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27 Aug 07 - 11:56 AM (#2134555) Subject: BS: OOB - Occam-Organized Brain From: Bill D It seems that more research has produced various new data which could give us insight into Out of Body experiences The brain seems to, at least in SOME tests, resolve conflicting information by combining the streams of data into a recognizable, it incorrect, pattern. Sorta what I have expected for quite awhile. (Yes, I know...it doesn't 'prove' that all experiences are like this....but it is easier to explain than positing metaphysical realms..etc..hence my cute thread title..) |
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27 Aug 07 - 12:05 PM (#2134559) Subject: RE: BS: OOB - Occam-Organized Brain From: Donuel This will soon become an "advenure ride" at a theme park near you. |
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27 Aug 07 - 12:06 PM (#2134563) Subject: RE: BS: OOB - Occam-Organized Brain From: Bill D *grin*...now you've given away the plan, Don. |
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27 Aug 07 - 12:09 PM (#2134567) Subject: RE: BS: OOB - Occam-Organized Brain From: Amos This is kind of like claiming that because a projectable film was made of the Hindenberg catastrophe, and it was found that running said film through a projector recreated the experience in some way, that the original catastrophe was really just a film. A |
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27 Aug 07 - 01:07 PM (#2134619) Subject: RE: BS: OOB - Occam-Organized Brain From: Bill D no, Amos...that is not a good metaphor. We know exactly how the film was created, and running it gives exactly the same experience every time. The point is that we do NOT know how original OOB experiences happen, only that 'similar' experiences can be controlled artifically...which may give us some insight. |
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27 Aug 07 - 02:03 PM (#2134654) Subject: RE: BS: OOB - Occam-Organized Brain From: Amos Sure. But the presumption offered is that the stimulation of brain segments is similarly replicable. (And, let me offer as an aside that we do NOT know how the creative flow behind good scripts happens, either). Tweak the brain, get an OOB. Run the projector, and "Oh, the humanity!". A sentiment which I echo here. Besides -- the two points not covered in this proposition are (a) that the brain tweaking actually does bring about a release of being and cause some sort of OOB incident. And (b) that the brain tweaking is a poor replica of such an actual experience, caused by electrical re-stimulaton of some memory lode. Finally, you are forgetting or ignoring the tennis shoe. The tennis shoe is just one example of the white crow which discredits the pure mechanistic model of exterior adventures. It was observed and described in detail by a hospital patient who saw it (while out of her body) resting on a ledge outside the building, between windows, in such a position that she could not have possibly seen it from any location in the building she had been to. When her report was being considered, one of the officials of the hospital (if I recall the story rightly) went and inspected the ledge from the roof, and found the hidden sneaker in exactly the configuration which had been described. I linked to this report in one of the endless discussions we have had on this wearisome topic in the past, but I do not recall the thread name. There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy." --Hamlet (I, v, 166-167) A |
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27 Aug 07 - 02:19 PM (#2134662) Subject: RE: BS: OOB - Occam-Organized Brain From: Uncle_DaveO Amos, the tennis shoe incident, if factual, doesn't conflict with the article and the experiment. There's no conflict. Why? Because the article rather clearly indicates that this may shed light on some OOBs. No claim is made that it explains everything. I think it's really rather modestly advanced. Dave Oesterreich |
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27 Aug 07 - 02:22 PM (#2134666) Subject: RE: BS: OOB - Occam-Organized Brain From: Amos Well, Dave, okay -- I'm all for modest advancement. I was just nipping Bill in the shin. I knew the minute that piece came out I'd be seeing it here under his postership. It was, like, even, pre-cognition, ya know what I mean? Weird, huh?!!!! :D A |
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27 Aug 07 - 02:26 PM (#2134674) Subject: RE: BS: OOB - Occam-Organized Brain From: Sorcha LOL! I had one, just one. Wasn't trying at all. Trying to go to sleep and I heard a loud POP! And I seemed to be OOB....above myself on the bed as it were. Tried for years to do it again; meditation, calm, story telling to self, etc (NO drugs). Never happened again. I gave up. Frankly, it scared the shit out of me! |
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27 Aug 07 - 02:50 PM (#2134691) Subject: RE: BS: OOB - Occam-Organized Brain From: Bill D durn, Amos...how about some POST-cognition fer a change...*grin* and as Dave points out, and I indicated, we/they are a long way from any definitive answers...but it sure is a small point for MY predictions. I wish I was gonna live 127.83 more years...oh, right...I may. White crows and all that. |
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27 Aug 07 - 02:54 PM (#2134695) Subject: RE: BS: OOB - Occam-Organized Brain From: Amos One of the research papers cited in this paper (link above) is entitled "Video Ergo Sum", which I think is unintentionally very insightful. In all the discussions and other adventures I have had concerning the nature of human awareness and its seat and source, the common denominator is that apparently non-material ability which takes on viewpoints, and by assuming them, perceives therefrom. I suspect, on this basis, that the experiements described were essentially inducing the assumption of an OOB viewpoint. But doing it by confusing perceptics, on a impulsive or reactive-response basis, rather than as an elective ability. I am far from persuaded that chemicals in strings and nets or organization can create an actual point of view from which perception occurs. And even further from persuaded that they can bring about perception itself. A |
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27 Aug 07 - 03:09 PM (#2134703) Subject: RE: BS: OOB - Occam-Organized Brain From: Donuel The parapsychological explaination involved information theory and that at death the information of a person still exists in a space time frame for a short time and is percieved as an experience outside the body. I'll take the Occam explanation even if it is overly simplistic. |
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27 Aug 07 - 03:35 PM (#2134719) Subject: RE: BS: OOB - Occam-Organized Brain From: Peace "the original catastrophe was really just a film." Ever see "Plan 9 From Outer Space"? |
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27 Aug 07 - 03:36 PM (#2134720) Subject: RE: BS: OOB - Occam-Organized Brain From: Peace "one should not increase, beyond what is necessary, the number of entities required to explain anything" That came from a guy who believed in God. Anyone want to comment? |
