I have to strongly disagree with the OP of this thread. We have established no such thing. We only know that we cannot explain all of the currently observed behaviour. It would have naieve to say that we had established the existance of anything resembling the soul (or lack thereof) or that we fully understand the fundamentals of intelligence and consciousness.

So because you don't understand something it is spooky and impossible? It wasn't so long ago that a good deal of our current model of physics was entirely unknown, and there is still a good long way to go. There is plenty of recent research indicating that the brain is influenced by quantum effects. It is plausable for this to be the interface to currently undiscovered types of physics. (PLAUSIBLE, I'm not claiming this is proveb, although I believe it is true. IMO the levels the brain is interacting with are not physical but are goverened by deterministic laws which would be considered an extension of physics.)

Brain damage imparing function is trivially explained: the essential interface mechanism is damaged. The physical level of function is impared.

If the "mysterious non-physical phenominum" is what came first (e.g. preceeding any kind of physical existance) then it would be entirely obvious and sensible as to why this interface exists. We typically assume that matter came before mind because we look around and see plenty of matter that is not sentient - but that is an assumption that we have no proof of. (No proof either way - at least of a scientific nature. Note I'm not arguing for god here, but I am arguing for consciousness being an emergant property of fixed laws which exist at a higher level than physical existance.)

So because it's hard we should never attempt to make any progress?

I imagine a key part of the early research will be find recursive algorithms which can be setup and run without trying to manually design everything and have to code every behaviour of every level. Something akin to programming the basic laws of physics and then letting the simulation run.

Just use the reflection API to check the metadata. Yes it is still you (or a direct successor of you), if your attributes go into the makeup of the respawnee. (Even if it isn't 100% you, it is distinctly based off you and thus different to just randomly generating another human.)

Depends on the method of teleportation.

Only a small fraction of a percent of the LHC data is actually ever stored. The rest is discarded because there is FAR too much to deal with (specially, too much data being generated in too short a time to be handled by any caching or delay mechanism). IIRC the figures were aproximately 90,000 particle interactions stored out of a possible 360 trillion that had occured up until the point talked about in the article.

I think your hate has blinded you to the definition of troll. Using/defending a patent they created != trolling.

One key question would be to ask them to describe the experiences they had which they believe mean they're enlightened. Anyone who tries to describe the content of their experiencein any way whatsoever, is not the real thing. Any experience with an actual description, quite likly could be valid steps along the path, but are certainly not the end. (The reason for this question is complex, but it boils down to the fact that the actual event of enlightenment is not experienced in any way, shape or form. Any description of it can only be made in terms of the approach to it, and the exit from it. These do have distinct patterns that can be recognised by someone familiar with them and are the closest things available to diagnostic criteria.)

This question will only help sort out the real deal from the honestly deluded. It will only help screen out malicious frauds to the extect of whether or not they know the correct answer. Most won't, but there are now books available that go into explicit detail, so the possibility can't be ruled out. I should note that I don't claim to be enlightened, I merely claim to have passed one of the early, but key milestones, which is generally recognised as the threshold for which you can talk about this stuff without screwing it up too much.

The only real answer to your question I can think of would be have a fully abled psychic read everyone. I've discussed before why that's theoretically possibly but not especially likely. (Side note: how would you measure the results of such a test? Given you currently don't really have a definition of what enlightenment is and what it means/represents, how you would find your test subjects and how would you group them? How would you verify my results? I can only see this test working if the person in charge of the test is also fully enlightenend and a psychic... in which case they wouldn't need to be running it, and would be unable to prove anything to the skeptics without such abilities.)

Two possible experiements I can think of would lend some credability, but really don't represent definitive proof of a whole lot.

