Mind over matter?
Is there any evidence that our thoughts can create outcomes in the physical without use of our bodies? Like putting thoughts into the universe type thinking? I know when it comes to healing the placebo effect is powerful, but in those cases reduced anxiety always helps healing. But how about a coin flip with the coin hidden under a cup or something. Can we manipulate the odds of head/tails with our minds? Can we control anything external with thoughts?
Comments (15)
"It is said that we can have no conception how sensation or thought can arise from matter, they being things so very different from it, and bearing no sort of resemblance to anything like figure or motion; which is all that can result from any modification of matter, or any operation upon it.…this is an argument which derives all its force from our ignorance. Different as are the properties of sensation and thought, from such as are usually ascribed to matter, they may, nevertheless, inhere in the same substance, unless we can shew them to be absolutely incompatible with one another.”... this argument, from our not being able to conceive how a thing can be, equally affects the immaterial system: for we have no more conception how the powers of sensation and thought can inhere in an immaterial, than in a material substance..."
(Italics mine)
"...there [is] in matter a capacity for affections as subtle and complex as any thing that we can affirm concerning those that have hitherto been called mental affections."
On this view, mind is matter. So there aren't thoughts as opposed to matter.
As for you later point, all the evidence so far shows that these types of phenomena don't happen, we can't manipulate objects just by thinking hard about them.
Sometimes it is, but a placebo involves the material world. A procedure or medicine is faked, but something real (even if it has zero efficacy) is done. A confounding factor in our estimation of placebos is the immune system. A reduction in stress (less anxity) might give the immune system a boost in effectiveness.
Another factor is the natural history of disease. If you have a severe cold, you might seek any relief you can get, including prayer, chicken soup, or blue pills from the doctor. Even if none of those placebos have any actual effect, viral infections (like colds) can be very bad and last x number of days before they are at last vanquished by the immune system.
We rashly wish that mind could affect matter, but you know, it's a good thing that thinking can not bring down planes.
Does your body count as external?
One area which I think is relevant to your debate is the idea of the law of attraction. It is not simply about mind over matter, because the two are not easy to separate. However, what does come into the picture is intentionality, and of the role of our consciousness. The idea of the law of attraction, as advocated by Esther and Jeremy Hicks, and many other writers is of intention, on a conscious and subconscious level, having a determining effect in what becomes manifest in our external lives.
So your skin is a [I] thought horizon [/I]?
Thought ends at your skin? I don't know how thought works. I don't have any strong metaphysical bias to lean me in one direction or another. I just live with working scenarios, like we're in a shared dream with some ability to influence the content.
That's basically what engineering is: turning ideas into reality. So the answer to the OP appears to be yes, thoughts can shape reality. It's just that you need the right science or magic as an interface.
Right?
Sounds nonsensical like saying 'traveling across the Earth's surface ends at the horizon'.
Like event horizon. Thought horizon...
No? Ok. :up:
Why do some people think such a power exists? Sure humans have many psychological biases, but some must have rational to think their power exists only from their voice and hands?
Which unfortunately isn't going to happen seeing as you can't quantify a thought