11-11-2017, 12:01 AM
Julio Juliopolis wrote:
Sure, my computer breaks and then I find this thread. Guess I'll start intending for it to still be around next week when I get my new one and I don't have to reply with just my phone. xD
Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk
I've got a better idea. How about instead I intend to remain around for just a couple days and meanwhile I fix my computer so I can at least do basic stuff with it, and then have the shiny new one arrive 5 days early. That'll give me a little time to play around with it before replying in here. Oh wait, that's what happened!
Was that my intent? Well, not consciously. I'd sort of assumed the laptop would get here on the expected date and didn't even think to try and intend otherwise. However I was pretty excited for it, (I've been using a computer on it's last legs for about a year now), so perhaps my energy and optimism helped it happen sooner. Which brings me to why I wanted to reply in this thread in the first place...
But first, just to be proper, hello Le_Regard and welcome to these forums. I hope the exchanges you find yourself in here are all mutually beneficial. Okay, now back to intent...
The first thing mathematicians do when they present a proof is to define their terms. The first thing the smarter logicians out there do when they present an argument is to define their terms. I'm going to copy them and start by defining intent. Intent, as I've learned to understand it, is a combination of imagination, belief, and emotional energy aimed at a specific result. It is important to note that the word intent as I, (and perhaps others) am using it here does not mean "wanting something to happen".
Le_Regard, (this whole reply is mainly for you), earlier in this thread you were challenging the notions of people really being able to intend things to happen, asking Serloco to give you all his money because he can just intend as much as he wants, talking about just intending for WWII never to have happened, etc. This could be analogized to a person who doesn't believe in chemistry challenging those who do by saying "Oh yeah? Well how about you show me cold fusion in a jar right now if chemistry is so real!" The point being, why start at such an extreme?
Like many other things, manifesting intent is probably easiest to understand if you start smaller. Once again, the 4 components are imagination, belief, emotional energy, and a specific result being aimed at. Let's look at all these components in a practical example.
Example 1. Johnny is a little boy who wants to learn to throw a baseball. So one day his dad goes out to show him how. He watches his dad throw it a few times and then it's his turn. After watching Johnny throw it a few times his father gives him some tips on how to do it better. Johnny then throws it again and is happy to see his accuracy has improved.
I think you'll agree that this is a perfectly ordinary scenario. One that's been played out many times, and something that fits perfectly within the normal bounds of what is generally considered to be physically possible. Let's look at how the components of intent are at work here...
Belief - Having seen his dad throw the baseball, (as well as many other people), Johnny has a solid belief that he can throw one too.
Imagination - As he watches his dad do throw it, he imagines himself doing so as well. When he throws it, his dad gives him tips. Again Johnny uses his imagination, picturing himself making the changes his father suggests to his throwing motion and the ball traveling more accurately as a result.
Emotion - When he throws it and it does indeed go straighter he gets excited, happy that he's learning what he wanted.
Specific Aim - Johnny wants to "learn to throw" a baseball. As straightforward as that sounds it is ambiguous. Does he just mean to be able to throw it into the strike zone? Does he mean he wants to have a variety of pitches in his arsenal which he can use to try and strike out batters from other little league teams with? Does he mean he wants to pitch like a pro?
Okay, so there's the 4 components of intent. But what do these things have to do with what occurs as a result of Johnny's trip to the baseball field with his dad that day? Plenty! Let's tweak these components and see what happens...
Belief - Johnny has been told he's clumsy all his life. He's therefore never spent much time at sports and when he has he's tended to do poorly against the other kids. He doesn't believe he'll be very good at pitching but he believes that spending time throwing the ball will somehow automatically improve his throwing so he doesn't embarrass himself in gym class.
Imagination - Johnny doesn't believe he could throw well so he doesn't imagine it happening. He sorta of half-heartedly pictures himself throwing the ball with the suggestions his father gives him but doesn't visualize the movement of the ball.
