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Post by laughter on Nov 15, 2018 9:32:39 GMT -5
Well, rather than go that far, I say, rather, render unto Caesar what is Caesar's. The way I do that is to recognize that a functioning brain is a necessity to a living, conscious experience of a human being. What guys like Chopra and Goswami seem to me to have gotten right, is that it's the entirety of eternity that "collapses the wave function", but this "entirety" can be objectified and thereby misconstrued. People form theories of life after death and past lives, telekinesis, clairvoyance, necromancy and astral projection based on this core idea that consciousness is non-physical and nonlocal. And I don't dismiss the validity of their underlying experiences, nor deny the intriguing nature of this idea of nonlocal, disembodied consciousness. I've even had some very shallow and fleeting versions of a few of them myself. But those theories are all based on personalizing what is ultimately an impersonal totality. One point I've seen made on the internet is: "oh yeah, ok, Quantum Mechanics, therefore magic is real. ha ha, yeah, right". And I see their point. The way I think of sifty's original idea that consciousness can't be said to arise from the brain, is as a statement of an absence of knowledge. And then, just leave it at that. Chopra just throws 'quantum' in the mix at random, which makes me giggle a bit.
I'm guessing "Goswami" is Amit Goswami. I'm listening to a half hour video so I can Judge if he's worthy . 24 minutes later: Goswami sounds coherent and he is a theoretical physicist. For these reasons, I deem him worthy. I don't think astral projection is a proof of non-brain consciousness because the disembodied soul is still connected with the living body, but it does mean there are dimensions of experience which are not physical. Post death experience would be no-brain experience, but dead men tell no tales. However, all the psychic or paranormal abilities you mention imply non-local, non-physical, unified consciousness. Quantum physics is the realm of possibility, and possibility implies uncertainty, but the intent makes some manifestations more likely than others. EG, I could climb a mountain or go the beach, both of which are possible until I decide, but as soon as I decide I make one impossible and the other inevitable. People might debate over free will in decisions and so forth, but my favorite line of any movie scene ever was in "Mr. Nobody". Nemo: If you mix the mashed potatoes and sauce, you can't separate them later. It's forever. The smoke comes out of Daddy's cigarette, but it never goes back in. We cannot go back. That's why it's hard to choose. You have to make the right choice. As long as you don't choose, everything remains possible.
I'm with you on everything there, except about choice being hard. Existential freedom is allowing the world to be as it is. This doesn't mean that there aren't decisions to get made, and it doesn't mean that some of them might involve some premeditation. But it does mean a perspective that is the total and permanent absence of regret. That absence, doesn't, in turn, mean that one is necessarily free of responsibility, nor that one can't look back and learn from their mistakes. What's gone, is any angst about having made the "wrong" choice.
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Post by lolly on Nov 15, 2018 20:38:43 GMT -5
Chopra just throws 'quantum' in the mix at random, which makes me giggle a bit.
I'm guessing "Goswami" is Amit Goswami. I'm listening to a half hour video so I can Judge if he's worthy . 24 minutes later: Goswami sounds coherent and he is a theoretical physicist. For these reasons, I deem him worthy. I don't think astral projection is a proof of non-brain consciousness because the disembodied soul is still connected with the living body, but it does mean there are dimensions of experience which are not physical. Post death experience would be no-brain experience, but dead men tell no tales. However, all the psychic or paranormal abilities you mention imply non-local, non-physical, unified consciousness. Quantum physics is the realm of possibility, and possibility implies uncertainty, but the intent makes some manifestations more likely than others. EG, I could climb a mountain or go the beach, both of which are possible until I decide, but as soon as I decide I make one impossible and the other inevitable. People might debate over free will in decisions and so forth, but my favorite line of any movie scene ever was in "Mr. Nobody". Nemo: If you mix the mashed potatoes and sauce, you can't separate them later. It's forever. The smoke comes out of Daddy's cigarette, but it never goes back in. We cannot go back. That's why it's hard to choose. You have to make the right choice. As long as you don't choose, everything remains possible.
I'm with you on everything there, except about choice being hard. Existential freedom is allowing the world to be as it is. This doesn't mean that there aren't decisions to get made, and it doesn't mean that some of them might involve some premeditation. But it does mean a perspective that is the total and permanent absence of regret. That absence, doesn't, in turn, mean that one is necessarily free of responsibility, nor that one can't look back and learn from their mistakes. What's gone, is any angst about having made the "wrong" choice. There are are hard decisions, mainly because the world is as it is, and people make decisions within the context with their circumstances. I have been thinking it through recently as a fitness professional attempting to unravel what is the multi-layered issue of obesity. The general narrative being perpetuated by fitness professionals has a fundamental subtext: 'obesity is your choice and your responsibility'. That kind of narrative constructs a person as an SVP who can make any choice completely independent of all else, but IRL people are involved with everything else and dependent, or interdependent, on or as 'society' and their overall environment. This 'inter-dependency narrative' constructs a person as someone who lives at the interface where they both effect, and are affected by, their environment. People make choices at, or as, that interface.