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27 Aug 07 - 03:52 PM (#2134734) Subject: RE: BS: OOB - Occam-Organized Brain From: Amos Deep, Peace!! :D The INVERSE of this principle is that one should not suppress or exclude phenomena which are known to exist merely because the explanation has no way to account for them. Adhering to this inverse is ethically just as compulsory, in the quest for understanding, as adhering to the original is in the quest for elegance and its concomitant convenience. The molecular model of brain action does not have any way to account for the qualitative leap between stimuli and perception. Or, between perception and understanding. Sure, it can account for rods-cone stimulation, but where does that become perception? And how come some perception occurs with no such stimulaton apparent? A |
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27 Aug 07 - 04:03 PM (#2134748) Subject: RE: BS: OOB - Occam-Organized Brain From: Peace Occam simply went with the prevailing thought of his time. What's come to be called Occam's Razor was applied to philosophical thought before he was born. I guess he didn't apply it to his own thinking. Substantially, I don't see that O's R is a real help in terms of 'explaining' things. At some juncture, things just ain't that simple. |
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27 Aug 07 - 04:45 PM (#2134775) Subject: RE: BS: OOB - Occam-Organized Brain From: Uncle_DaveO No, Occam's Razor doesn't really explain anything. It chiefly gives guidance as to adopting an explanation which may be put forward. Or better, guidance on which (if any) of multiple explanations that may be offered it is most reasonable to adopt. And it's not absolute, though usually highly persuasive, even on those things. Dave Oesterreich |
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27 Aug 07 - 05:17 PM (#2134812) Subject: RE: BS: OOB - Occam-Organized Brain From: Bill D Occam's Razor is more a guide as to when to be wary, rather than a way to specifically discredit a theory. |
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27 Aug 07 - 05:36 PM (#2134831) Subject: RE: BS: OOB - Occam-Organized Brain From: Bill D "one should not increase, beyond what is necessary, the number of entities required to explain anything" "That came from a guy who believed in God. Anyone want to comment?" sure...at that time, God was a given...I am not at all surprised to see a logical rule applied to everything except God in Occam's time. |
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27 Aug 07 - 05:39 PM (#2134834) Subject: RE: BS: OOB - Occam-Organized Brain From: Peace Yeah. Especially when doing so could result in one being separated from one's own head . . . . |
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27 Aug 07 - 05:55 PM (#2134845) Subject: RE: BS: OOB - Occam-Organized Brain From: Peace . . . no doubt cut off by the Razor itself. (-: |
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27 Aug 07 - 05:56 PM (#2134846) Subject: RE: BS: OOB - Occam-Organized Brain From: John Hardly ...or at the very least, a serious shaving incident. |
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27 Aug 07 - 06:13 PM (#2134858) Subject: RE: BS: OOB - Occam-Organized Brain From: Bill D Giordano Bruno learned the hard way to be careful what he said..... |
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27 Aug 07 - 06:19 PM (#2134863) Subject: RE: BS: OOB - Occam-Organized Brain From: dick greenhaus Anyone recall Hanlon's Razor? "Thou shall not attribute any couses to explain a phenomenon when simple stupidity will suffice" |
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27 Aug 07 - 06:22 PM (#2134865) Subject: RE: BS: OOB - Occam-Organized Brain From: M.Ted Whatever it may or may not explain, the research is a great help to people who cut their own hair. |
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27 Aug 07 - 07:10 PM (#2134887) Subject: RE: BS: OOB - Occam-Organized Brain From: Bill D Why....*I* cut my own hair...I have for 29 years now, and will do so until I die...unless I see someone open "Occam's Barbershop"...I wouldn't be able to resist. |
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27 Aug 07 - 07:26 PM (#2134896) Subject: RE: BS: OOB - Occam-Organized Brain From: The Fooles Troupe "The molecular model of brain action does not have any way to account for the qualitative leap between stimuli and perception." One simple phrase 'explains' it - 'emergent behaviour' - of course that may also just 'explain it away'.... :-) |
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27 Aug 07 - 07:32 PM (#2134901) Subject: RE: BS: OOB - Occam-Organized Brain From: Amos That's a nice portfolio phrase, but it simply runs the loop around one more time, IMHO. A |
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27 Aug 07 - 08:49 PM (#2134957) Subject: RE: BS: OOB - Occam-Organized Brain From: John O'L It seems to me that the simplest explanation for alleged OOB experiences would be an actual OOB experience. "Using virtual reality goggles to mix up the sensory signals reaching the brain, scientists have induced out-of-body-like experiences in healthy people..." Did someone mention unncecesary entities? |
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27 Aug 07 - 09:24 PM (#2134973) Subject: RE: BS: OOB - Occam-Organized Brain From: Amos I'm with John O'L. The simple single postulate of beingness not glued in to the material network of the individual body solves multiple complexities with a single postulate. Leaving such a postulate out of the equation invokes a great deal of complexity to make the material model stretch around known phenomena. A |
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27 Aug 07 - 09:37 PM (#2134980) Subject: RE: BS: OOB - Occam-Organized Brain From: Donuel Amos did you just say something in philosophical 'parodese' or do you really adhere to a reductionist view of consciousness/perception. Not that there is anything wrong with that. Consciousness has an Occum answer as simple as being the overview of all perceptions. |
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27 Aug 07 - 09:44 PM (#2134984) Subject: RE: BS: OOB - Occam-Organized Brain From: Amos Reductionist? Hardly. The issue is not the definition of the word. It is the desire to force it into a biological/mechnical model out of intellectually lazy inertial thinking, with concomitant rationalizations resorting to complexity as an argument. That doesn't mean I am a reductionist, unless I misunderstand your use of the word. A |
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27 Aug 07 - 10:19 PM (#2135000) Subject: RE: BS: OOB - Occam-Organized Brain From: M.Ted The reason that BillD and other "self-tonsured" folk would find the research useful was that, rather than trying to explain or account for Out-of-Body Experiences, it's intent was to figure out why we perceived our sense of self to be where we do. And they discovered that, by placing the eyes behind the perceivers head, they relocated the sense-of-self to that place. I am not sure that this is a great revelation, but, as I said, it would be helpful to those who cut their own hair if they could see their head from behind. |
