SP-7: Regan's Take on Hawking's Comments

Stephen Hawking’s mind seems to have taken some negative turns recently. In his Discovery Channel special this past spring, he speculated that ET would be malevolent:

“If aliens ever visit us, I think the outcome would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, which didn’t turn out very well for the Native Americans.”

More recently, Hawkings stated in his book The Grand Design, God/god/g-d/ had nothing to do with creation because there is no god. God. Whatever:

Because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the Universe exists, why we exist.” He added: “It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the Universe going.”

(In a round about way, I can see what Hawking is getting at: it isn’t necessary to create a cartoonish, childish figurehead that we appease in order to shift responsibility away from ourselves to explain things, and I don’t think ETs are necessarily magical wondrous Space Brothers and Sisters who will give us lots of candy. Or, Jesus for that matter.)

Some die hard skeptoid atheists types might play semantic games with the following, (to them any “belief in” anything concerning spiritual matters is, at best, New Age froth, and at worst, religious zealotry)  but I don’t have a religious quibble with Mr. Hawking on this, because I’m not a Christian or religious person. I don’t believe in God as in Daddy Supreme being, don't believe the Bible is the word of a God, either directly or inspired, and so on. I do believe in what’s loosely called “Intelligent Design” which is an uneasy and dangerous label to use, since that term often invokes Christians who want to force public schools into teaching their particular brand of creationism, bring prayer into schools, or trying to get Glen Beck into the White House.

How about consciousness. When I think of “god” I think of living, intelligent, sentient, ... consciousness.

So Stephen Hawking talks about gravity and my question is, what created gravity? Who, what, how, why, ... is behind gravity, the universe, the constant flux, the stuff, this, that, ... ?  Simplistic answers deliver us a single God, and one personified to fit into our puny little human needs for control and fear based authoritarian structures.

Other spiritual systems, many of which I happily align myself with because they bring me comfort, are fun, have beautiful colorful artistic images of deities, help me focus and even, yes, manifest powerful moments in my life on various levels, aren’t as punitive and vengeful as the straight ahead Judeo/Christian/Islam triad of petty monotheistic beings misinterpreted, abused and mangled by humanity to control and kill their fellow human sisters and brothers -- and, give them permission to abuse and kill their fellow non-human sisters and brothers (animals.)

However, that’s all beside the point. Hawking hasn’t answered anything, he’s merely made a pronouncement based on his personal belief. We can argue all day about the existence of God, but first, we need to get clear on a few things; like, an agreed upon definition of what God/god is. My “god” if I call it that, which I don’t, is not  a single deity,---  unless, you want to consider that we're all “gods,” and in that sense a single deity, since we’re all sharing the single consciousness --  and is not vengeful, spiteful, arrogant, bestows grace only if you agree to believe in it (which is usually a him), is not just a “him,”  doesn’t give a damn if we pray to it or not, especially in schools and at football games, doesn't care if you're gay, bi, pan or transsexual, doesn’t ... well, you can see where I’m at.

From a human interest perspective, I’m curious about the ironic juxtaposition of Hawking's profession -- mega-intelligent universe pondering guy -- and his dark view of that very universe. ETs are going to eat us for lunch, the universe is just a gravity machine, coldly and non-mysteriously doing its mechanized thing, without consciousness.

So Hawking doesn’t believe in any kind of a God/god whether it’s a consciousness metaphysical concept, or a more traditional Christian kind of God. He can’t prove there is, he can’t prove there isn’t. Shrug. I’d like Hawking to take the next step and ask:  what created this gravity-machine? Gravity is “god,” man.

TCI - AED - Phillips Continues The Discussion

Seems the topic of the afterlife is alive and well this week for readers of The C Influence. So, today, I'd like to bring my comments up to date so to speak. As you know, this weeks discussion is based on the `seed post' by Lee last Friday.

