anyone here has come across his work and have any thoughts?

Those are my thoughts, though I’m obviously not a scholar or important thinker on the topic.

1) Quantum mechanics seem to suggest that our thoughts/consciousness has an affect on matter

2) The placebo effect demonstrates the same thing. This also shows how consciousness may effect matter, as does the psi research.

3) It does seem that there has been a progression of sorts of organic physical form on this planet.

4) The genetic mutation idea fails the mathematical probability test, and it fails the intuition test (in my opinion). It seems totally outlandish, I cannot accept that things like that “just happen” on accident. “Lucky us! These mindless particles have an affinity for lumping together aimlessly to form cells then (on a macro level) accidentally growing appendages and creating us!” Lol really? That’s quite an “accident” wouldn’t you say? But the most striking thing is that this “accident” really cannot help itself. It goes “oops” time and time and time again. An extraordinary flow of useful, lucky, and absurdly improbable events.

5) The NDE, Medium, Astral travel data etc all strongly suggest that this existence serves a purpose in our spiritual evolution. I think that the progression of physical form helps to serve this purpose in some way, partly as it allows us to operate through them as they create artifical constraints upon us through which we may learn and grow. This idea of purpose along with the ability of consciousness to manipulate matter, along with the astounding improbability of evolution through accidental mutation, combined with the apparent evolution of form on Earth leads me to conclude that form has indeed evolved, but certainly not on accident, but rather though consciousness purpose. I won’t even begin to attempt to explain or propose how this might look or work.
 
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Thanks for finding that, Michael! Every time I listen to that guy speak I feel as if my head might explode!

I'd love to hear Alex interview him!

I think his point about evolution - which he more or less explained at some point - is that we are not talking about evolution operating on DNA, but on some other structure entirely - possibly a structure that is more amenable to being tweaked - i.e. a structure where the fitness function is a fairly smooth function of the tweakable variables. I wonder if he realises that conventional evolution is impossible - I suspect he does. However, I guess there is no reason why the evolution need be driven by random numbers - it might be intelligence driven. I often try to tweak software into shape - it is called debugging!

David
I am never sure whether it is quite decent to reply to one's own post, but I thought a bit more about Don Hoffman's ideas, and it seems to me that they are all predicated on the idea of evolution by natural selection. If evolution by NS is false then his whole - splendid but incredible story may be wrong.

Therefore another way to look at Don Hoffman's ideas is as a reductio ad absurdum argument against evolution.

David
 
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