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Post by Figgles on Apr 14, 2020 17:40:59 GMT
science is cool... "Consider, for a moment, the chair your butt is resting on right now. It's made of a squillion atoms right? And since it's a solid, all those chair atoms are packed tightly together like a vast collection of marbles in a box, right? And it's all those tightly packed atoms/marbles that are holding your butt in the chair against the force of gravity, right? Well, actually, no. There is a tiny problem with the whole atoms-as-marbles picture. It's entirely wrong. Every atom has two components. There's the nucleus at the center (made of protons and neutrons) and then there's a bunch of electrons whizzing around the nucleus. When you see a picture of this, it usually looks like the nucleus is its own bunch of tightly packed marbles and the electrons are orbiting a little ways out. The atom you see in high school textbooks, really, is not an atom. But here's the problem with that kind of picture. You see the nucleus is only a few femtometers wide. And what's a femtometer you ask? It's a thousand million millionth of a meter, which is so incomprehensibly small to try to imagine it can blow a fuse in your imagination. But imagining such a tiny sliver of tinyness is not the real problem. The real problem is understanding where the electrons are relative to the size of the nucleus. The average distance of an electron from the nucleus is about a ten-billionth of a meter (or what we in the biz call a tenth of a nanometer). So the nucleus is a femtometer across, and the electron is a tenth of a nanometer from the nucleus. What's the big deal? Just this: A ten-billionth of a meter is a hundred thousand times BIGGER than a femtometer. That means the electrons are a hundred thousand times farther from the nucleus than the nucleus's own width. If the nucleus were a beach ball in Midtown Manhattan, the electron would be living in an apartment in Philly. And what does that mean? The atoms making up your chair — you know the ones supporting your booty right now — they are pretty much all empty space. Each one is a vast stretch of nothing that is lightly salted with an occasional fleck of stuff wandering in an endless void. And, as atoms go, so goes your chair — it's just empty space, too. That image you had of solid matter as tightly packed marbles? Nope. Not even close. But now comes the $64,000 question — if atoms are nothing but deserts of empty space, how does your butt even know the chair is there? Why don't the flecks of butt-matter in the endless void just pass right through the flecks of chair-matter in their endless void? The answer is as simple as it is weird. It's all just forces. Cracking like lightning through the void, all the specks of electrons and the specks of nuclei are constantly interacting through a force called electromagnetism. Each interaction is carried out through the jolting exchange of particles of pure energy called photons (which is really just a nubbins of light). Each photon swapped equals a little push or a pull — a force — exerted across the emptiness. That's really what's keeping the stuff we call your butt from drifting through the stuff we call your chair. So, the truth of the matter, dear friends, is there is no "solid" matter. Everything you think of as solid — tables, chairs, a '69 cherry red Ford Mustang, your child's noggin — none of it is really solid. Instead, there are only rapid-fire bursts of pure energy carrying forces between impossibly small flecks of somethingness. And all of it is lost in an atomic void as empty as intergalactic space." Not sure who the source of that bit is, but he seems to be mistaking 'in the dream' explanations for transcendent seeing. The idea that there is no 'solid' matter, that rather, there is rapid-fire burst of pure energy carrying forces between small flecks of somethingness, is just as much part and parcel of the dream-scape story as is the idea that atoms come together to form 'mass.' All of it, is an empty appearance in Consciousness and from that position of transcendence, the questions about how it is the experience of butt on chair happens with regards to atoms, no longer arise...they are clearly seen to be completely, utterly, totally, misconceived.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 14, 2020 17:49:42 GMT
Not sure who the source of that bit is, but he seems to be mistaking 'in the dream' explanations for transcendent seeing. The idea that there is no 'solid' matter, that rather, there is rapid-fire burst of pure energy carrying forces between small flecks of somethingness, is just as much part and parcel of the dream-scape story as is the idea that atoms come together to form 'mass.' All of it, is an empty appearance in Consciousness and from that position of transcendence, the questions about how it is the experience of butt on chair happens with regards to atoms, no longer arise...they are clearly seen to be completely, utterly, totally, misconceived. I purposely omitted the link.. because who cares? if the subject interests you - dig deeper, learn all you can, report back.. but... www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2015/04/07/398008378/why-doesn-t-your-butt-fall-through-the-chairwhoever wrote that definitely knows more about the subject than I, and whether its completely true or not is not entirely important.. it makes for a good story I think plus science is cool
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Post by Figgles on Apr 14, 2020 18:04:28 GMT
Not sure who the source of that bit is, but he seems to be mistaking 'in the dream' explanations for transcendent seeing. The idea that there is no 'solid' matter, that rather, there is rapid-fire burst of pure energy carrying forces between small flecks of somethingness, is just as much part and parcel of the dream-scape story as is the idea that atoms come together to form 'mass.' All of it, is an empty appearance in Consciousness and from that position of transcendence, the questions about how it is the experience of butt on chair happens with regards to atoms, no longer arise...they are clearly seen to be completely, utterly, totally, misconceived. I purposely omitted the link.. because who cares? if the subject interests you - dig deeper, learn all you can, report back.. but... www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2015/04/07/398008378/why-doesn-t-your-butt-fall-through-the-chairwhoever wrote that definitely knows more about the subject than I, and whether its completely true or not is not entirely important.. it makes for a good story I think plus science is cool Sure. But, this is a spiritual forum where the main thrust is Truth, and whoever wrote that, sounds to me to be kidding himself that he is seeing beyond the dream. It's precisely the same mistake that ZD and Reefs make when they assert that they've seen 'prior to' form/thingness to see a lively energetic field that is the substrate of all perceived form/thingness and they insist that the seeing of that 'alive energy' is transcendent....a 'realization'....a seeing of what 'actually is.'