Emotion - Johnny doesn't feel much emotional energy when he's out practicing. He's sort of just "going through the motions" as the phrase goes.
Specific Aim - Johnny's goal is to get "less embarrassingly bad" at throwing the ball.
Now is there any question that the results of practice that day for Johnny will be different when the components of intent have been changed in this way? Perhaps Johnny's belief will manifest... as a result of him spending time throwing the ball he'll automatically get slightly better. If not the problem is likely that he didn't have enough emotional energy about the idea of getting slightly better. It's easy to imagine that Johnny would not improve his pitching on that day. In the first version though, it's much harder to believe his pitching wouldn't improve. If he paid attention to the components of intent he could deliberately tweak them himself. Perhaps he'd look at his specific aim to "pitch like a pro" and ask himself if he even knew what that meant. Then he'd watch videos of professional pitchers going frame by frame to see exactly what motions they make for their different pitches so that he could improve his ability to imagine himself doing those as well. As he did them he would pay attention to his emotional energy keeping himself curious and excited to do these precise movements and make those pitches work for him, (while avoiding being distracted by the emotions themselves). And all the while he would be unwavering in his belief that this would result in him pitching like a pro.
As this example shows, the components of intent can have a major impact in what is manifested in ordinary situations. If you pay attention to these factors as you go about your life, you're sure to notice how those times you excel and the times you don't do so well tend to be very different in regards to them.
I hope I've convinced you, (if you weren't already convinced), that there is at least something to this whole "intent manifests reality" thing but you certainly want an example where intent alone directly changes the physical reality. The truth is you've already got examples. It's well known that phobias can in severe cases cause people to break out in hives. You might not have realized this is a manifestation of their intent.
Remember earlier when I specified that intent doesn't mean "wanting something to happen"? Look at the components of intent wrt an arachnophobe breaking out in hives because there's a spider in the room. Belief? He has this belief that spiders are a major threat and will cause damage to his body in some unspecified way. Imagination? He imagines the spider to be about to attack him at any moment, visualizing it much larger than life and seeing an ambiguous threat. Emotion? There's a ton of emotional energy at play here. Specific aim? Unfortunately for the arachnophobe, the way specific aim works with intent is whatever future your focusing on is what you're influencing to manifest. It doesn't matter whether your focus is because you want it to happen or because you don't want it to happen. This is easy to see in an arachnophobe who breaks out in hives at the sight of a spider. On a grander scale I'll refer to your earlier criticism of the idea that everything is a result, (or manifestation), of intent by saying "then the result is a surreal world where people are the victims of wars or violent crimes because they wanted to be, and I don't think anyone wants to say that." The truth is it isn't because they wanted to be, but it was the result of what was (collectively) intended.
Another example you'll probably allow for manifesting intent to directly cause change in physical reality would be placebos. It's ironically sad that many people nowadays think that placebos only work on less intelligent people and that they're personally too smart for that to work on them. In effect, what they're saying is that those other people are able to miraculously cure themselves with their minds and they cannot... because they're smarter! With placebos, a patient has a belief that he's been given medicine that he thinks will cure him. He has a lot of emotional energy available. Although he isn't experiencing named, conventional emotions at the time people's energy is often highly active when sick. Perhaps it's why we say we're "fighting" the illness. Especially if he's in pain, he's probably got the specific aim of being well, with a lot of focus. And he may imagine what that's like, and if told when he'll start to feel the effects of the medicine he probably imagines it as he's being told.
These last couple examples have some things in common. First of all, with both the phobics and the placebo placated patients the physical change manifested by their intents alone occurred in their own bodies. Secondly, for each of them manifesting their intents was not a deliberate act. This suggests 2 things. 1 - It's probably easier to affect our own bodies with intent than it is to affect other physical objects. 2 - If people can cause things such as this without doing so deliberately, a person who practices deliberately using their intent should be able to cause physical changes using their intent that are at least as impressive.
