silent wrote:I can see the wisdom behind Ovyyus' skepticism because it's far easier on your health to rectify the problem as impossible, that Bessler was a fraud...
I don't think Bessler was a fraud. I think your assumption that Bessler's wheel was somehow powered by gravity is wrong. Persuing a wrong assumption is never easy.
I like to support "silent" in this case. I also agree that your assumption based on general school physics understanding is easier to handle mentally than silents assumption. (Based on the data and statements left by Bessler). At the same time I think it's not possible to generalize like this. Take religion for example. Religion is an assumption that makes life easier..
Johndoe2, you seem to be very confused about your gnosticism and how it relates to Christianity.
Gnosticism does not believe that faith has anything to do with salvation, but rather inner spiritual knowingness and revelation.
The word gnosis actually means "knowing" not faith.
Similarly true Gnostics do not believe that Christ died for your sins.
This idea derived entirely from Roman Catholic writers and priests to legitimize and monetize their authority over the public.
The true Gnostic mission of Christ was to teach that the physical world was just a grand illusion that must be fully realized in order to escape the trap of physical materiality - all explained in the Gospel of Thomas (written by Jesus' own brother Didymus Judas Thomas).
Of course this gospel was banned and burned by the Roman Catholics as it interferred with their monetization of the church and worldly control over their subjects.
This is then the "gnosis" that must be received thru inner spiritual knowledge and revelation to achieve salvation.
If one does not fully achieve this realization one is doomed to repeated reincarnation back into physical materiality.
"Faith" in Christ then has nothing to do with gnosis or salvation.
While you are correct this is traditional gnostic belief.
I have not reached this level of gnosticism as a fledgling gnostic my belief is still evolving. As of today I still have one foot in traditional Christianity (non denominational) and the other exploring gnostic beliefs. I find much of their teaching rings true to me and very interesing.
I do believe in a gnostic view of our creator. As we can gain knowledge about god through observation of his creation. The fallen angels and stories of Aeons has intrigued me for some time.
However I still ascribe faith as the only way to a Personal relationship with God. Weather jesus died in the flesh for my sins or not is still up for debate as well as some other gnostic beliefs. But getting a better knowledge of god through study and prayer seems to me to be very sound.
Oystein wrote:Religion is an assumption that makes life easier..
True.
All assumptions make life easier... (for the one who makes them)
Saves a lot of thinking.
I personally think:
Pro: Religion should show that life is two-way interconnected... Not only up-down, but also left-right, back-forth, big-small, first-last. It's one giant fractal.
Con: Organized religion has tendencies to become linear in a one-way dependency while sometimes even opposing the closest neighbor; that's where things quickly become counter-productive;
No matter how it'is locally named or blamed, when stripped of all the fluff all that basically remains is an effect similar to Newton's 3rd law of motion:
- One single premise to cultivate one's potential driving force but also showing who's to blame for one's own downfall...
No other forces are necessarily required. But perhaps a bit dull by the lack of fluff.
Marchello E.
-- May the force lift you up. In case it doesn't, try something else.---
"If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain.
Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world."
- James the disciple of Jesus.
Dont be religious, other than in servitude toward humanity.
Seek only truth, with all heart and with all your mind, and with all your soul, and when you find it, it shall make you free.
I recently read an interesting book entitled "Incident at Devil's Den" by Terry Lovelace. It's about the author's encounters with extraterrestrials and being abducted several times throughout his lifetime, a few times as a child, once in his 20's, and again later in his life they abducted him to retrieve items they had implanted in his legs. In his 20's he was in the military and after the abduction he was harassed by the OSI who ended up giving him truth serum and hypnotized him in an effort to retrieve memories the ETs had tried to erase. He described a ship as big as a city block, five stories high hovering 30 feet over the meadow where he was abducted. The ETs would walk into a beam of light emenating from the bottom of the craft and they would dissolve into the beam. Probably some sort of transport device to get aboard their craft. It makes one wonder that if they are perhaps thousands of years ahead of us technologically, then how far ahead of us are they religiously and spiritually? What God do they believe in? Did a Christ figure go to their planet and get murdered by the indigenous population for the redemption of their sins, and did he look like them on their planet?
Only a few hundred years ago, look what would happen to people who disagreed with church teachings e.g. Giordano Bruno, Gallileo, ...
And here we are trying to figure out a gravity engine, or a centrifugal force engine, or a thermal engine, or however you believe it ran, while the ETs have technology that can traverse our solar system in a matter of minutes. They are certainly traveling much faster than the speed of light to travel between the stars and we don't have physics equations to describe how they do it. We must look like a bunch of monkeys to them.
Silent....your original post is far & away the best I've ever witnessed here over my 15+ years. An honest, candid, account of your personal feelings & experience over/after the past six months. For sure it would have been an infinitely finer 15+ years, both personally & collectively if all, or at least more, members could have expressed themselves at that kinda level.