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Post by Deleted on Apr 14, 2020 18:57:10 GMT
Sure. But, this is a spiritual forum where the main thrust is Truth, and whoever wrote that, sounds to me to be kidding himself that he is seeing beyond the dream. It's precisely the same mistake that ZD and Reefs make when they assert that they've seen 'prior to' form/thingness to see a lively energetic field that is the substrate of all perceived form/thingness and they insist that the seeing of that 'alive energy' is transcendent....a 'realization'....a seeing of what 'actually is.' I don't think the author was making any "beyond the dream" claims (I know I certainly wasn't) I think it was just an ordinary mainstream article like you find in magazines
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Post by Figgles on Apr 14, 2020 19:48:57 GMT
Sure. But, this is a spiritual forum where the main thrust is Truth, and whoever wrote that, sounds to me to be kidding himself that he is seeing beyond the dream. It's precisely the same mistake that ZD and Reefs make when they assert that they've seen 'prior to' form/thingness to see a lively energetic field that is the substrate of all perceived form/thingness and they insist that the seeing of that 'alive energy' is transcendent....a 'realization'....a seeing of what 'actually is.' I don't think the author was making any "beyond the dream" claims (I know I certainly wasn't) I think it was just an ordinary mainstream article like you find in magazines Okay. My bad then for taking what is purely scientific talk for an attempt at Truth talk.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 14, 2020 19:59:22 GMT
I don't think the author was making any "beyond the dream" claims (I know I certainly wasn't) I think it was just an ordinary mainstream article like you find in magazines Okay. My bad then for taking what is purely scientific talk for an attempt at Truth talk. well why doesn't your butt fall though the chair when you sit on it? smoke n mirrors? supernatural forces behind the scenes?
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Post by Deleted on Apr 14, 2020 20:14:40 GMT
Okay. My bad then for taking what is purely scientific talk for an attempt at Truth talk. well why doesn't your butt fall though the chair when you sit on it? smoke n mirrors? supernatural forces behind the scenes? “Physicists tell us that the solidity of matter is an illusion. Even seemingly solid matter, including your physical body, is nearly 100 percent empty space — so vast are the distances between the atoms compared to their size. What is more, even inside every atom there is mostly empty space. What is left is more like a vibrational frequency than particles of solid matter, more like a musical note. Buddhists have known that for over 2,500 years. “Form is emptiness, emptiness is form,” states the Heart Sutra, one of the best known ancient Buddhist texts. The essence of all things is emptiness.” ― Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment
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Post by Deleted on Apr 14, 2020 20:31:56 GMT
well why doesn't your butt fall though the chair when you sit on it? smoke n mirrors? supernatural forces behind the scenes? “Physicists tell us that the solidity of matter is an illusion. Even seemingly solid matter, including your physical body, is nearly 100 percent empty space — so vast are the distances between the atoms compared to their size. What is more, even inside every atom there is mostly empty space. What is left is more like a vibrational frequency than particles of solid matter, more like a musical note. Buddhists have known that for over 2,500 years. “Form is emptiness, emptiness is form,” states the Heart Sutra, one of the best known ancient Buddhist texts. The essence of all things is emptiness.” ― Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment that's pretty much the same as what that other dude was talking about. almost entirely nothing, but with a few specks of something being drawn together for reasons unknown
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Post by Figgles on Apr 14, 2020 21:49:02 GMT
Okay. My bad then for taking what is purely scientific talk for an attempt at Truth talk. well why doesn't your butt fall though the chair when you sit on it? smoke n mirrors? supernatural forces behind the scenes? As an 'in the dream' theory, the one given in that scientific article is fine. From a transcendent perspective, the question is misconceived.
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Post by Figgles on Apr 14, 2020 21:58:38 GMT
well why doesn't your butt fall though the chair when you sit on it? smoke n mirrors? supernatural forces behind the scenes? “Physicists tell us that the solidity of matter is an illusion. Even seemingly solid matter, including your physical body, is nearly 100 percent empty space — so vast are the distances between the atoms compared to their size. What is more, even inside every atom there is mostly empty space. What is left is more like a vibrational frequency than particles of solid matter, more like a musical note. Buddhists have known that for over 2,500 years. “Form is emptiness, emptiness is form,” states the Heart Sutra, one of the best known ancient Buddhist texts. The essence of all things is emptiness.” ― Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment I'd say he's making a concession there to the seekers mind but I'm not entirely sure. I do find it odd that he'd even edge up to equating 'what physicists tell us' with 'Truth,' which it kind of appears to be what he's doing there. "Emptiness" is after all, but a pointer....the moment it's suggested that "Emptiness" equals anything that can be grasped by mind, (vibrational frequency...a musical note...aliveness) it's become conceptual, and thus, is no longer a pointer.
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