If we are to continue down the scale from what's generally accepted as perfectly physically possible to what's considered impossible we would next look at examples of affecting other people with intent and talk about people knowing when someone was staring at them, knowing who was about to call, knowing their grandma whom they hadn't seen in years just died, etc. If we went past that and further down the scale we'd eventually find people manifesting unicorns to come visit them from the fairy world. The further we went in that direction the more you would doubt the feasibility of each example, until at some point you'd believe it not possible, nor anything further than it down the scale. But note that this is a belief, and belief is one of the components of intent.
Let me suggest for a moment that you were to see something you believe is impossible. Suppose you were to be walking around your neighborhood when all of the sudden a house just floated up off the ground, spun around and then set itself back down in the same spot it started. What would you do?
I have a feeling I know what most people would do in that situation. Most people would immediately try to find a way to fit this event they believe impossible into their worldview somehow. They would look at the house and say "What the hell?" They would stare curiously at it for some time, trying to imagine a way they could have seen this. They would pull ideas like reflections from their experience and try to determine what they "really" must've seen. They may decide that something they'd eaten must've contained some sort of hallucinogenic which made them "imagine they saw it". It wouldn't be long before they'd be saying to themselves "I don't know what I saw but it couldn't have been that". They would do this, one might say, to protect their sanity. But is it really sane to believe you didn't see something you did? Of course not, so it isn't their sanity their protecting. In actuality it's their worldview; the complete collection of all their beliefs which they are trying to protect. After questioning and disbelieving they saw the house levitate and spin, the average person would cement their defense of their complete belief set, (worldview), by forgetting all about it.
I would guess that you've never seen a house levitate and spin. But I would also guess that you've seen other things beyond what you say is possible which you've convinced yourself you didn't see and then later forgot. Perhaps you might try intending to remember if you have? Should you do so you might find Serloco's claims to be a bit more plausible than they seemed at first glance. Of course, it's up to you.
I was going to get into the importance of language next, but I think I'll save that for later, (this has taken me too long to write already!). Once again welcome to the forums.
Sure, my computer breaks and then I find this thread. Guess I'll start intending for it to still be around next week when I get my new one and I don't have to reply with just my phone. xD
Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk
I've got a better idea. How about instead I intend to remain around for just a couple days and meanwhile I fix my computer so I can at least do basic stuff with it, and then have the shiny new one arrive 5 days early. That'll give me a little time to play around with it before replying in here. Oh wait, that's what happened!
Was that my intent? Well, not consciously. I'd sort of assumed the laptop would get here on the expected date and didn't even think to try and intend otherwise. However I was pretty excited for it, (I've been using a computer on it's last legs for about a year now), so perhaps my energy and optimism helped it happen sooner. Which brings me to why I wanted to reply in this thread in the first place...
But first, just to be proper, hello Le_Regard and welcome to these forums. I hope the exchanges you find yourself in here are all mutually beneficial. Okay, now back to intent...
The first thing mathematicians do when they present a proof is to define their terms. The first thing the smarter logicians out there do when they present an argument is to define their terms. I'm going to copy them and start by defining intent. Intent, as I've learned to understand it, is a combination of imagination, belief, and emotional energy aimed at a specific result. It is important to note that the word intent as I, (and perhaps others) am using it here does not mean "wanting something to happen".
Le_Regard, (this whole reply is mainly for you), earlier in this thread you were challenging the notions of people really being able to intend things to happen, asking Serloco to give you all his money because he can just intend as much as he wants, talking about just intending for WWII never to have happened, etc. This could be analogized to a person who doesn't believe in chemistry challenging those who do by saying "Oh yeah? Well how about you show me cold fusion in a jar right now if chemistry is so real!" The point being, why start at such an extreme?
Like many other things, manifesting intent is probably easiest to understand if you start smaller. Once again, the 4 components are imagination, belief, emotional energy, and a specific result being aimed at. Let's look at all these components in a practical example.