You obviously deserve & probably wish for as honest & candid a reply in return....no wonder you haven't, until just now, returned.
As to what I feel many others here deserve...it kinda lingers somewhere in a perverse triangle formed from mild contempt, pity & love.
Thread upon thread upon thread, year after year.....someone starts a thread, it receives a handful, at best, of replies that relate to it...often just.....then someone with nothing to add, other than a head full of opinion on something far easier for them to spout about, takes it off at a tangent for themselves & an army of the like minded to bump their gums over....in this instance pretty much bar Bill's helpful/inspiring quotes.
My reply to your post, hopefully honest & candid, is as follows Silent.....
For the gum-bumpers this isn't a quest....it's more a hobby, an amusement, a pass time. Yeah, like any hobbyist they can get overly engrossed/serious...but they don't go where you've clearly been...by and large.
Seems you've approached this as a quest...which of course it is. In six months you've knocked the shit out of yourself mentally/physically and you're knowing it...but what you are perhaps not knowing is the quest itself.
Quote: severely disappointed in that one thing I strived for hard in my life just isn't going to happen. I'm not one bit further along today than when I started. I'm used to seeing results for my efforts in everything that I try - even a little bit to show that progress is being made.
Silent, with respect.....you aren't trying to solve Rubik's Cube. Six months knocking yourself sideways might be about right if you were.
You are trying to determine that something known as a truth throughout humanity is in fact a lie....to make what is fully known /understood as impossible, possible.....please, dwell on that for however long it takes for you to adjust the expectation scale you're currently working to.......
I'd estimate that, way you're coming across, you've just completed the short introductory course. Now, having taken good measure of the quest before you, you'd best consider if you want to enter upon it!
You couldn't be faulted for deciding no....but you might want to bear in mind that you ARE six months further along than when you started. Six months & the price paid...in full. This quest, in particular, only accepts the currency you paid with...& it always, without fail, gives good value for it in return.
There's a whole loada stuff above, about faith, religion, God, Devil etc...the gum bumpers are quite at home bumping gums over the pro's & con's of such things, safely away from their hobby. But attempt to connect the two in any seriousness & it risks being considered off-topic.
Seems to me that I've no idea at all, as to who I am, where I am, what I am, when I am, how I am....and likewise everything I perceive in this mystery, my life. I must, by all logic therefore, content myself that everything just is....and the mystery of how/why it is, I'm happy to apply the term God to.
If PM exists in this realm then there must exist a lack of understanding of this realm...my God. That understanding doesn't come with bigger, better, techno dripping, hardware providing ever growing data/info for us to dwell upon in smug satisfaction that we're learning when in fact we're compounding our ignorance and stupidity second by second.
We here are not looking to cheat gravity acting on a fixed point, though most are trying exactly that...we are looking for how gravity can cheat a fixed point. Stumble upon the answer & you'll have to have stumbled upon the answer to Gravity. And in doing so a new, far simpler, understanding of this Realm will soon become clear. Unfortunately stumbling isn't an option here.
If you enter upon this quest Silent then you enter upon the true, much fabled, Quest for the Holy Grail...installments are, as you'd surely expect, extortionately high, outrageously hard to meet...and should you make it to the final payment you'll almost certainly find an exit clause on your life.
My own path has led me to consider the cross to likely be at the very heart of the matter, end of the day.....and the one who carries it martyr's themselves upon it....I sense someone departed, with long curly wig, nodding vigorously.
Not so the majority here alas....but I put it to them...
We have no true knowledge of what just is..this, my God. What apt title would you appoint to any quest for that true knowledge, that God....and what price might you imagine to put upon it, below that, that I've suggested?
All that said, the best advice I can offer any true Quester is simply this......it's like a tune that you fall in love with, you play it not stop until you are, like you Silent, sick & tired of it. A tune that you'd naturally end up putting aside to the point of forgetting about it....until it eventually comes knocking & when it does it's as good and somehow better/fresher, than it ever was.
Allow yourself to be more natural about it. Don't chase it, let it come to you, believe me...it won't go away & forget you! And pay it's price only when it does. What you get in return settles in & becomes apparent throughout the unfocused time in between...your hopefully otherwise, very happy & contented life.
Having just read your new post Silent...you've clearly got a growing host of doubts whispering in your ears....give them the benefit of the doubt. It's all a stupid waste of time & effort in pursuit of nothing.......walk away....it'll come running after you in time. When all those so hard gained, apparently dead end, insights come up with a cross reference that opens an entirely new door....just as you were taking a shit!
On reflection it's perhaps more accurate to suggest that you've thus far paid for part one of a 12month introductory course. Part two is paid over the next 6months by way of regretting/forgetting the first six.
Stay well/Gill
"Everything you know will always equal the sum of your ignorance"
silent wrote:Bessler claimed it was a divine dream that revealed the secret to him. Then he goes on to claim it was he that invented it...
