Mind over matter I got's dem kee ehstions

The underlying assumption...that "mind" and "matter" are separate entities was expressed in Cartesian Dualism. There are several philosophical routes which dispute that dichotomy, including reductionism or deflation of "thinking" to "neural brain states". If you are interested in alleged "tele-kinesis" and similar, then reductionism gives you a possible explanation in terms of physical interactions "yet to be understood". (See for example Sheldrake on "morphogenic fields" or Hameroff on "quantum consciousness" for the application of physical concepts such as of "non-locality" to consciousness)

crayon,

fresco makes the point that thinking itself is really a "physical" phenomena that is manifested by real changes in energy and matter in the brain.

this is correct, and it could be used, on principle, to refute an argument stating that "telekinesis is fundamentally impossible because what you think does not affect the physical world."

however, the fact that thinking does occur within the real boundaries of physics does not mean that telekineses is possible. the fact is that it's just a matter of scale. it would be like trying to move a mountain by blowing on it. however, our neural system is designed to amplify these small physical changes into large ones by moving our body parts. thus, in essence, when you pick up something, you are essentially moving it with the powers of your mind.

there are other mental powers you can consider as well. for instance, what about the power to heal oneself by thinking about it? or to control one's blood pressure or consciousness? there is a lot of evidence that, with training, this sort of thing is possible.

stuh505,

A slight correction. I personally do not advocate "reductionism". A more attractive route for me would be to seek a position where "physicality" and "cognition" were themselves aspects of some other monism. This does not detract from your other comments.

fresco,

ok, I see where you're coming from. our notion of what is "physical" is entirely based upon our perception of the world, which is not entirely correct.

however, we can refer to the concept of "reality" without actually knowing what it is. it is basically like an "inverse problem" in signal processing.

some people might consider "physicality" to be synonymous with "true reality," implying that our current definition of what is physical would only be an approximate definition.

in any case, I did not intend to be making this distinction, so you can substitute all instances of the mention of "physicality" in my post with "true reality," which, by definition, is the most-reduced monism.

on a side note, saying that "physicality" and "cognition" are themselves aspects of some other monism is an advocation of reductionism. but that's good, because it is not possible to have a set of non-contradictory beliefs without believing in reductionism at some level.

Crayon!! Did you see that your "Do I have the power to end a thread?^^" thread is STILL dragging on?! I think it's nearly at 400 pages or some crazy thing. Good for you!

"Age is strictly a case of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't
matter." Jack Benny

yes yes, cypher I am well aware of that, and honestly I expected it to die out , a long time ago. But like people say, great things come from great people no conceit