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27 Aug 07 - 10:31 PM (#2135004) Subject: RE: BS: OOB - Occam-Organized Brain From: GUEST,Peace It is generally accepted that we use about 10% of our brain. The question is then "What's the other 90% doing?" |
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27 Aug 07 - 10:34 PM (#2135008) Subject: RE: BS: OOB - Occam-Organized Brain From: The Fooles Troupe "generally accepted that we use about 10% of our brain" Well we really have no idea, cause we only THINK we know what that 10% is doing - the other 90% is supporting that 10% - just ask any Military Logistican... |
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27 Aug 07 - 10:37 PM (#2135009) Subject: RE: BS: OOB - Occam-Organized Brain From: Bill D ???"... the desire to force it into a biological/mechnical model... " It would seem to some...(yes, like me)..that there is a strong desire in certain folks to force it OUT of a "biological/mechnical model" and create other models in realms that are even hard to describe clearly. We can do things like measure brain activity during OOBs etc...and we do know that these recent studies offer interesting correlations. It just seems as if the evidence suggesting subjective bias points more towards those making claims FOR OOBs. It is a delicate matter to suggest to those having OOBs, that their seemingly clear, intense experiences 'may' have bio-mechanical causes...but that IS one possibility. I just saw a documentary on Harry Houdini, who spent the last years of his life exposing intentionally fraudulent and deceptive claims about mystic experiences. *IF* even honest & sincere claims suffer from some of the same flaws, we should know about it....BOTH sides of the debate should be studied as fairly as possible, and at some point...perhaps....something close to a consensus may be realized. |
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27 Aug 07 - 11:43 PM (#2135027) Subject: RE: BS: OOB - Occam-Organized Brain From: Amos Bill: The spirit-body dualism has been the favored model for explaining the discrepancies between thought and biological systems since the days of Descartes in the West and the days of Gautama in the East. It is the notion that the atomic/molecular model must account for thought that it is the breech-birth here, intellectually, and the hard sell. Measuring brain activity during OOB or dreaming tells you know more about the seat and ownership of consciousness than does the measure of CFM of water into an estate tell you who is bathing whom. The metric has no connection with the substantive, experiential moment. Only the Who of the house can do that. I am oversimplifying. But then, so are you. A |
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28 Aug 07 - 12:04 AM (#2135036) Subject: RE: BS: OOB - Occam-Organized Brain From: Peace And let's not forget 'thought'. I tend to the notion that thought becomes a different 'entity'. |
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28 Aug 07 - 09:05 AM (#2135201) Subject: RE: BS: OOB - Occam-Organized Brain From: Grab It is generally accepted that we use about 10% of our brain. Only by people who've heard the same urban legend. It's untrue. Even people who believe that urban legend are still using 100% of their brain 100% of the time. Whether it's helping them is open to question, though. ;-) As Foolestroupe says, think of the military model. Only 10% of the army might be firing their weapons at any one time, but it doesn't mean the other 90% are doing nothing. In the brain, there are a load of areas, each of which has its own speciality (vision, balance, language, image recognition, personality, etc.) and they all work together to make us do what we do. As with the military model, if we override orders or reports from one area to another, we're going to get odd results. And as with the military model, if some specialist parts of the brain are disabled (stroke or injury, for example), other parts can often take over, albeit not doing as good a job because they've not had the training. The simple single postulate of beingness not glued in to the material network of the individual body solves multiple complexities with a single postulate. Trouble is that it doesn't solve anything. By saying that the "soul" (or "seat of consciousness" or "essence" or whatever) is not physically manifest, it's inherently invisible to any sensor or any experiment. And hence it's not provable or disprovable - it can only be an article of faith. That's where Occam's Razor fails, because an article of faith is simple ("I believe it therefore it is so"), where a physical explanation may be very complex. For example, think gravity. For years, the prevailing wisdom on the sun and moon was that they were carried by gods. Nice simple explanation, and no-one has to wonder why they stay up there, because gods can do anything they want. Then we got the model of a clockwork universe with the sun, moon and planets mounted on spinning glass balls. Still fairly simple, but more complex than gods. Then came Newton and gravitational attraction, and the complexity went right up. Then we got Einstein, and the complexity went up a whole lot more. And even that isn't explaining everything. My point is that "forcing" stuff into a biological/mechanical framework *isn't* intellectually lazy. It might not be right, but it sets up further ideas that can be tried to see whether they make a closer fit to what's observed. If you suppose body/spirit duality though, the spirit by definition can *never* be observed. In other words, putting forward body/spirit duality is the *failure* to apply intellect, because it presents an intellectual dead end where the answer is "just because". To adopt the bath analogy, CFM flow of water down a river and good fluid dynamics models will not tell you how it feels to float down the river in a barrel - but it *will* let someone on the bank describe exactly how the barrel will travel and predict every movement felt by the person in the barrel before it happens. The fact that the person on the bank won't be feeling what the person in the barrel is feeling doesn't make the models wrong. Meantime the biological/mechanical model has been working onwards. Starting from the belief that the human body is just meat, doctors and surgeons have successfully figured out most of how the body works in terms of blood and muscles and how to fix a lot of what goes wrong and is badly put together, in defiance of earlier beliefs that the body was divinely constructed and that life and death were in the hands of the gods. It's taken about 400 years to get this far. Once you know how the mechanisms of the body work, nerves and the brain are clearly next on the list. Currently these experiments are often at the stage of metaphorically throwing people down the river in barrels and tracking the barrels to figure out how the river flows, but it's putting up some interesting results already, like this one. Graham. |
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28 Aug 07 - 10:02 AM (#2135244) Subject: RE: BS: OOB - Occam-Organized Brain From: John Hardly I met a guy once who was using 11% of his brain. |