1) Emotions affecting growth, e.g. the experiement where cooked rice is left to go off with emotions stuck on a label on the side of the container. The quantity, colour (and maybe toxicity?) of mould that grows on the rice is determined by the emotion (e.g. love or hate) on the label. It would be simple to execute this in highly controlled conditions where everything is identical except the label, which is outside the sealed container and according to standard beliefs, cannot affect the contents. The hypothesis is that emotions have an energetic resonance which affects the mould/bacteria. One difficulty would be rating the resulting growths. I suppose you could show the cultures to a large amount of test subjects and collect data to show that a statistically significant portion of subjects rated the hate mould subjectively much worse than the love mould. This has been done before on a limited scale, yet we're still here having this discussion. It doesn't prove enough (despite having no explanation to account for it) therefore it is ignored.

2) Similar to the above, freezing water labeled with emotions. This experiment is more well know, not sure if anyone has attempted to replicate. Same problems apply: subjective evaluation of the results. Again there is a definite statistical correlation, but not no attention is paid.

3a) Self selected volunteers who identify as sensitive to crystal energies bring a set of their own crystals. The volunteer is blindfolded and asked to identify the crystals via energeric feel only. (This represents a very simple form of psychic interaction. Touch is not allowed as I can identify a scary number of crystals purely by surface texture.) A robot arm (or something) is used to hold the crystals very near, but not touching. Each is held at a series of points, including over the palms of both hands and chakra points. The subject identifies which crystal is being held near them. The key problem here is that it is MUCH harder to determine what crystal it is without touching. Ignoring surface texture, touching the crystal greatly enhances the perception of its qualities. Therefor performing the experiment without touch limits the pool of subjects to much more experienced individuals. However an expert should easily score 100% on this test repeatably. Use of the subjects own crystals means they can select a set which are distinctive and meaningful to them. However you then somehow need to rule out tampering (not that I have any idea how you'd cheat.)

3b) The same except the samples are new to the subject. More objectivly 'pure', but is a harder test and therefore makes it much more challanging, raising the bar for a useful test subject even higher.

4) It is also possible to demonstrate things like slowing metabolic functions to a virtual standstill (past the point that would usually lead to death) for extended periods of time while connected to equipment, and then demonstrate not being dead/brain damanged. This would require an extreme meditation expert.

5) Similarly, it would be possible to demonstrate living off no food or water for months at a time in a sealed environment. This requires an even more extreme expert and wouldn't get past the ethics board.

6) Plenty of experiments have already been done demonstrating abnormal brain activity whilst meditating that (IIRC) is otherwise not possible. There are peer reviewed papers on this. It doesn't prove a whole lot, but regardless, the presence of absence of these types of activities could be use as one factor of genuine-ness(even if it only measures meditative skill, not the truth of any knowledge gained.)

I'm talking about something that cannot be conclusively proved. Although in the course of this discussion, I've changed my stance to "cannot be proven without a high level of co-operation from exceptionally rare and talented individuals who have less than no interest in attempting to prove anything".

I expect to hear this a lot. I'm hoping to find expert individuals who have had some kind of low level experiences in the past without a full expanation that I can connect the dots for. In order to get the proof you demand, it is necessary to get experts. E.g. I can imagine a lot of hard science experiments that can be done once you had some particle physicics who understood what I'm saying of their own accord sit down and design some experiments to run on the LHC.

Hard proof is not going to materialise without some series expertiese and resources. Most experts (and those who control the resources) aren't going to be interested without the proof. Catch 22. There are some who ARE doing real research with these extra spiritual principles in mind, but getting a fair hearing from mainstream is another challange. Some good examples are Nassim Harmein and David La Point.

Harmien's work is still in progress, but he has some published papers showing very promising progress in being able to demonstrate the effects of the standard model, but with only electomagnetism and gravity. The weak and strong forces are not required, their effects are explained by a slightly different take on EM. IIRC it bridges the quantum/large scale gap by no longer requiring two sets of laws. This also begins to demonstrate the holographic nature of reality i.e. an infinite recursive fractal pattern that is the same everywhere. (I have not mentioned this yet, but it is a core part of the picture.)

La Point does not have much detail published, but has some youtube videos which seem quite promising if the results materialise. He is taking one aspect of the holographic structure and using it as an energy generator. Not free energy, but certainly something totally unlike what we currently know, that would revolutionaise the world.