Sometimes we live to regret our decisions and sometimes we are glad, and there no secret spiritual escape hatch, but when we imagine 'a person' as someone who effects and is affected by everything, I think we have premise that more accurately represents RL than the premise of an SVP, and a premise which implies a great deal of responsibility.
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Post by Reefs on Nov 16, 2018 22:23:21 GMT -5
I really know this is mostly a stupid, futile game... but what arguments have you found most persuasive to getting people to change their view that that the brain generates consciousness? That is the overriding operational viewpoint of society today, and I find that it's so engrained that it is practically impossible to persuade most people otherwise. Especially "educated" Science-trusting types. They literally cannot conceive of any other possibility. What analogies, metaphors, examples, and questions have you found persuasive, if any? Well, I explained that to my dentist friend once, and he found that idea intriguing. But he's an open minded guy who got interested in Buddhism lately. The argument I heard often is that the viewpoint that the brain arises in consciousness (and not the other way around) is some kind of magical new age thinking. But when you look at the scientific model of consciousness arising in the brain (or consciousness arising from dead matter), they have to fill in their gaps of knowledge with magical thinking as well. So, touche! The reason why they literally can't even imagine that possibility is because they buy 100% into the camouflage and the tools they have are also 100% camouflage and therefore can't go beyond the camouflage. Which means the basic kind of consciousness that applies across the board that we've been talking about here in the context of seeing into your true nature, they cannot detect. The senses cannot detect this. And the scientific instruments that mimic the senses can't detect this either. They can only detect more complex aggregations of consciousness beyond a certain threshold (aka camouflage). And so they have no choice but to conclude consciousness or aliveness is a property or a quality that suddenly has been added or removed from otherwise dead matter. So the first step would be to realize that their basic premise of dead matter is flawed.
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Post by Reefs on Nov 16, 2018 22:29:09 GMT -5
Science is a reductionist procedure, and consciousness is a dynamic process, so scientific method cannot establish a causal link between the electro-chemical processes of the body and the qualia of experience. The brain can be manipulated to produce experiences, like by taking LSD for example, or perhaps brain trauma, so the corrolation between brain and experience is compelling - but there is no causal link between biology and qualia. Yes, what woo-woo and drug experiences show is how malleable (and even somewhat arbitrary) the camouflage actually is. And so working on that level (or in that realm) and looking for some reliable answers is going nowhere. At best we arrive at skepticism or relativism. We have to go prior to the camouflage.
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Post by siftingtothetruth on Nov 17, 2018 9:51:49 GMT -5
I really know this is mostly a stupid, futile game... but what arguments have you found most persuasive to getting people to change their view that that the brain generates consciousness? That is the overriding operational viewpoint of society today, and I find that it's so engrained that it is practically impossible to persuade most people otherwise. Especially "educated" Science-trusting types. They literally cannot conceive of any other possibility. What analogies, metaphors, examples, and questions have you found persuasive, if any? Well, I explained that to my dentist friend once, and he found that idea intriguing. But he's an open minded guy who got interested in Buddhism lately. The argument I heard often is that the viewpoint that the brain arises in consciousness (and not the other way around) is some kind of magical new age thinking. But when you look at the scientific model of consciousness arising in the brain (or consciousness arising from dead matter), they have to fill in their gaps of knowledge with magical thinking as well. So, touche! The reason why they literally can't even imagine that possibility is because they buy 100% into the camouflage and the tools they have are also 100% camouflage and therefore can't go beyond the camouflage. Which means the basic kind of consciousness that applies across the board that we've been talking about here in the context of seeing into your true nature, they cannot detect. The senses cannot detect this. And the scientific instruments that mimic the senses can't detect this either. They can only detect more complex aggregations of consciousness beyond a certain threshold (aka camouflage). And so they have no choice but to conclude consciousness or aliveness is a property or a quality that suddenly has been added or removed from otherwise dead matter. So the first step would be to realize that their basic premise of dead matter is flawed.Yeah but how are you convincing them to do this?
