You'd have to run this theory by other scientists for their possible opposing POVs, but here is a web site you might find interesting regarding Flux Theory.
Corri, I highly recommend you be very skeptical of this "Flux theory." I just skimmed the main page and the article on the Big Bang and I found MANY misconceptions and some statements that border on deception.
One statement about how this theory is supported by "irrefutable logic" is particularly worrisome. One, everyone knows that statements can be couched as logical without truly being so, and that when it comes to the universe AS IT IS, logic is often not the best yardstick to use. It is akin to saying that something cannot happen because statistically it is extremely unlikely. If it happened, it happened, even if the chances are 1 in a googleplex.
Just to give you a brief example, his discussion on Big Bang makes the point that the Big Bang could not have happened because the universe is infinite and therfore you cannot confine it to a point. That is a complete misrepresentation of both the Big Bang theory and current knowledge about the universe.
I realize this is OT, but I do like to poke my head in whenever I see/hear/read highly suspect "theories" about the universe.
Chrome
ETA: Been reading some more on Flux Theory ... Oh God my brain is hurting just trying to keep up with all the errors in logic, misuse of equations, misconceptions about theories, and just plain weirdness. Run away Corri ... run away.
Last edited by chromosphere; 09/26/0705:06 PM.
"Recollect me darlin, raise me to your lips, two undernourished egos, four rotating hips"
I guess what it comes down to is the utility of being able to describe an emotion. For example, the body responds to stimuli and releases neuotransmitters that are likely to activate a "fight or flight" response... at what point can the person in question intervene? Well, if the stimuli is an earthquake then the person in question can only intervene in their fear response after it occurs. However, somewhere in there was the thought "OMG I think this is an earthquake and I feel afraid". In most situations though the "stimuli" is likely to be a seamless set of thoughts that build on one another to provoke an emotion. E.g. "Oh, my H is mad at me. OMG - what happens if he leaves me? How will I afford the house? Raise the kids? I'm afraid." In this case there is the chance to learn coping mechanisms (training our cognitions) to short-circuit the loop that arises from the point of "Oh, my H is mad at me". Like, "OMG my H is mad at me. Wow, he must be having a bad day. Maybe he would feel better if I got him a glass of water and listened to his POV." Either one of these situations when re-experienced may provoke a suprising instant "fear" type response but the excitation in the body is the same as other intense emotions until labeled by the mind. "Fear", "Anger", "Excitement" all feel pretty similar to the body. At least that is the viewpoint of Cognitive Psychology.
I look on it as being a question of "what can I get in control of and when? If I believe that my body has the whole say so then meds would be better able to sort things out. Even meds that we think we understand the mechanisms "seratonin re-uptake inhibitor" etc... still affect different people differently. Why can one person successfully use anti-depressants once during a difficult time and otherwise cope while another must take them for the rest of their life? Is a basic "chemical imbalance" sometimes created by a situation and sometimes by genetics? Seems so. At my work we have individuals whose "baseline" on medications includes daily delusions and hallucinations. These folks take a cocktail of anti-psychotics, mood stabilizers etc... And yet........ The body, the mind, the interactions such a mystery!
Oh.. Chrome.... I do... believe me... I don't hold up either one of these links as credible. Like I said, you can blow holes through either one...
It's what comes out of the discussion with someone like you in why they don't hold water where a person begins to understand... reading these two very links is where I began my foray into Quantum Mechanics and Brain function/thinking/feeling stuff... I couldn't decide for myself whether either one was credible... I figured I needed to have some information of my own so I knew what questions to even ask...
And it has been very interesting to me what I have learned along the way.
And the conclusions I've come to on both Quantum Mechanics and Brain function/thinking/feeling stuff... is there is a heck of a lot good/fascinating information out there, and there is a heck of a lot that is still unknown.
In both instances, you are describing what comes first: thought/feeling, or feeling/thought. And it largely depends, as you say, on the 'event' occurring, and how we perceive pleasure or threat. Did I encapsulate that correctly?
In a critical crisis where I don't have 'time' to think, the 'mind' is by-passed in order to act... lower brain function takes over. If I live through it, I can later decide what it all 'meant' to me.
If you have ever been through that, however, you are left with a feeling, maybe more like an impression, of just being an observer of your own life... some people describe it as an out of body experience. Perceived 'time' seems to have a critical impact on higher/lower brain function. And somehow our brain knows how to handle that... overrides our ability to rationally 'choose.'
Instinct.
Even infants have it. They are little blobs of firing neurons and lower brain function... with an infinite potential to 'learn' to cognate. That infinite potential to cognate is what some refer to as 'consciousness.'
As adults, even if you are not at the moment... cognating... you are very well aware of the fact that you are not... cognating (well.. think of your own car accident).
It leaves one with the impression... Eckart Tolle, for example... are there two of me? Three? The one who suffers (body), the one who contemplates the suffering (mind), and the one who observes both... ???? <-- brain mapping hits the same snag, but in a measured, scientific way.
What it is called, how it is viewed... what it might mean... religion, philosophy, rejection of either or both... is what seems to get glopped in there, in the absence of us being able to prove anything. Like Quantum Mechanics... there are some very provable ways of looking at that (harmonic oscillator), and not so provable ways to look at it (string theory). And ones you immediately reject (flux theory). IF you bother to check.
The same happens with brain function/thinking/feeling stuff.
And all of this discussion comes back around to LIH in saying... if you don't check things out for yourself, if you don't try things and see what it might get for you, if you don't do something different, whether it is looking at it a different way, feeling a different way, acting a different way... you are always at the mercy of others.
Choice (free will) is not a provable thing. I don't care. I'm not interested in proving it. I DO IT. Sitting and contemplating it without DOING something still leaves me at the mercy of others. I may not like the choices I perceive that I have (thought) ...it is my hope that I do (feeling)... but regardless, I do it anyway.
Whether that actually PUTS me more in charge of ME, or not, again, is not provable. But I certainly FEEL more in charge of me, and less at the mercy of others.
And if it CAN be proven that all I am is a bag of bones and neurons firing and hormones and animal functioning... the one of me, or the 'three' of me, the one who thinks, the one who feels, and the one who observes it all... could give a [censored] less what science OR relgion says. It works for me.
I for one am glad there are still things left to discover.
Oh, me, too. Constantly having to 'prove' stuff gets to be wearying, though. There are days when I want, and certainly allow, everything to be mystical and magical. It's fun.
My point was, to not just accept either science or magic... blindly. It's a big part of that whole victim thing.