The first discussion (and it was a discussion as it directly quotes Lee's post) and a totally over the top thought out reply was done by Duensing - so impressive that - as usual - I can only partly respond to the depth given. You will find Bruce's discussion here - http://thecinfluenceblog.blogspot.com/2010/08/duensing-actualizes-discussion-upon.html And, to me, these are just some of the words that Bruce uses of importance to esoteric thought.
Ghosts, eternity and memory. ghosts, the ghost of what? Of memory, is memory eternal, a genome of a spiraling series of questions whose locus is energetic? - what I like most about this logical idea of the dead is that it also builds on the `knowledge' or `information' part of what I call the third leg of phenomenology - and that the relationship continues with some of the dead.
What may be occurring also from their perspective is a sense of intrusion, of ownership, of disturbance when one sets off either intentionally or unintentionally to perturb a state and station ( two different modalities) which is, in effect, a reflection of the reactive state of the "living" when a stranger, or even someone familiar invades one's "psychic space" while possessing no intimate knowledge of your own history or for that matter, any recognition of you in your "uniqueness." Beyond this, we have the physics of information, that there is a possibility that data adheres or self organizes beyond what we believe to be contained in the mind, that the mind simply is a local extension of a process occurring as well elsewhere - Later in my response I will refer to the Leslie Flint tapes - but, the idea of intentionality's of `spaces' and how they interact with even the spaces of the dead (and their intentionality's) is of great interest to me. The `data' seems like the illumination of threads of existence.
as PD Ouspensky observed, we never truly see all that another is, what he referred to as the "long shadow" is at best, a sort of false front, the organ of digestion, that is referred to technically as "false personality" or persona, which is simply a series of automatism's that hide the creature beneath. Wow Bruce, you stirred, for the first time, (and the Leslie tapes would seem to confirm) a realization that the false personality may be what keeps the dead around the location of the living (similar).
It may be ourselves that are ghosts to them, again, the Flint Tapes will bring some of this out for sure.
I sense the "dead" who remain attempt to do,or perhaps more likely are "trapped" in their orientation of associations and identifications as a "false self" as they are unaware of any other state. IMO, this is very close to the truth - that said, also being a numbers person like I am - I think the dead's consciousness is probably less trapped as `time goes on' (and quickly, to us, at that).
The same concept arises from a reading of both the Tibetan and Egyptian Books of the Dead.Why am I not surprised that you have also read `The 40 Days of Bardo'?

The next discussion - was by Strickler: http://thecinfluenceblog.blogspot.com/2010/08/response-regan-lees-post.html
Some of the evidence I have gathered over the years suggests that there is a measurable connection between human spirit energy and other phenomena that we consider paranormal......Psychic and metagnomy examination, with qualified use of remote viewing, clairvoyance, afterlife communication, astral projection, hypnosis, etc., is paramount in my opinion. I think this is another manner of saying `intentionalities' which I also agree can be a real trigger - that said, I would not go so far as to suggest that the paranormal only happens with intentions with our side of the curtain.
But tangent spirit connection depends on developing a background of the supposed being and finding the reason for the haunting. This requires a psychic bond, an understanding of the circumstances that caused this energy to roam this plane or the initiative taken that caused the energy to come through the existence divide.I would beg to differ in just the regard that `we don't even know ourselves' or our own consciousness - so, to assume a real knowledge of `the other' is beyond our scoop - however, that said, having `ties' (knowledge) of the other - may be some help in getting the `right' individual to `respond' after being `dead'. I think all of this has to do with `how far along' the dead consciousness is.
Depth perception goes much further than the visual cortex and a stereoscopic logic Indeed.

Then, in the comments to Strickler's post was this:
Energy never "dies", but rather recycles itself into different forms. For those familiar with cell memory; I feel this gives credibility (among other things)to those people who suffer from unfounded fears, affinities or feelings. The engery as it were; be it a draumatic death or a carefree life in Greek society is recycled and affirms itself in a number of ways. I know this speaks more of past lives, but i believe it is just one example of how complex "energy" really is and that it manifests itslef in uncountable ways. - I too feel this reader is onto something with `cell memory' as `all spaces' may have knowledge.