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Post by Reefs on Nov 17, 2018 11:15:42 GMT -5
Well, I explained that to my dentist friend once, and he found that idea intriguing. But he's an open minded guy who got interested in Buddhism lately. The argument I heard often is that the viewpoint that the brain arises in consciousness (and not the other way around) is some kind of magical new age thinking. But when you look at the scientific model of consciousness arising in the brain (or consciousness arising from dead matter), they have to fill in their gaps of knowledge with magical thinking as well. So, touche! The reason why they literally can't even imagine that possibility is because they buy 100% into the camouflage and the tools they have are also 100% camouflage and therefore can't go beyond the camouflage. Which means the basic kind of consciousness that applies across the board that we've been talking about here in the context of seeing into your true nature, they cannot detect. The senses cannot detect this. And the scientific instruments that mimic the senses can't detect this either. They can only detect more complex aggregations of consciousness beyond a certain threshold (aka camouflage). And so they have no choice but to conclude consciousness or aliveness is a property or a quality that suddenly has been added or removed from otherwise dead matter. So the first step would be to realize that their basic premise of dead matter is flawed.Yeah but how are you convincing them to do this? There's no point in trying to convince someone who doesn't want to be convinced. If someone's world is really just limited to the physical senses, that's usually a lost cause. It only works with people who already have seen cracks in the camouflage first hand and just need a little nudge. And in the end, no philosophical model can replace an actual realization.
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Post by andrew on Nov 17, 2018 11:29:16 GMT -5
Well, I explained that to my dentist friend once, and he found that idea intriguing. But he's an open minded guy who got interested in Buddhism lately. The argument I heard often is that the viewpoint that the brain arises in consciousness (and not the other way around) is some kind of magical new age thinking. But when you look at the scientific model of consciousness arising in the brain (or consciousness arising from dead matter), they have to fill in their gaps of knowledge with magical thinking as well. So, touche! The reason why they literally can't even imagine that possibility is because they buy 100% into the camouflage and the tools they have are also 100% camouflage and therefore can't go beyond the camouflage. Which means the basic kind of consciousness that applies across the board that we've been talking about here in the context of seeing into your true nature, they cannot detect. The senses cannot detect this. And the scientific instruments that mimic the senses can't detect this either. They can only detect more complex aggregations of consciousness beyond a certain threshold (aka camouflage). And so they have no choice but to conclude consciousness or aliveness is a property or a quality that suddenly has been added or removed from otherwise dead matter. So the first step would be to realize that their basic premise of dead matter is flawed.Yeah but how are you convincing them to do this? Perhaps sometimes it has to be small steps. For example, lynnemctaggart.com/the-secret-social-life-of-plants/Or, another thing that springs to mind are the many home experiments conducted on how food responds to 'intention'. For example, two pots of rice, one labelled with 'positive thought' and the other labelled with 'negative thought' have been shown by some to react differently. I'm not sure these experiments would qualify as 'science'...because there could be many factors at play, but even so....it's the kind of small test one could try that might begin to expand the mind. Group meditations might be another one. There have been some interesting studies. Basically, it's about showing that life is 'communicating' and 'relating' much more than we have been conditioned to believe.
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Post by siftingtothetruth on Nov 17, 2018 19:22:22 GMT -5
Yeah but how are you convincing them to do this? There's no point in trying to convince someone who doesn't want to be convinced. If someone's world is really just limited to the physical senses, that's usually a lost cause. It only works with people who already have seen cracks in the camouflage first hand and just need a little nudge. And in the end, no philosophical model can replace an actual realization. Yeah that's been my usual experience too.
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Post by siftingtothetruth on Nov 17, 2018 19:24:58 GMT -5
Yeah but how are you convincing them to do this? Perhaps sometimes it has to be small steps. For example, lynnemctaggart.com/the-secret-social-life-of-plants/Or, another thing that springs to mind are the many home experiments conducted on how food responds to 'intention'. For example, two pots of rice, one labelled with 'positive thought' and the other labelled with 'negative thought' have been shown by some to react differently. I'm not sure these experiments would qualify as 'science'...because there could be many factors at play, but even so....it's the kind of small test one could try that might begin to expand the mind. Group meditations might be another one. There have been some interesting studies. Basically, it's about showing that life is 'communicating' and 'relating' much more than we have been conditioned to believe. Hrm, yeah that's the problem with these kinds of experiments. They'd be shot down by Scientistic types as BS. But psychedelics, on the other hand...
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Post by Deleted on Nov 17, 2018 19:53:39 GMT -5
Perhaps sometimes it has to be small steps. For example, lynnemctaggart.com/the-secret-social-life-of-plants/Or, another thing that springs to mind are the many home experiments conducted on how food responds to 'intention'. For example, two pots of rice, one labelled with 'positive thought' and the other labelled with 'negative thought' have been shown by some to react differently. I'm not sure these experiments would qualify as 'science'...because there could be many factors at play, but even so....it's the kind of small test one could try that might begin to expand the mind. Group meditations might be another one. There have been some interesting studies. Basically, it's about showing that life is 'communicating' and 'relating' much more than we have been conditioned to believe. Hrm, yeah that's the problem with these kinds of experiments. They'd be shot down by Scientistic types as BS. But psychedelics, on the other hand...