There are plenty more but I'm forgetting them right now. It's way late and I've written far too much... again. (I wrote 5 pages of entirely other stuff on the trian today... this is getting out of hand, in a good way.)

I'll certainly ask around a few places to try and hunt down some more doable experiments like the first ones I mentioned above. There won't be any smoking guns, but it certainly would be good to include as many of them as possible, so thanks for the reminder.

I addressed this earlier. The conclusions often seem different, but really aren't (though it must be admitted that not realising this is an incredibly common problem that leads to a lot of division within even individual spiritual/regligous communities, much less the wider whole.) For example, a major division is as to whether "there is no self" (could be stated as "the self is an illusion") or "we are all one true higher self" (which could be named "god", which would spark a whole other debate). On the surface these seem to be completely opposed. They are actually simply dualistic polar opposites of the same core absolute truth. They are imperfect representations filtered down through the concepts, language, and world view of different individuals. They are all equally valid.

Taking this a little further, it's not hard to see how two different experiences of the same root "thing" can be percieved very differently by different individuals, or even the same individual in different circumstances.

As to who you (or anyone else) should listen to? I'd argue you should listen to the person whose views take ALL views into consideration and reveals their correctness, despite apparent contradiction. You should listen to the person who doesn't tell you exactly what to believe, or who you should learn it from, but who is merely trying to get you to look deeper. Someone who is not trying to get you to blindly believe them, but perform your own investigation. I'm not trying to preach another religion here - I'm trying to explain a meta-truth behind ALL religions, spiritual systems, science, philosphy, etc.

People ask me what teacher did I learn all this from? I don't have one. (I do need to get one through, so I can actually meditate consistantly which would greatly accelerate what I'm trying to do.) But you can pick any teacher of any system you like. In general I'd advise finding a buddhist meditation teacher who is well regarded by their students, who gels with you. This involves some searching. You must keep in mind that the system of buddhism is only a vehicle, a framework, to learn the necessary skills to begin to observe higher truths for yourself.

So far here I've only advocated buddhism, mostly because I don't know the other methods in enough detail to explain the path and how it works. I also think it is particually suitable for the purposes of performing genuine investigation. But you can take ANY system and you'll reach the end goal, so long as you are open minded and avoid the dogma. Some systems are much more suited than others to doing this. Note that trying to analyse a system before fully understanding it can lead to misunderstandings, so at times it can be necessary to go with the flow for a while and sort it out later. This is not blind faith, it is merely a willingness to co-operate for a while to see what comes out of it. It is performing an experiment with yourself, rather than sitting back and demanding proof.

I realised after I posted that I shouldn't have said leap of faith, as you took it exactly how I thought you would :) By leap of faith I meant willingness to consider other possibilities, and to spend some time investigating. Repeating what I just wrote, "This is not blind faith, it is merely a willingness to co-operate for a while to see what comes out of it. It is performing an experiment with yourself, rather than sitting back and demanding proof.". Anyone doing this in a rational manner will acknowledge that non-physical truths have complications, a primary one being the way one thing can manifest differently in individuals as mentioned above. This merely raises the bar for the depth of analysis involved. Since everyone involved in such investigations knows (or should know) this, it is not a fatal road-block, just a factor that is accounted for in due course.

Something I should have added to my previous post (adding before I forget it): another benefit this knowledge can bring about is when it reaches the hands of scientists. Armed with much more in depth knowldge of the way things work, the progress of science can be greatly increased. (By getting a few qualified specialists with access to appropriate resources on board early, I also hope it is possible to start to produce the necessary experiments/data that CAN act as hard evidence to break into the mainstream. Right now the problem is a little more than can be attacked by a layman.)

I completely understand your point. My point is that as long as you continue to insist on the exact definition of independent verification you currently hold, you/science won't get any further. (Sure there'll be random advancements, but the major questions will never be solved.) This is roughly equivilent to examining every tree in the world and rejecting the existence of forests because every individual tree cannot be independantly verified to be a forest. I'm merely suggesting you suspect disbelief for long enough to actually take a look at the forest.