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28 Aug 07 - 10:05 AM (#2135249) Subject: RE: BS: OOB - Occam-Organized Brain From: Uncle_DaveO Wonderful post, Graham! Dave Oesterreich |
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28 Aug 07 - 10:12 AM (#2135259) Subject: RE: BS: OOB - Occam-Organized Brain From: Amos Graham: I am not talking about faith. I am talking about what happens when an individual perceives. There's no faith about that. Like many things accpeted on the basis of probable rightness it is not ultimately disprovable for a number of reasons, one being the extraordinary capacity of the mind for plasticity and self-imposed blanking of non-conforming data. The notion that something that is not material MUST be taken on faith ignores a great deal of experiential evidence from every region where humans strive to live. A |
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28 Aug 07 - 11:54 AM (#2135307) Subject: RE: BS: OOB - Occam-Organized Brain From: Bill D Graham...I have tried for years to say clearly what you just managed to express. I think I will copy this part into my collection of quotes that pop up on my screen occasionally. " ... putting forward body/spirit duality is the *failure* to apply intellect, because it presents an intellectual dead end where the answer is "just because"." I really don't know what to say to those who accept and defend 'body/spirit duality' based on the idea that their own subjective interpretation of their own experience trumps any other possible explanation. "just because" ranks right up there with "just wait until it happens to you!" I really can't see why MY having an 'interesting' intense experience would either prove or disprove any theories. Gradually, we ARE "throwing people down the river in barrels and tracking the barrels to figure out how the river flows,", and who knows what better tracking devices will show in the future? I suspect it will be more than we got from "just because". |
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28 Aug 07 - 12:22 PM (#2135335) Subject: RE: BS: OOB - Occam-Organized Brain From: Amos Well, I agree it is an elegant phrasing of the point. But the point itself is wholly bogus, which kind of dulls the shine. It is not an intellectual dead-end to say that structural model do not account for observed functional events. In fact it is an opening of intellectual doors. I'll tell you what is an intellectual dead end, though: trying to cram creative power, aesthetic awareness, transpersonal consciousness and other intensely "spiritual" (for want of a better word)data sets into an arbitrary mechanistic--or at least materialistic--model, without noticing the glaring qualitative mismatches I have spoken of up thread. I am coming to the conclusion, however, that the rule of "if it doesn't fit the model, it is not data, and if it IS data, it damn well WILL fit the model" is not going to relax on this thread, and similar ones we have had before. A |
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28 Aug 07 - 01:20 PM (#2135371) Subject: RE: BS: OOB - Occam-Organized Brain From: Uncle_DaveO Amos said: I am coming to the conclusion, however, that the rule of "if it doesn't fit the model, it is not data, and if it IS data, it damn well WILL fit the model" is not going to relax on this thread, and similar ones we have had before. Amos, the protocol of science is that, "If the data do not fit the model, the model may need adjusting, or the data may need refining or expansion." One does not throw the Leaving my rather fanciful metaphor, what we are involved with here, at least in part, is the question of "What constitutes data?" The great tradition of a number of centuries, which has served the cause of knowledge admirably, is that data must be measurable and reproducible--which is to say, verifiable. Hearsay reports of individual personal experiences are extremely difficult to investigate and verify. If they fly in the face of the model, they are indeed not data. Dave Oesterreich |
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28 Aug 07 - 01:22 PM (#2135374) Subject: RE: BS: OOB - Occam-Organized Brain From: Bill D ...and if it is data that can only be examined once, by one person, by subjective means, it is 'truth'. I do 'spect yore 'bout right there, Amos. The standoff will continue as long as there is no agreement about even what counts AS 'data'. |
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28 Aug 07 - 01:49 PM (#2135398) Subject: RE: BS: OOB - Occam-Organized Brain From: Grab Amos, you're right, the rule is definitely that "if it IS data, it damn well WILL fit the model" - in the same way that Newton and Einstein reinvented the models of the solar system to fit data. As the joke goes, "Scientists make the worst managers; give them facts and the buggers change their minds." ;-) You mentioned experiential evidence, using people's experiences as evidence. While people are going through these causes and effects fairly systematically, it's almost inevitable that sooner or later, something that previously was explained as "just because" will find a physical explanation. (Whether this is a "just because" from the medical side where they didn't know or claimed to know but were wrong, or a "just because" from the religious/spiritual side who claim it's a spiritual manifestation or a message from God, it's immaterial.) It's happened in every other area so far, which is why some religious folk get riled up about the "God of the Gaps". So it'd be pretty unlikely for this not to happen when people investigate brain functions. In this case for example, they've found one way of causing a brain malfunction which simulates an out-of-body experience. For another example, there's also interesting things they can do with electromagnets which makes it feel like being on a roller coaster without ever moving (strictly that's affecting the inner ear, but it's affecting perception of reality). In other words, we're putting people in barrels, throwing them down that river, and tracking their reported experience against the initial conditions. We might not be able to see all of their progress (perhaps the river vanishes down a cave) but we can use their reported experiences and what little we can see to try and figure it out. And if we drop a load of people in at the same point at the same speed, and they all report the same experiences at the end, we can be fairly sure we've got it nailed. Sure, this doesn't mean it's the *only* way that things could happen - in the same way as the existence of gravity doesn't discount the existence of a god personally moving planets around or of telekinesis. But at this point Occam's Razor *does* kick in - we have a known mechanism already, so do we need a further explanation which can never be tested? If this mechanism doesn't work for all cases then clearly there *is* a further explanation needed, but if you want to suggest a further explanation then the first requirement is to show where the proposed mechanism breaks down. Of course, anyone experiencing this will say "but it didn't feel like my brain malfunctioned". Which asks the question of what *does* a malfunctioning brain feel like, and also hits the problem of whether people will admit to this being a possible cause. Which I know is a bit of a catch-22, but the problem with your qualitative experiences is that there's only one observer, and that observer is anything but dispassionate about the results. Graham. |