Example 1. Johnny is a little boy who wants to learn to throw a baseball. So one day his dad goes out to show him how. He watches his dad throw it a few times and then it's his turn. After watching Johnny throw it a few times his father gives him some tips on how to do it better. Johnny then throws it again and is happy to see his accuracy has improved.
I think you'll agree that this is a perfectly ordinary scenario. One that's been played out many times, and something that fits perfectly within the normal bounds of what is generally considered to be physically possible. Let's look at how the components of intent are at work here...
Belief - Having seen his dad throw the baseball, (as well as many other people), Johnny has a solid belief that he can throw one too.
Imagination - As he watches his dad do throw it, he imagines himself doing so as well. When he throws it, his dad gives him tips. Again Johnny uses his imagination, picturing himself making the changes his father suggests to his throwing motion and the ball traveling more accurately as a result.
Emotion - When he throws it and it does indeed go straighter he gets excited, happy that he's learning what he wanted.
Specific Aim - Johnny wants to "learn to throw" a baseball. As straightforward as that sounds it is ambiguous. Does he just mean to be able to throw it into the strike zone? Does he mean he wants to have a variety of pitches in his arsenal which he can use to try and strike out batters from other little league teams with? Does he mean he wants to pitch like a pro?
Okay, so there's the 4 components of intent. But what do these things have to do with what occurs as a result of Johnny's trip to the baseball field with his dad that day? Plenty! Let's tweak these components and see what happens...
Belief - Johnny has been told he's clumsy all his life. He's therefore never spent much time at sports and when he has he's tended to do poorly against the other kids. He doesn't believe he'll be very good at pitching but he believes that spending time throwing the ball will somehow automatically improve his throwing so he doesn't embarrass himself in gym class.
Imagination - Johnny doesn't believe he could throw well so he doesn't imagine it happening. He sorta of half-heartedly pictures himself throwing the ball with the suggestions his father gives him but doesn't visualize the movement of the ball.
Emotion - Johnny doesn't feel much emotional energy when he's out practicing. He's sort of just "going through the motions" as the phrase goes.
Specific Aim - Johnny's goal is to get "less embarrassingly bad" at throwing the ball.
Now is there any question that the results of practice that day for Johnny will be different when the components of intent have been changed in this way? Perhaps Johnny's belief will manifest... as a result of him spending time throwing the ball he'll automatically get slightly better. If not the problem is likely that he didn't have enough emotional energy about the idea of getting slightly better. It's easy to imagine that Johnny would not improve his pitching on that day. In the first version though, it's much harder to believe his pitching wouldn't improve. If he paid attention to the components of intent he could deliberately tweak them himself. Perhaps he'd look at his specific aim to "pitch like a pro" and ask himself if he even knew what that meant. Then he'd watch videos of professional pitchers going frame by frame to see exactly what motions they make for their different pitches so that he could improve his ability to imagine himself doing those as well. As he did them he would pay attention to his emotional energy keeping himself curious and excited to do these precise movements and make those pitches work for him, (while avoiding being distracted by the emotions themselves). And all the while he would be unwavering in his belief that this would result in him pitching like a pro.
As this example shows, the components of intent can have a major impact in what is manifested in ordinary situations. If you pay attention to these factors as you go about your life, you're sure to notice how those times you excel and the times you don't do so well tend to be very different in regards to them.
I hope I've convinced you, (if you weren't already convinced), that there is at least something to this whole "intent manifests reality" thing but you certainly want an example where intent alone directly changes the physical reality. The truth is you've already got examples. It's well known that phobias can in severe cases cause people to break out in hives. You might not have realized this is a manifestation of their intent.
