wandelaar

1 hour ago, wandelaar said:

 

Is this real??

 

Now how about the above? If true, than I think this is rather scary. Following ruthless logic such a system might at one time decide to fire up a crowd of its users to molest some of its worst critics. And as the system is already used for commercial and recreational purposes on an increasingly large scale I seriously doubt if such "accidents" would halt its further implementation.

Yes - but if you reinterpret the text as code for certain hidden esoteric practices than the obvious meaning no longer matters. And in that case you can even assert that the book actually (for those who - supposedly - can read the code) contradicts what it appears to say. That's why such discussions are completely useless...

Thank you! The issue isn't controversial: the TTC promotes simple living. Not only in chapter 80 but also in some other chapters that I mentioned. But you simply can't win a discussion with those who prefer to see it otherwise.

Quote

Tao Te Ching - Lao Tzu - chapter 80

A small country has fewer people.
Though there are machines that can work ten to a hundred times faster
     than man, they are not needed.
The people take death seriously and do not travel far.
Though they have boats and carriages, no on uses them.
Though they have armor and weapons, no one displays them.
Men return to the knotting of rope in place of writing.
Their food is plain and good, their clothes fine but simple,
     their homes secure;
They are happy in their ways.
Though they live within sight of their neighbors,
And crowing cocks and barking dogs are heard across the way,
Yet they leave each other in peace while they grow old and die.

 (translation by Gia-fu Feng and Jane English)

Is this real??

@freeform

You may believe what you want, but I prefer to read what the text says. And the text is very clear in promoting a simple lifestyle.

@Giles

Perhaps you should describe more precisely what you mean by someone "who isn't led by their emotions"?

7 minutes ago, Giles said:

So, you've never encountered anyone who isn't led by their emotions and you're not prepared to entertain the possibility that people like that exist? 😮

People can be led by habit, conformism, rational evaluation, dogmatism, ideology, character traits, instinct, tradition, etc. Usually it's some kind of mixture. But if emotions play no role whatever it gets kind of creepy. Not saying such people can't exist...

1 hour ago, Giles said:

That's quite surprising, unless you consider that equanimity isn't one of the defining characteristics of Taoist sages (or you consider that Lao Tzu wasn't a Taoist sage)? 😯

Not surprising at all, just read the TTC. Lao tzu is very clear about it. See chapters 3, 12, 19, 53, 57 and in particular 80. Further equanimity under whatever circumstances isn't something most people are able to achieve. And not even someone like Lao tzu. He felt an outcast in his own time, see chapter 20 and 70. And according to legend he left the world behind in disillusionment:

Quote

According to legend, Lao-Tzu tried his best to instruct people in the way of the Tao, the creative and binding force which runs through the universe, but no one would listen. His explanation that people could live happier, more fulfilling, lives by aligning themselves with the natural flow of the Tao, instead of placing themselves in opposition to it, went unheeded and, finally, he decided to leave humanity behind and retire into seclusion after writing the Tao-Te-Ching.

Source: https://www.worldhistory.org/Lao-Tzu/

Such a man (if he did in fact exist) is more dear to me than the hypothetical "Taoist sage" who would have remained unmoved whatever happened.

It's going too fast: in the old days one could over the years become a master in some trade, nowadays your chosen occupation could well become obsolete or radically change before you even get know the ins and outs of it. Same with the many gadgets and software we are forced to use in order to function within modern society: mobile phones, apps, internet banking, etc. Well I'm growing old, but I do think that the acceleration of technological developments has become rather extreme lately. And extreme in an unhealthy way.

Fascinating as it all may be from a technical and intellectual viewpoint - and I can't deny that it is! - I think that a guy like Lao Tzu would be aghast to see how living a simple live is becoming more difficult by the day as we in modern society surround ourselves with high-tech gadgets and computerized systems and hurriedly dismantle the old ways of doing. Soon there will no longer be a way back, and those who are unwilling to go along will end as outcasts.

Can we now draw the conclusion that it's possible to write posts for the internet like a real neidan master (as Chat GPT appears to be doing) on the basis of nothing more than a linguistic understanding of neidan texts without any actual practical experience?

But how should Chat GPT know about the expargarate creature if it can't surf the internet?

5 hours ago, Geof Nanto said:

Chat GPT: My training data was current as of 2021, so my knowledge on this topic is limited to what was present in that data. However, I have been designed to generate coherent and informative responses based on the information I have been trained on.

So Chat GPT cannot currently surf the internet. And consequently would know nothing about the expargarate creature...?

1 hour ago, Bhathen said:

I was wondering whether the body resistance decreases when the channels and meridians of the body were cleared and the dantien was full of qi, referring to what freeform had posted earlier.

You will have to ask someone else about the channels as I don't know anything about them.

Ha-ha-ha!!!

https://www.bing.com/search?q="expargarate+creature"+&qs=n&form=QBRE&sp=-1&pq="expargarate+creature"+&sc=8-23&sk=&cvid=F9BC03E171ED4962AC9703A5C67672D8&ghsh=0&ghacc=0&ghpl=

2 hours ago, Master Logray said:

It may be even better if you ask ChatGPT to write something based on your description of exparagarate creatures.

My test is meant to see if ChatGPT "understands" that expargarate creatures don't exist and would answer questions about them in such a way that the reader also gets it that they don't exist. If not than conspiracy theorists will have a ball. But I haven't got ChatGPT myself, and so I can't ask it anything. I'm interested to see how this thing develops, but I fear that it won't make the world a better place.

Or do you mean asking ChatGPT to help with writing an article about expargarate creatures, as a way to see if ChatGPT also takes its "facts" from requests by users?

Good you mention the expargarate creature: I have been studying the creature for decades now. Lots of people consider it as non-existent because they have never seen it. Which of course is ridiculous! Each of us has only seen a minute fraction of the creatures that actually exist, so who are we to declare what does or does not exist. Well then, what I found out in my many years of study is that the expargarate creature is part smart phone and part mocking bird. But how can that be, you ask? Well the creature is so intelligent that its appearance predates the human made smart phone by many decades. And by the way that's also the reason that the creature is seldom seen, it doesn't like to be studied, caught or locked up and thus wisely avoids being seen by humans.

Is that true? Does ChatGPT actually surf the internet? It should be possible to test this by discussing something non-existent (for instance the "expargarate creature") here, and then after a while ask ChatGPT about it.

It depends on the LED, for the LED I used the voltage I measured as being needed to light up the LED was in the range of 1.55 V to 1.59 V. Much less and the light will hardly be visible, but much more and the LED will be destroyed. I don't know about channels...

These experiments look very similar to what some Chi Gong masters are doing to demonstrate the projection of electrical chi. This could mean several things: it could be that the Chi Gong master is faking it; it could be that the Chi Gong master is able to generate the static electricity himself, or the similarity in effects could be accidental without there being a similarity in causes.

Now one important thing to notice is that electrostatic induction only results in attraction. See the video: the can is attracted, the water is attracted, the straw is attracted... Do we ever see a Chi Gong master repulse an inanimate object in his demonstrations...? If so than something else must be involved.

OK - I also posted my question elsewhere and the result is the same: it's very unlikely that one can light up a LED simply by using one's own body as an antenna that is: unless you have some particularly strong sources of electromagnetic fields in your surroundings and/or are very near to them.

A neon lamp looks like this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neon_lamp#/media/File:Neonlamp3.JPG

lt's a very different type of lamp compared to a LED.

Those look like neon lamps to me, are you sure those are LEDs?

There are lots of experiments one can do with static electricity. The following one is easy, and I have succeeded in replicating it myself. You can also use water from a faucet.