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Post by andrew on Nov 18, 2018 5:08:01 GMT -5
Perhaps sometimes it has to be small steps. For example, lynnemctaggart.com/the-secret-social-life-of-plants/Or, another thing that springs to mind are the many home experiments conducted on how food responds to 'intention'. For example, two pots of rice, one labelled with 'positive thought' and the other labelled with 'negative thought' have been shown by some to react differently. I'm not sure these experiments would qualify as 'science'...because there could be many factors at play, but even so....it's the kind of small test one could try that might begin to expand the mind. Group meditations might be another one. There have been some interesting studies. Basically, it's about showing that life is 'communicating' and 'relating' much more than we have been conditioned to believe. Hrm, yeah that's the problem with these kinds of experiments. They'd be shot down by Scientistic types as BS. But psychedelics, on the other hand... yep!
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Post by runstill on Nov 20, 2018 17:08:02 GMT -5
Yeah, makes sense to me, heh, but as I understand it there are materialist interpretations of quantum effects where there is no dependence on a conscious observer. To take a random wikipedia thing I found in 5 seconds of looking: "Of course the introduction of the observer must not be misunderstood to imply that some kind of subjective features are to be brought into the description of nature. The observer has, rather, only the function of registering decisions, i.e., processes in space and time, and it does not matter whether the observer is an apparatus or a human being; but the registration, i.e., the transition from the "possible" to the "actual," is absolutely necessary here and cannot be omitted from the interpretation of quantum theory" --Werner Heisenberg "Was the wave function waiting to jump for thousands of millions of years until a single-celled living creature appeared? Or did it have to wait a little longer for some highly qualified measurer - with a PhD?" -John Stewart Bell "According to standard quantum mechanics, it is a matter of complete indifference whether the experimenters stay around to watch their experiment, or leave the room and delegate observing to an inanimate apparatus, instead, which amplifies the microscopic events to macroscopic measurements and records them by a time-irreversible process" -also John Bell This article concerning a clever variation of the double slit experiment disproves the arguments above. In fact, the experimental results are impacted by the observer. The arguments offered above don't do justice to the many illogical and bizarre behaviors in the quantum world that run counter to the "realism" principle. The materialists keep throwing up weak arguments to attempt to bulwark their cheesy explanations. Being an avid student of QM, I can tell you that we are no closer to a conceptual understanding of the quantum phenomena than we were one hundred years ago. I see the study of Physics devolving to ever more clever ways of solving Schrodinger for different systems, but without any grasp of what underlies the dynamics of the quantum world. It is now just a guessing game. The only advances come in applying Schrodinger to ever more complex systems and using quantum phenomena for advancements in technology. Excellent article, it got me to do some more reading on the subject and I found a description of the quantum wave that I haven't seen before, it really is nothing like a physical wave which never made since to me, the quantum wave is just a 'probability' until it is observed. Also I found this quote from Einstein, ( a particle has no definite position before a measurement ). Maybe the most interesting thing I read in the article you linked is ( that observing the photon can change events that have all ready happened !). Now if I can just change this time line I'm on
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Post by Deleted on Nov 20, 2018 17:34:38 GMT -5
This article concerning a clever variation of the double slit experiment disproves the arguments above. In fact, the experimental results are impacted by the observer. The arguments offered above don't do justice to the many illogical and bizarre behaviors in the quantum world that run counter to the "realism" principle. The materialists keep throwing up weak arguments to attempt to bulwark their cheesy explanations. Being an avid student of QM, I can tell you that we are no closer to a conceptual understanding of the quantum phenomena than we were one hundred years ago. I see the study of Physics devolving to ever more clever ways of solving Schrodinger for different systems, but without any grasp of what underlies the dynamics of the quantum world. It is now just a guessing game. The only advances come in applying Schrodinger to ever more complex systems and using quantum phenomena for advancements in technology. Excellent article, it got me to do some more reading on the subject and I found a description of the quantum wave that I haven't seen before, it really is nothing like a physical wave which never made since to me, the quantum wave is just a 'probability' until it is observed. Also I found this quote from Einstein, ( a particle has no definite position before a measurement ). Maybe the most interesting thing I read in the article you linked is ( that observing the photon can change events that have all ready happened !). Now if I can just change this time line I'm on How much do you believe that you're on a time-line to begin with?
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Post by tzujanli on Nov 24, 2018 17:45:39 GMT -5
When the mind becomes still, these discussions and their ideological foundations vanish..
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Post by Reefs on Nov 27, 2018 9:09:48 GMT -5
I really know this is mostly a stupid, futile game... but what arguments have you found most persuasive to getting people to change their view that that the brain generates consciousness? That is the overriding operational viewpoint of society today, and I find that it's so engrained that it is practically impossible to persuade most people otherwise. Especially "educated" Science-trusting types.They literally cannot conceive of any other possibility. What analogies, metaphors, examples, and questions have you found persuasive, if any? Maybe they are willing to listen to a neuroscientist:
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