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28 Aug 07 - 02:13 PM (#2135424) Subject: RE: BS: OOB - Occam-Organized Brain From: Uncle_DaveO Graham said, in part: the rule is definitely that "if it IS data, it damn well WILL fit the model" - in the same way that Newton and Einstein reinvented the models of the solar system to fit data. Close, Graham, but not quite. Instead, the rule is definitely, if it IS data, the model damn well WILL be made to fit it (at least potentially, if the data stand up to investigation.) Dave Oesterreich |
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28 Aug 07 - 03:09 PM (#2135457) Subject: RE: BS: OOB - Occam-Organized Brain From: Peace "In the brain, there are a load of areas, each of which has its own speciality (vision, balance, language, image recognition, personality, etc.) and they all work together to make us do what we do." True Grab, but then that may not be all the other 90% is doing. |
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28 Aug 07 - 03:36 PM (#2135469) Subject: RE: BS: OOB - Occam-Organized Brain From: bobad We all know, at least in the male brain, what that other 90% is doing, don't we? |
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28 Aug 07 - 04:09 PM (#2135488) Subject: RE: BS: OOB - Occam-Organized Brain From: Uncle_DaveO bobad, that's funny, but what you're talking about is, I believe, the province of the "old brain", the "reptile brain", the amydala, a very small part of the brainosphere, to coin an expression. Sorry to be a spoilsport. Dave Oesterreich |
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28 Aug 07 - 07:13 PM (#2135624) Subject: RE: BS: OOB - Occam-Organized Brain From: Uncle_DaveO Mrrzy said it, in another thread, a while back: The plural of anecdote is not data. Dave Oesterreich |
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29 Aug 07 - 12:20 AM (#2135801) Subject: RE: BS: OOB - Occam-Organized Brain From: Amos There is no "just because" in my model, and I submit that asserting that there is, as a reason for dismissing the argument, is either lazy, or dishonest, or because I have not made my point very well...probably the latter. The machinery of mechanism-based knowing is well established and very successful. But if you use the machinery to address the question of awareness and thought you are predestined to discover mechanism as your explanation. You have painted yourself into a self-fulfilling corner. But in doing so you have to throw out a great deal of data both anecdotal and generally observable, including the experiences you yourself have had of the world. Subtracting yourself from the viewpoint observing the data is a nice, somewhat nihilistic idea, in theory, but it never happens in fact. Furthermore, the most developed model of brain-based thught can barely come up with a crude approximation of how patterns and emerging echelons of patterns form in the brain, and can not bridge from these complex analyses to an explanation of the most everyday moment of understanding, or compassion, let alone inspiration. The whole thing is a cold not predicated on the dubious premise of "objectivity" and separable events and objects, serial time and uniform space. Even the physicists are giving up on these grand Newtonian postulates, but the thing is they have proven far too useful to throw out. And that's as it should be.. But let us not fool ourselves into confusing such balderdash with the ground truth. Anyway, it is clear I am speaking Greek in a French whorehouse here, so I think I will go down to the river and jump the next caique heading back to Piraeus.... A |
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29 Aug 07 - 12:35 AM (#2135806) Subject: RE: BS: OOB - Occam-Organized Brain From: Peace "The human heart knows things the eyes don't see, and feels things the mind cannot understand." |
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29 Aug 07 - 04:43 AM (#2135874) Subject: RE: BS: OOB - Occam-Organized Brain From: Grab Yes Dave, that was what I was trying to get at - if the data doesn't fit, figure out a better model where the data *does* fit. Amos, I don't entirely rule out the existence of duality. I'm simply asserting that it's something we have no way of proving or disproving, which makes it practically useless. In fact it's worse than useless, because an experience might be ascribed to the "spirit" as an explanation when a physical explanation is actually correct. But because the "spirit" explanation exists, it discourages anyone looking for another explanation - after all, we already have one, right? That's how we get to the "just because" point. Actually it's not "just because", it's that it's "spirit", but for all practical purposes the two are the same - it's saying "spirits just do that" and that's the explanation. If people figure out every part of the brain and find that there *is* some kind of control from outside, and there's no mechanism for that control, I'm good with Holmes's "you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth". I personally suspect that won't be the case, but it's not something anyone will know for a while yet. The problem is though that if you want to figure out and fix depression, schizophrenia, chronic pain and all the other woes that a malfunctioning brain can dump on you, you'll need more than "it's the spirit". The most basic assumption to be made is that it *might* be possible to fix them, and since the spirit is untouchable, that *might* put these down to physical problems (otherwise it wouldn't be possible to fix them). It seems obvious, but it's a point which eluded all religions until very recently - they assumed that it *was* the spirit, so the person was irrevocably damned (or holy, depending on what attributes the religion ascribed to their behaviour), with appropriate consequences for them and for society as a whole. And once you start looking, you may find that certain manifestations are reproducable by particular malfunctions. This doesn't require nihilism to accept it, simply an awareness that our brains can be fooled and that what we perceive is not necessarily the truth. Think optical illusions - if you take a pair of straight lines and draw concentric circles over the top of them, the lines seem to be bent, but all you've actually done is fooled your brain's perception of them. In other words, you've revealed a malfunction in the brain. And if you accept the possibility of a malfunctioning brain for vision, why not for other illusions, including spiritual experiences? I don't say it's the only game in town, but if someone finds a brain malfunction which reliably causes this, it's not too big a leap to suppose that people in the past who've experienced this were having that brain malfunction and not a spiritual experience. The classical explanation of perception is a "dusty mirror". I think a better explanation is a warped fairground mirror. A whole bunch of people might look into the mirror and say "hey, we all have really short legs and deformed heads". They're all experiencing the same thing, but it doesn't make it true. Graham. PS. Thanks, Dave and Bill. |
