Believing in Deities is a Form of Psychosis

[Little Rik]

Easy MA.
Go in a place where people seriously practice intuitional science or the real yoga and see their same response about the real reality.
If I would tell you about such a places I would be accused of proselytism and I don't want to do that considering that I also practice the real yoga.
I just leave to you to sort out where these places are.  

Um, any group of people can have a consistent response on a position concerning reality (or imagination). Can they have a consistent and correct response to a question to which I know the answer, but which they should not be able to ascertain by physical means? Or any similarly miraculous knowledge that can be shown to be extraordinary yet verifiable?

That is not possible for a very good reason.
It would be like to give the keys of your car to your little kid.
It would be very very dangerous although is quite possible but it would be something totally irresponsible.
As soon as you start the spiritual path towards infinity then your guru or teacher take care of you as you would take care of your little kid-s.
By giving the keys of your car to your little one you automatically put him-her in a position of high danger.
The same goes for the relationship that goes on between you and your spiritual teacher.
Of course he could give you all the power to move mountains, do miracles, win at lotto, be a superman that can fly or any extraordinary thing you can imagine but for obvious reason he will not do that.
He want you to progress spiritually and merge into his ocean of cosmic consciousness and the only way to achieve that is to give to you only what you can deal with and not give you anything that may drag you back in your spiritual progress.

I guess you never thought about that MA, did you?

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Wrong, wrong, wrong.      

Can your computer alter you?
How can it?
A physical science that deal with matter is miles and miles below the human consciousness therefore can not  alter it.
All physical science can do is to understand how the brain works but to understand the consciousness is a total different story.

Nope, I'm right right right. Test it yourself. Go a week without water or food. Ingest a large amount of alcohol. Give yourself repeated concussions. Run your car in a closed garage. All physical (science) things that can effect consciousness and do have an explanation in physical science. 

Maybe you don't have the ability to grasp the complete meaning of consciousness.

Wrong, wrong, wrong once again.

The original point was whether the physical reality can or can not alter your consciousness and the answer is not unless you produce an action with the intent in which case it does, so it is the intent that determine whether the action will alter the consciousness or not.

Our consciousness is connected to our body and brain so it is obvious that when our body or brain suffer in any way our consciousness feel the hit so to speak but to alter the consciousness is a totally different story.
The only thing that will alter our consciousness is not a reaction but an action.
When you have an unintentional accident that is a reaction to previous action-s.
Any thing you do in good faith that produce reactions are due to previous actions.
On the other hand anything that you do with the intent to do produce a reaction.
There is no such a thing as good or bad luck.
Everything is due to actions and reactions so a reaction can not possibly alter your consciousness but an action will.  

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Nope, I'm right right right. Test it yourself. Go a week without water or food. Ingest a large amount of alcohol. Give yourself repeated concussions. Run your car in a closed garage. All physical (science) things that can effect consciousness and do have an explanation in physical science. 

Maybe you don't have the ability to grasp the complete meaning of consciousness.

Rik, bonus points if you perform all of mh.brewer's suggested tests in the same week. That would be fun.

Seriously, though, Rik is impervious to these arguments because he seems to think of consciousness as some sort of psychic substratum, independent of the actual contents of conscious experience. It's bullshit, of course, but it's his get-out-of-thinking-free card whenever he is challenged to address the myriad and well known ways that consciousness is affected by physical change.

Have to cling to that dogma at all costs!

Considering that you are at least fifty years behind with your understanding of how the whole system works there is no wonder that you carry on with all these dogmas in your mind   but give time and you too one day will understand how the whole system works and how the karma and actions determine the altering of the consciousness.
In the meantime you only have to learn and be more aware of your little understanding of how the whole system works.