Salutatio Day!
02-Feb-98, Day Brown wrote to Richard Meic
          Subject: Time and Again
 DB> On 01-29-98 Richard Meic wrote to Day Brown...
 DB>> You assumed Richard, that I assumed that the universe was created
 DB>> by God. It was not. God and the universe evolved concurrently.The
 DB>> universe is that part which you see, God is that part you can
 DB>> not.
 RM>> Interesting twist you provide here.  When you say that god and
 RM>> the universe evolved at the same time do you mean that they came
 RM>> into existence together or always existed?
 DB> So far as I can tell, the universe, and our world in it, shows it
 DB> is *still* evolving.  The analysis of the evolutionary processes
 DB> that I see seem to converge, and suggest the big bang... i.e. that
 DB> they came into existence togather.
I do not see how you get from a universe still evolving to God and the 
universe coming into existence together.  It looks like you left out a 
few steps for the sake of brevity.
 RM>> RM>> What?  We "KNOW" that there are more then 3 dimensions?
 RM>> Lets RM>> ignore time for a moment, prove to me that there are
 RM>> more then 3 RM>> dimensions... show them to me.
 DB>> I do not think I can show them to you; you have to show them to
 DB>> yourself; 200 micrograms of lysergic acid would do the job for
 DB>> you.  Of course, there is some risk to your sanity and career.
 RM>> I am not a naive little boy, I am 32 and have been around the
 RM>> block a few times.          
 
 DB> Hey Richard- niave little boys don't have careers to worry about,
 DB> and the evidence I see, suggests minds that have a high degree of
 DB> the kind of synaptic responses naturally which LSD promotes in an
 DB> adult brain.  No patronization intended.
 
None taken, of course.  Will you accept that there are many that do not 
exhibit the traits you find in evidence, and therefore your evidence is 
statistical in nature and does not suggest that your conclusion is 
reality?
 DB>> the last 30 years, I have never met anyone who had done acid who
 DB>> retained an atheist position; the other 2499 had all seen God.
 RM>> Well, you can consider me as the first one, then.  I have done
 RM>> acid in my youth (plenty of it), yet I remain atheist.  I did not
 RM>> see higher dimensions, I did not see "God",... once I thought I
 RM>> saw a peanut butter jar melt into a table, but that is all.
 DB> That will do for starters Richard.  The accepted view is that when
 DB> one sees phenomena like this that the sensory apparatus is faulty.
 DB> Defensible up to a point, but that does not exclude incidents that
 DB> are, in fact, supernatural, and perceived that way.  
     
Or just merely perceived that way.  You know, a want for there to be 
evidence of the supernatural?  Is it not just a matter of 
interpretation?  A melting peanut butter jar can either be a melting 
peanut butter jar or God, depending on how screwed up you are, yes?
 DB> The modern
 DB> experiments in quantum physics persent phenomena which cannot be
 DB> understood in terms of the aforementioned 3 dimensions, in which
 DB> there is a connection between the observed and observer, such as
 DB> your experience with peanut butter morphing into table. To the
 DB> quantum experimentor, the experience is much the same, he sees
 DB> stuff happening he cannot believe.  
     
Ahhh, but y'see the acid user is not performing a scientific experiment 
(an experiment that can be designed to prove the supernatural theory 
wrong).  All one really needs are a number of examples that show that a 
user does not interpret the "observations" as supernatural, but merely 
the result of a chemically induced hallucination, in order to show that 
the "supernatural" conclusion is incorrect/inaccurate.
 DB> By and large, phenomena like
 DB> this have always been present, but simply ignored as trivial to
 DB> the fundamental truth of reality.  I am not so sure.  Nor would I
[...]
 DB> theatre- not responsible for the plot on the screen, just here to
 DB> make sure the show goes on, on time.  Since she gets to see so
 DB> many movies, I try to be interesting.
Sorry, but I find jumping to such conclusions when on acid (a chemical
hallucinogen), is not trustworthy. 
 RM>> MAN, you must have been dealing with a pretty unstable bunch.
 DB> Well frankly, they look to be more stable afterwards than before;
 DB> IMHO, such behavior patterns are indicative of someone who already
 DB> has considerable motivation to make a change in lifestyle, and the
 DB> very willingness to try LSD, [with it notorious reputation] bears
 DB> some support for the idea.
Well, if one is going to center a religious belief around a
hallucinogenic drug,of course your gonna get a lot of people believing 
in God after hallucinating, thinking that what they saw was in fact God 
(or higher dimensions, what ever) instead of what it really is (a 
chemically induced hallucination. 
 RM>> I do not seek "truth", I seek "reality independent of the
 RM>> observer".
 DB> What do you make of Quantum physics?
It seems to have been very useful so far, new technologies etc, but not 
so useful in proving a cosmic singularity.
 RM>> Well, that would depend on WHO's truth, one man's view of "truth
 RM>> A" is not always the other man's view of "truth A".  I don't
 RM>> think "truth" is a proper word here.
 DB> much truth as they want.  Richard, if you wonder about all this
 DB> stuff, you must know you are pretty odd, so the fact that you have
 DB> not seen 'god' as you expected to does not surprise me... you may
I had no such expectation, please do show me where I even ALLUDED to
having expected to "see God" while popping acid.  Sheesh, all I wanted
then was to get really fucked up.
 DB> have selected a different movie.  The more I think about this
 DB> stuff, the more I see allegory as a more useful tool; Plato's cave
 DB> is a case in point where he sees the same problem we have been
 DB> discussing.  He did not say that a God was responsible, but that
 DB> was more from an unwillingness to ascribe a personality, which is
 DB> what everone who thought about God did in his, and indeed our,
 DB> time do, and did. 
 
Think about it, Day.  Acid is a chemical hallucinogen, it plays some very
nasty tricks on the poor human brain (which is electro-chemical in
nature).  Something tells me that you just saw the movie "Altered 
States", a good show for the purpose of escapism.
 Dicere...
 email address (vrmeic@spots.ab.ca) 
Richard Meic
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