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29 Aug 07 - 09:27 AM (#2136010) Subject: RE: BS: OOB - Occam-Organized Brain From: Grab Sorry: "description", not "explanation" in the last para. |
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29 Aug 07 - 10:29 AM (#2136046) Subject: RE: BS: OOB - Occam-Organized Brain From: Amos Amos, I don't entirely rule out the existence of duality. I'm simply asserting that it's something we have no way of proving or disproving, which makes it practically useless. In fact it's worse than useless, because an experience might be ascribed to the "spirit" as an explanation when a physical explanation is actually correct. But because the "spirit" explanation exists, it discourages anyone looking for another explanation - after all, we already have one, right? That's how we get to the "just because" point. Actually it's not "just because", it's that it's "spirit", but for all practical purposes the two are the same - it's saying "spirits just do that" and that's the explanation. The liability of electing one cause over the other incorrectly is a two way street. The strong conviction in the fundamental of matter and structure as the provenance of thought is just as corrosive as the strong conviction that consciousness is the ground that matter appears on, as a transient figure. It is not the case that the relationship between mind, spirit and body cannot be tested in general. But it is difficult to test it by physical lab standards which is frustrating to some who feel such standards are identical to "good scientific process". But the two are not identical by any means. As for saying "spirits just do that" I would disdain such a claim as an argument in explaining phenomena just as roundly as I would reject the argument "It's complexity that acts that way, and the universe is complexity from there on down!" Because I insist that the phenomenology of consciousness be fully taken into account does not mean that it should be considered a deus ex machine for explaining things. That would be silly. There is of course the difficult fact that life makes decisions and generates intent. Good ole molecules behave much more tractably. They don't jump up and postulate new space or generate insight just when you are writing up your lab report. Consciousness does do such things, and that is one reason why well-trained physical scientists don't like to mess with it. I can sympathize that they feel they have "real" (meaning material-universe) work to do and wnat to get on with it. But if serious scientific work were to be done in a framework that allowed for such phenomena, and ways were devised to at least measure them in a general way, or otherwise generate "data" from them, I think we could get a lot further in the fields where it is important, such as psychology and medicine. And if we got a lot further in them, the ripples of betterment in the madhouse of Western culture would probably be valuable, too. The problem is though that if you want to figure out and fix depression, schizophrenia, chronic pain and all the other woes that a malfunctioning brain can dump on you, you'll need more than "it's the spirit". The most basic assumption to be made is that it *might* be possible to fix them, and since the spirit is untouchable, that *might* put these down to physical problems (otherwise it wouldn't be possible to fix them). There's no reason spiritually oriented remedies cannot be brought to bear on ordinary mental conditions, and to the degree they were effective, they would militate for the truth of the model. In a sense all Rogerian, client-centered therapy is spiritual, in that it works on the premise that thought and communication is able to remediate the psychosomatic and thus change structure. This is a large subject and won't be covered in these few sentences. But I would urge you to consider the consequences, for example, of a person reporting that they left their body, wandered about for a while, and returned to it. If they are told by authorities such as doctors that this was an illusion, and that in fact they are not a spiritual viewpoint but are just a biochemical cluster of great complexity, the strong possibility exists that their morale will sag dramatically and the spark of creative insigth they were beginning to discover wihtin themselves will snuff out. If it does not make sense to you why this would occur, spend some time observing children who are heavily invalidated by their peers or parents. Anyway, I don't mean to wend on intemrinably, please forgive the length of this post. I could sum it up by referring to the dot and the line story. If you run into a three-dimensional post in a two-dimensional world, arguing that it cannot exist is probably your least profitable course. A |
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29 Aug 07 - 10:35 AM (#2136050) Subject: RE: BS: OOB - Occam-Organized Brain From: Uncle_DaveO Amos said, in part: But if serious scientific work were to be done in a framework that allowed for such phenomena, and ways were devised to at least measure them in a general way, or otherwise generate "data" from them, I think we could get a lot further in the fields where it is important, such as psychology and medicine. True, but it reminds me of the following: If we had some ham, we could have ham and eggs, if we had some eggs. IF! Dave Oesterreich |
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29 Aug 07 - 12:46 PM (#2136124) Subject: RE: BS: OOB - Occam-Organized Brain From: Grab Good ole molecules actually *do* do some weird stuff and screw up your nicely-planned tests! Read NewScientist or some other science-related magazine and see how often people are surprised by what happens! :-) As far as investigating the phenomena that constitute consciousness, that's what all the barrels-down-rivers experiments are looking at. The problem is that since consciousness covers so many areas, the only structured way to hit the problem is to deal with each area in turn. And from there, the only way to investigate each area is to find what it does under a load of different situations, including ones where it gets bogus data or carries out bogus operations (either by injecting bogus data into a healthy brain, or with the assistance of someone whose brain naturally produces bogus data or operates incorrectly). Hence the experiment in the original post. Physical phenomena aren't the only way of tackling consciousness, of course - sometimes the river goes through that metaphorical cave, in which case the challenge is to get lots of people to do the same thing and see what works. I do tai chi, and I'm well aware of the theories about chi "flow". I'm also aware that they're no more than exercises in visualisation to promote relaxation and hence faster movement, or exercises in muscular mechanics to give a more powerful/flexible/resistant body position, but it doesn't mean they don't work for me or other people. Our tai chi instructor is also using techniques from neuro-linguistic programming, which are scientifically-derived procedures from studying how consciousness responds to inputs. There have been (and will be again) studies in using