Then, I made my - general comment and Lee and Leeeowe both chipped in comments:
First, Lee `answered' (thanks) - my inquiry about Ectoplasm with this:
When I was inside the room at the top of those stairs, I felt more and more "muffled"-- aware of everything around me, but was almost "consumed" I guess, by a presence. I began to watch as a white, semi-opaque cloud of mist, or smoke, began to develop. (I'm aware I have strong mediumnistic abilities but have never focused on them, though have been working in that area lately.) Several ghost hunter types have told me this was ectoplasm, but whatever it was, it was clear a spirit or ghost was present and manifesting
Leeeowe then offered an interesting observation/understanding of ghosts not being able to be photographed:
As long as I've heard they can't be captured by camera. They are fake. IMO, to think that `all' of anything is `fake' - should not be a final mindset; that said, Leeeowe certainly provides uncertainty too. (A proper mode for someone with the science mind of Leeeowe.)

As an aside - authors should not be shy at `posting' these comments even if short - I'd like to keep the `comments' GENERALLY to the readers of TCI.

Then, Leeeowe provided REAL discussion with his post - http://thecinfluenceblog.blogspot.com/2010/08/summarizing-soul-some-thoughts.html and had very interesting comments like these:
When we talk about origin of life in the universe, we generally assume that life is nothing but just some sort of complexity which comes from random molecular reactions governed by electromagnetic forces. Though data supports it, in some manner, but that doesn't mean it's entirely correct and absolute truth. Darwinism is most acceptable theory, no doubt but that doesn't mean we need not to search for another more acceptable theory. Accepting anything based on data and logic is science and believing in anything without analyzing it, is religion. - Leeeowe, you would LOVE the book Quantum Biology which discusses how that complex organization of atoms might come into being(ness).
Even a dead is as complex as living organism, yet dead is dead not alive. This is where I find our assumptions(life originated only from complexity) to be wrong. Soul could be some sort of condensed photons as recent researches show. See my article 'Quantum Theory of Photonic Matter'(based on experiments done at a university). It seems fairly reasonable to assume that life is just not a nice combination of chemical compound assembled randomly. Our organic materialistic body needs a power source which comes from soul something like a operating system which governes our body reactions, energy and security. I seldom come across folks who love to refer soul as some post of plasma based life form. Well, it's not possible. IMHO, blending soul and organic body(chemical complexity) makes anything alive. This is some pretty `deep shit' as we used to refer to it in the 1970's - I really love the `science' angle you are bringing Mr. Leeeowe (I hope you don't mind if I call you that here on TCI as `other Bruce' isn't right and Bruceleeeowe is too long - lol.) Thanks for the great input man.

And folks, you have to read the exchange between Colucci and Leeowe in the comments - TCI is `blessed' to have the `meditative spiritual' represented too. Just a FYI Leeeowe - Colucci has been meditating for decades and decades and I think decades. He will be relating much more along those lines in the future I will assume.

Finally, as far as commenting on posts - Duensing returned to continue the discussion with Leeeowe here - http://thecinfluenceblog.blogspot.com/2010/08/duensing-actualizes-discussion-on.html - indeed, incredible thoughts - some of which I had never considered really - like these:
Rick's request for Regan's somatic reaction, is the role of biophotons, which was covered in a couple of essays at IM, as a possible connection to what you were theorizing on as the basis for a common denominator between states and stations. Of course our simulation of our environment is photon based. The actual images of biophotons in the human body and in various living organisms resemble orbs, which is not to say or imply there is any connection there whatsoever, but it is interesting from another perspective as a potential energetic fields of exchange, as they permeate living things and then when I considered how specific locations are more prone than others to ghost phenomenon, I thought of the organic materials used in their construction, particularly wood in relation to this as wood, or I should say cellular matter (which wood is) could perhaps serve as a medium of connection to human biophotons in the role of a common denominator. WOW.

Now, I was going to write more (and I will separately for a post perhaps tomorrow) about what I've been thinking about the dead this week - but, this post is long enough and perhaps too long - that said - this blog, just from these beginnings - has the full power to be what it was positioned to be - if we all don't burn out.

Thanks to all for a great discussion. Later.