Remember earlier when I specified that intent doesn't mean "wanting something to happen"? Look at the components of intent wrt an arachnophobe breaking out in hives because there's a spider in the room. Belief? He has this belief that spiders are a major threat and will cause damage to his body in some unspecified way. Imagination? He imagines the spider to be about to attack him at any moment, visualizing it much larger than life and seeing an ambiguous threat. Emotion? There's a ton of emotional energy at play here. Specific aim? Unfortunately for the arachnophobe, the way specific aim works with intent is whatever future your focusing on is what you're influencing to manifest. It doesn't matter whether your focus is because you want it to happen or because you don't want it to happen. This is easy to see in an arachnophobe who breaks out in hives at the sight of a spider. On a grander scale I'll refer to your earlier criticism of the idea that everything is a result, (or manifestation), of intent by saying "then the result is a surreal world where people are the victims of wars or violent crimes because they wanted to be, and I don't think anyone wants to say that." The truth is it isn't because they wanted to be, but it was the result of what was (collectively) intended.
Another example you'll probably allow for manifesting intent to directly cause change in physical reality would be placebos. It's ironically sad that many people nowadays think that placebos only work on less intelligent people and that they're personally too smart for that to work on them. In effect, what they're saying is that those other people are able to miraculously cure themselves with their minds and they cannot... because they're smarter! With placebos, a patient has a belief that he's been given medicine that he thinks will cure him. He has a lot of emotional energy available. Although he isn't experiencing named, conventional emotions at the time people's energy is often highly active when sick. Perhaps it's why we say we're "fighting" the illness. Especially if he's in pain, he's probably got the specific aim of being well, with a lot of focus. And he may imagine what that's like, and if told when he'll start to feel the effects of the medicine he probably imagines it as he's being told.
These last couple examples have some things in common. First of all, with both the phobics and the placebo placated patients the physical change manifested by their intents alone occurred in their own bodies. Secondly, for each of them manifesting their intents was not a deliberate act. This suggests 2 things. 1 - It's probably easier to affect our own bodies with intent than it is to affect other physical objects. 2 - If people can cause things such as this without doing so deliberately, a person who practices deliberately using their intent should be able to cause physical changes using their intent that are at least as impressive.
If we are to continue down the scale from what's generally accepted as perfectly physically possible to what's considered impossible we would next look at examples of affecting other people with intent and talk about people knowing when someone was staring at them, knowing who was about to call, knowing their grandma whom they hadn't seen in years just died, etc. If we went past that and further down the scale we'd eventually find people manifesting unicorns to come visit them from the fairy world. The further we went in that direction the more you would doubt the feasibility of each example, until at some point you'd believe it not possible, nor anything further than it down the scale. But note that this is a belief, and belief is one of the components of intent.
Let me suggest for a moment that you were to see something you believe is impossible. Suppose you were to be walking around your neighborhood when all of the sudden a house just floated up off the ground, spun around and then set itself back down in the same spot it started. What would you do?
I have a feeling I know what most people would do in that situation. Most people would immediately try to find a way to fit this event they believe impossible into their worldview somehow. They would look at the house and say "What the hell?" They would stare curiously at it for some time, trying to imagine a way they could have seen this. They would pull ideas like reflections from their experience and try to determine what they "really" must've seen. They may decide that something they'd eaten must've contained some sort of hallucinogenic which made them "imagine they saw it". It wouldn't be long before they'd be saying to themselves "I don't know what I saw but it couldn't have been that". They would do this, one might say, to protect their sanity. But is it really sane to believe you didn't see something you did? Of course not, so it isn't their sanity their protecting. In actuality it's their worldview; the complete collection of all their beliefs which they are trying to protect. After questioning and disbelieving they saw the house levitate and spin, the average person would cement their defense of their complete belief set, (worldview), by forgetting all about it.
I would guess that you've never seen a house levitate and spin. But I would also guess that you've seen other things beyond what you say is possible which you've convinced yourself you didn't see and then later forgot. Perhaps you might try intending to remember if you have? Should you do so you might find Serloco's claims to be a bit more plausible than they seemed at first glance. Of course, it's up to you.
I was going to get into the importance of language next, but I think I'll save that for later, (this has taken me too long to write already!). Once again welcome to the forums.