hypnosis and visualisation to control pain from real bodily damage such as in surgery. Not to mention the placebo effect, which is the reason for controlled trials. If you want to call this aspect of investigation "spiritual" then OK. The problem is though that the notion of duality requires a dividing wall - *this* is physical, *that* is spiritual. So far, all attempts to build such a wall have resulted in the train of physical science ploughing straight through it. Whilst we might not yet be able to do any controlling in many cases, the various scans possible on brain function make it clear when things are/aren't happening, giving definite physical input and output. So I'm afraid I can't see how your attempt to build this wall will be invulnerable to the oncoming train. Certainly I don't see that your idea about doctors "invalidating" people who've had OOB experiences are a reason. What "creative insight" could you see arising from this? Sure, all medical staff are trained to be positive around patients, because a positive mental attitude helps recovery. But beyond that, what purpose does sustaining the illusion serve? Graham. |
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29 Aug 07 - 01:23 PM (#2136146) Subject: RE: BS: OOB - Occam-Organized Brain From: Donuel I'm sure you have The Holographic Universe. One can use the word duality to describe the nature of a holographic universe despite the fact there are more dimensions at play. Einsteain called the effects of the split photon experiment "spooky action at a distance. There certainly is spooky action at a distance which may open a door to perceptions outside the body. |
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29 Aug 07 - 01:35 PM (#2136163) Subject: RE: BS: OOB - Occam-Organized Brain From: Amos GRaham: Because life is self governing by its own postulated decisions, and when in a condition of reduced strength it is suggestible in the extreme. Suggest to an eagle that he is a field mouse, and if he is in a mental state to take your suggestion on board, he will be very depressed. Furthermore your assertion that the doctor in my example should not "further the illusion" indicates exactly the sort of loop and prejudicial conclusion (and desire to enforce agreements) that I am partly complaining about. Don't get me wrong -- I am all for physical science, and am a regular reader of Science NEws, Phys.org, and other literature in the field. Doing brain scans is wonderful interesting stuff, i concur. I have seen nothing in the literature that really indicates that the phenomena is any more than a reflection of cognitive precursors. The idea of non-physical cogntive precursors, of course, is unuseable to physicists, and this premise glues them in to a "thought from brain" model (as distinguished from, say, a "thought into brain" model) as surely as Harvey's detractors were locked into the tides and humours model of circulation and preferred (in some cases) not to even think about pumps and pipes as an alternative model. A |
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29 Aug 07 - 01:37 PM (#2136165) Subject: RE: BS: OOB - Occam-Organized Brain From: McGrath of Harlow What it seems to come you is that we tend to feel ourselves as being located in the place from whence we are looking - even when what we are looking at is our own body seen from a distance. That hardly seems very surprising. No different in that way from looking at yourself in a mirror - you locate yourself (correctly in this case) behind your eyes, not somewhere inside the mirror. The question is, where do people reporting out-of-body experiences get the images they report seeing which couldn't have been seen through the eyes located in their body on the operating table or whatever. |
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29 Aug 07 - 02:55 PM (#2136229) Subject: RE: BS: OOB - Occam-Organized Brain From: Bill D (still reading, though not commenting...the exchanges between Grab & Amos are giving me much to ponder. Both are expressing alternative views in ways that impress me. I may have more to say later.) |
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30 Aug 07 - 01:52 AM (#2136620) Subject: RE: BS: OOB - Occam-Organized Brain From: The Fooles Troupe "As far as investigating the phenomena that constitute consciousness, that's what all the barrels-down-rivers experiments are looking at. The problem is that since consciousness covers so many areas, the only structured way to hit the problem is to deal with each area in turn. And from there, the only way to investigate each area is to find what it does under a load of different situations" Ah, Science is very good at designing experiments that single out individual 'cause/effect' pairs: problem is that in Real Life, very few such individual pairings exist. When a multiplicity of 'causes' exist, they interact with each other (what happens when we ingest a given quantity of ONE drug is known, what happens when we ingest a soup of much smaller quantities of hundreds of drugs is really not very well known!) or even have powerful synergistic/catalytic effects. "where do people reporting out-of-body experiences get the images they report seeing which couldn't have been seen through the eyes located in their body on the operating table or whatever. " Having experienced a few such OOB images myself... If you can't specify a 'Scientific Explanation' for the mechanism, then you end back up at the 'Faith based Religion' position. I believe that 'Religion' was man's first groping attempts to discover 'Science' - it taking the very limited faith based path of 'knowing everything to start with' whereas Science takes the path of 'know nothing to begin with, just watch VERY closely'. The problem is that all 'Scientists' have inbuilt ASS-U-MEptions, as an "Act of Faith" anyway.... :-) |
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30 Aug 07 - 04:51 AM (#2136693) Subject: RE: BS: OOB - Occam-Organized Brain From: GUEST,Keinstein The problem is that all 'Scientists' have inbuilt ASS-U-MEptions, as an "Act of Faith" anyway. Are 'Scientists' meant to be different beasts from scientists? The game is all about exposing those assumptions, and it's a very competetive one. If anyone can show that the last one to publish forgot something, just look at the glee on their face. I believe that 'Religion' was man's first groping attempts to discover 'Science' -- I think the origin of religion may have been the first time someone noticed that a week after the sabre-tooth had eaten Grandad Ugg, he came and talked to them in the night. |