As mentioned earlier, I completely understand where you're coming from, because I've been there and done that for over 20 years.

Never argue with an idiot. Bystanders won't be able to tell the difference.

Or something like that.

Disclaimer: I know this will seem pedantic but I am trying to get people to think about problems in the long term (solutions that work for thousands of years, not hundreds).

If we use the format YYYY-MM-DD for dates (for instance 2013-04-07), they sort both alphabetically and numerically, they are easy for human eyes/minds to parse at a glance (my apologies to the vision impaired) and there won't be a reason to change to format for approximately 7,895 years (but who is counting, really).

Please see ISO 8601: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_8601

Obligiatory XKCD: http://xkcd.com/1179/

What the AC said. Also, notification only defeats the purpose if the target of the test is silly enough to do things like just hard block the IP.

A large amount (not all) of pen testing can be carried out in a suitable clone of the live environment. This sounds like a good idea for medical scenarios...

You're not wrong but the picture is incomplete.

You've handily demonstrated the possible consequences of pen testing. Doing pen testing on important health systems with no advance notice sounds a lot like criminal neglegance to me.

If I had mod points (and hadn't already posted in this thread) I would be giving you one.

I realised I mis-stated but didn't get around to reposting.

Philisphical answers by themselves gain me little with just me sitting in a corner knowing them. However if the entire world KNOWS the answers to all philisophical questions and the most fundamental mechanisms of reality, acheving things like world peace become not only possible, but automatic. I don't mean forcing beliefs on anyone. I mean having everyone recognise how all the individual beliefs that exist are all reflections of one core truth. That core truth can be known beyond all doubt to be true when a) a large portion of the world population can experience it for themselves on a regular basis and b) those who don't experience, accept it because every second (or whatever ratio) person they know can explain in length and detail, in their own way, how and why it is true, from their own experience. This is clearly a very tangible and practical benefit, even though it proceeds from entirely intangible concepts.

On a different note, just because the answers aren't EXTERNALLY verifiable doesn't mean they aren't verfiable to me, or that they are false. Stated simply, I get to manipulate elements of my own reality in the manner I see fit. I don't necessarily get to control others or my interactions with them - that is much higher (harder) and ethically questionable level - but I can nudge things in favour of myself and everyone around me. Each individual is always using these mechanics at all times, but lack of awareness causes us to shoot ourselves in the foot constantly. Being aware of them simply means you can consciouslessly choose to act in more beneficial ways and not trip ourselves up quite as often. Nobody is perfect and mistakes will still be made, but progress is made. It is a life long learning process. Again, very tangible benefits from entirely intangible processes (thoughts) that can never be externally proven to be linked. (Any skeptic would understandably deride the mechanisms I'm describing as confirmational bias and a wide range of other pshchological mechanisms. If only they knew how close they were to the truth...)

I think I've worked out how to say a key point I've been wanting to make the whole time. It is still imperfect and needs work but is worth saying, so here:

The reason why none of this can ever be proved, is because what skeptics take conclusive proof of falsehood, is actually the truth they are denying at work. They are completely justified in reaching the conclusions they do: because they have reached to correct conclusions according to the viewpoint to which they subscribe. Unfortunately that viewpoint (whilst being far from worthless) does not account for everything. While someone continues treat external proof as the only standard to be considered, they will forever lock themselves away from the truth, even though it is in the name of truth they do the locking!

At some point a leap of faith must be taken - not even a very big one. Nothing is lost by doing so, but much is gained (understatement of the century). You'll still be just as skeptical and rational on the other side. The process of investigation and experimentation still completely applies. The context is just changed slightly. You won't suddenly start blindly beleving everything someone says near you. You'll just have a MUCH richer world of possibilities in which to be conducting your invesitgations. (There is also a high probability that you'll spent large amounts of time trying not to laugh as you debate with people who don't get it.)

NLP = natural language processing

In case some of you were wondering about the acronym. That becomes:

To take the conjugation one step further it becomes:

Of course, sometimes you can take conjugation a bit too far.