IIRC, Bessler said a dream inspired him to continue working towards a solution. His invention wasn't gifted to him, he worked hard for it over a period of many years, and his hard work was eventually rewarded. An inventor's many years of hard work shouldn't be robbed by his moment of inspiration.
I confess I have often thought that Bessler’s wheel arrived at the wrong moment in human history, which is why the steam engine and all that followed overtook his wheel and buried it. The scientists of the time declared it a fake and subsequent academia followed suit.
But now, in this era of pollution, limiting energy resources and global warming, Bessler’s wheel is beginning to look like a potential solution. If I believed in God, or the great architect or some other transcendental super being I might begin to think there is a plan, some destiny designed to prolong the human race.
silent wrote:Bessler claimed it was a divine dream that revealed the secret to him. Then he goes on to claim it was he that invented it...
IIRC, Bessler said a dream inspired him to continue working towards a solution. His invention wasn't gifted to him, he worked hard for it over a period of many years, and his hard work was eventually rewarded. An inventor's many years of hard work shouldn't be robbed by his moment of inspiration.
from John Collins publication of Bessler's AP Page 298 wrote:XXII.
Since I had realised that organ-craft would be of use to me in the quest for my Mobile, I set to work with a will. I made many calculations and constructed many models. Parts from all over the area were collected for making machines. When all the parts were ready, I would fit them together with painstaking care, and when things had reached the point where the wheel should have revolved freely...well, if it refused to do so you can imagine how frustrated and angry I became! I would complain to no-one, but would take solace in thinking about other matters. But no true revolution manifested itself, whatever I did! What's more, funds were getting low, because all the bits and pieces cost no small sum! And my poor young assistant - he stood there glumly, scratching his head after labouring so long in vain. I too beavered away endlessly, and night and day my head was filled with conjectures. I relished no food; the project was making my head spin. But I always came back again and undertook new experiments.
I was "perpetually" devising new ideas in secret, and these I would boldly incorporate into yet another new wheel. This one just had to work.....How nicely it stayed put! How much I regretted the time and, especially, the money I'd put into it all! It would have been difficult, in the face of all this, for anyone to pluck up the courage to make new efforts. The net result of it all was sure to be the same as last time. But I doubt if anyone, in any country, has ever had the patience and diligence I showed in my obsessive fancy. While other people were being carefree, I'd be tearing my heart out. I'd discover something wonderful, on which I'd staked everything, only to be heard loudly lamenting, a few days later, at the thought that the years of work had been fruitlessly expended. I'd be overcome by great sorrow, would go to my bedroom full of anguish and weep bitterly, till finally God took pity on me, showed me his love, and blessed with good fortune my ensuing labours.
I had a rare dream, which gave me strength, happiness, air and space. For weeks I forgot the outside world and concentrated on my innermost self. Soon I was free of cares and greatly comforted by a new enlightenment. God had sent Joy after sorrow. After barreness, the finest silk was being spun. For I put together the very first device which could spontaneously revolve a little. I saw that I had finally made the right choice, and why the earlier ones had been wrong. My heart leapt for joy at the sight of this genuine Mobile.
ETA: for Overon & silent's benefit - Karl and Bessler's assistant saw the inside of the wheels. The assistant laboured long on the wheels. It's not conceivable that Bessler would not share his final solution with him imo. IIRC Bessler's assistant was his younger brother Gottfried.
silent wrote:Bessler claimed it was a divine dream that revealed the secret to him. Then he goes on to claim it was he that invented it. ...
Here's more context .. Page 201 of Bessler's DT (published in English by John Collins).
FIRSTLY
Dear God, Thou Who Art Alone The Almighty, who has, for Yourself and Your Holy Name’s sake, responsibility for all actions; I give up to You now, myself and all that I have received from You, and thank Your holy Name that I alone, in my nothingness, was chosen from countless Adam’s children for the honour (page 46) of discovering and bringing to reality that motive force so long sought by the wisest people, but which now has finally burst into being with its almost incredible promise of ineffable benefits – namely, the Principle of Perpetual Motion. This occurred so that Your wisdom should be glorified and Your ever-renewed goodness should be praised; the cause of it all being a humble tool which the famous scholars of the day have as yet seen in but an incomplete form. ... snip
Bessler is not talking about himself third person as the humble tool imo. He is talking in a practical sense. [like he does where he credits his pursuit of organ making i.e. the accurate woodworking skills he acquired to make the next 100 models etc, before success.] He says the famous scholars of the day have seen it (the tool) .. but not seen it in HIS complete form.
IOW's seen it but not recognised its potential; and not deduced its correct application; tho it's a common and ordinary (humble) tool !
That tool IMO is the Archimedes Lever. Represented in various guises (Storksbill, Pantographs, Levers) in the 5 children's games of MT's Toy Page.
We may be covering old ground here (useful or not) but at least you can know with the certainty of Bessler's words that a humble tool was the cause of his Perpetual Motion Principle !