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30 Aug 07 - 07:53 AM (#2136776) Subject: RE: BS: OOB - Occam-Organized Brain From: Grab Amos, I'm aware that I used the word "illusion" without qualification. Maybe better would be to say that if the medical profession are aware the hallucination experienced is a well-known symptom of what the patient has experienced, and there is a good physical explanation for it, why should they pretend that it's anything other than a hallucination? Sure, you don't raise the point when the patient is still unwell and doesn't need any self-doubt. But if they bring it up when they're well again, why not? (I know in this case the physical explanation still needs some work, but in general.) I guess I'm wondering why this particular hallucination should be treated in a different way to vision distortion, bright lights and strange sounds during concussion, for example? Or again, the hallucinations in schizophrenia where a chemical imbalance causes people to genuinely believe that God is telling them to do things. For a personal example, earlier this year I had a fantastic roller-coaster ride for I guess about 5-10 minutes - whilst sitting flat still in a sauna, very hot and a bit dehydrated. Did I really swirl round the room like Neo in the Matrix? Did the room really lift off the ground and swing round the Earth several miles up? It sure as hell felt like it, but somehow I doubt it. :-) Yes, those cases presuppose it's a hallucination. If it's not a hallucination, for an OOB the key point is establishing that the person wasn't merely extrapolating the view from their situation, but could actually see things they couldn't otherwise have known. There have been a few attempts at this with mixed results AFAIK - certainly I've heard of nothing conclusive here. I'm not so worried about McGrath's "how does it work?" question so much as "does it work at all?". Graham. |
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30 Aug 07 - 08:57 AM (#2136808) Subject: RE: BS: OOB - Occam-Organized Brain From: The Fooles Troupe "a week after the sabre-tooth had eaten Grandad Ugg, he came and talked to them in the night. " Ah yes, a 'Dream' - very potent in "Religion'... No, but 'Religion' started right after this, when a canny Powermunger realised that if he said just the right sort of thing, he could assume a 'Position of Political Power' over all the other 'Little Uggs'.... :-) |
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30 Aug 07 - 09:34 AM (#2136837) Subject: RE: BS: OOB - Occam-Organized Brain From: Amos Graham: Thanks for the reasoned answer. IF you can track down the "sneaker on a ledge" example, it would provide the white-crow case you are talking about. There are probably many others which would stand up to pretty close analysis. It might be fun for you to explore the literature -- some of it is quite disciplined. The jury is till OOB on this whole issue of man's fundamental nature, and how awareness of higher orders occurs. My apologies if I seemed to be shoving one particular perspective excessively. There's an awful lot of data out there that cannot be allowed into the scientific lists, because it is experiential data. I think this is a shame, and to a degree is actually bad science even though it is an effort at rigor. Maybe it depends on how you define rigor -- in other words, carefully including only repeatable data certainly rules out anything as dynamic and volatile as the life of the mind (or the human spirit, if you allow such talk). A |
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30 Aug 07 - 10:02 PM (#2137280) Subject: RE: BS: OOB - Occam-Organized Brain From: The Fooles Troupe OMG in another thread one of out regular irregulars has just claimed an OOB after eating peanut paste... |
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30 Aug 07 - 10:16 PM (#2137286) Subject: RE: BS: OOB - Occam-Organized Brain From: Bill D (yeah....but he has had an OOM set of experiences for years!) |
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30 Aug 07 - 11:56 PM (#2137339) Subject: RE: BS: OOB - Occam-Organized Brain From: Amos I think you should try that, Bill. It does one good to step OOM and hit the reboot switch once every ten years as a general rule. It's like changing the oil regularly,. : A |
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31 Aug 07 - 12:17 AM (#2137365) Subject: RE: BS: OOB - Occam-Organized Brain From: The Fooles Troupe Gives a whole new meaning to the old line Anyone need a lube job? For which the usual answer was a slap in the face.... |
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31 Aug 07 - 07:54 AM (#2137567) Subject: RE: BS: OOB - Occam-Organized Brain From: Grab Cheers Amos - in my copious free time (not! :-) I'll try to have a look at that. My problem with most of the stuff I've seen is that the people doing the looking were clearly biased. The mind-so-open-that-the-moths-fly-in-and-out situation is sadly a bit too common around these kind of areas, where people might well be cherry-picking their reporting to support their spiritual (or other) beliefs. :-( As I said earlier, that's the basic problem with dualism - how do you handle it when one half of the pair (the physical side) keeps encroaching on what was previously thought to be the other side of the dividing line? Not that scientists can't also be biased - it's always worth keeping an open mind. That's what annoys me with Dawkins, is that he combines his scientific input (which is considerable) with his anti-religious beliefs. I guess my view is that I don't mind it not being easily repeatable, so long as at some level it *can* be shown to happen more than once - that's basic epidemiology. And as a software engineer, I'm fully aware of bloody awkward bugs that only crop up on the night of the full moon whilst the user dances on one leg and waves a rubber chicken. :-) The trick for those kind of things is to prepare ahead for those kind of things, so you can nail them when they *do* happen. In the OOB case for example, the classic test of an envelope on top of a cupboard will do for starters. Graham. |
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31 Aug 07 - 09:52 AM (#2137633) Subject: RE: BS: OOB - Occam-Organized Brain From: Amos The sneaker story was very much that sort of situation, Graham. You might also enjoy reading Ingo Swan's reports on his Department of Defense work in the 1970's, which were run at Stanford Research Institute, where some more rigorous controls were imposed on efforts to assess remote viewing. Unlike rigorous molecular set-ups, the results were not 100%. But they were well over chance and maintained that level for years of ongoing trials. |
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31 Aug 07 - 10:52 AM (#2137694) Subject: RE: BS: OOB - Occam-Organized Brain From: Donuel Bill I've seen your hair. No one would be surprised that you cut it yourself every 4 years if you need it or not. |
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31 Aug 07 - 11:31 AM (#2137729) Subject: RE: BS: OOB - Occam-Organized Brain From: Bill D I've sworn I'd have it cut professionally if the Queen invited me to tea....(maybe I'd do an OOM reboot at the same time....) |
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31 Aug 07 - 11:35 AM (#2137735) Subject: RE: BS: OOB - Occam-Organized Brain From: Amos The day the Queen finally calls you in to tell you what a paradigm of virtue, insight, courage and all-around manhood you are, Bill, you very likely WILL have an OOB experience. I know I would. A |
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31 Aug 07 - 12:21 PM (#2137760) Subject: RE: BS: OOB - Occam-Organized Brain From: Bill D But you cheat and PRACTICE ahead of time, Amos...I'd be at a loss and probably faint. (in amazement that she got it right!) ....wait, maybe fainting is a necessary component of OOB! |