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Post by seekeroftruth on Dec 15, 2010 21:14:36 GMT -5
Looks like they updated this free book with empirical research. www.ofgrandeur.comWhat do you guys think of the ideas presented? |
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Post by Peter on Dec 16, 2010 8:27:48 GMT -5
Hi Seeker You post with the tone of a disinterested observer, and yet I see you've posted this same question on other forums eg www.scienceforums.net/topic/53476-update-on-the-law-of-emotional-balance/ So who is "they" - you? Are you more interested in a discussion or in promoting this book? If the latter, then your posting would be better placed in the marketing corner. That said, I had a look at the site and read the summary section of the ideas presented. I'll post a wee bit here if I may - apologies for any errors I may have added, I wasn't able to cut'n'paste. The website lists a great number of academics who have commented on this work. I'd have been very interested to read what they had to say eg if each name linked to an HTML page with their reply. Just listing a bunch of names does not really give the book any additional...standing. Kind Regards, Peter |
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Post by seekeroftruth on Dec 16, 2010 20:35:20 GMT -5
I am not associated with ofgrandeur.com, but I am a firm believer in what it is trying to do. OfGrandeur.com is trying to help the scientific community approach consciousness and feelings from a new perspective. In reality, we do not fully understand consciousness and emotion and that is because we are trying to approach it from a classical physics perspective. This is like trying to approach quantum mechanics from a classical physics perspective.
I understand what is being discussed and the focus of the book is on dispelling assumptions and misconceptions that are held by the academic community. I am only trying to help remove the assumptions and misconceptions.
Please provide me with your opinion of why you believe the ideas are incorrect and also please provide your empirical support. I will then respond with why those are assumptions or misconceptions. Once we remove all of the assumptions and misconceptions we can have a serious discussion on the ideas proposed.
We claim that people have to provide evidence to support their claims, but the author is trying to say that based on what we are currently using as empirical research, there are more than one explanation and there could be explanations that we have never considered before. If you actually understand what is discussed in the book you will see that the author is not in conflict with what the academic community is presenting, the author is just viewing what is presented in a new way and providing the evidence to support the new perspective.
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Post by enigma on Dec 16, 2010 21:33:57 GMT -5
I got as far as pg 16, and so i can't give a complete perspective, though I encountered enough issues in that short read to conclude it wasn't worth pursuing. There may very well be value in expanding the scientific perspective, I don't know, but as with science in general, the foundation is faulty.
The use of "empirical support" is already encumbered by the assumptions it would dispel. Looking around in the dream for evidence of reality beyond the dream is highly problematic.
What if, instead of consciousness being in physicality, physicality is in consciousness? What then becomes of your empirical support, and how would it be provided?
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Post by Peter on Dec 17, 2010 9:28:16 GMT -5
Oy. It's been suggested that I delight in causing trouble and while I was responding to your first post I was asking myself quite seriously what my motivation for responding was, what I was trying to achieve and why I couldn't respond more positively. I think the main thing is that I react against what I perceive to be manipulation - especially advertising which pretends to be something else - so thank you for clarifying that you have no connection to this website. Please provide me with your opinion of why you believe the ideas are incorrect and also please provide your empirical support. Hey, did I say I believe the ideas are incorrect? I didn't stop so much because I disagreed with anything presented, but more because the thinking seemed so loose, wooly and ... subjective, that I didn't have much faith in the conclusion that the author was going to come to. You say that the author provides evidence...can you give an example (ie a page number) where this is done? I found some pages where the author suggested experiments that could be done, but didn't see any where trials were referenced. But then I didn't read the whole book. I did write a dissection of that paragraph I quoted, but the more I wrote, the worse I felt about creating more negativity so I'll just stop writing. Soon. An example though is: If emotional energy permeates the entire universe, then why can it not be retained by improperly organized DNA? Cells can live for quite some time without a nucleus (eg red blood cells), so it seems unlikely to me that emotional energy stored in the sense strand is the mechanism for life.
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Post by Peter on Dec 17, 2010 9:53:54 GMT -5
Can I just add though, that I'm a firm believer that cells (and not just brain cells) hold emotional memory. I see it in Reiki and also in massage - you get a clump of tension worked on and then suddenly you're feeling all teary or angry or something and you've no idea what it's about. It's just...when you enter someone's house you play by the rules of the house. If a scientist were to attend an evangelical church service or a poetry recital, they wouldn't last long if they ask to see evidence, references and a bibliography. So - as I see it - if the spiritual is going to make in-roads into science then it either needs to play by the house rules, or not try at all. Wait until some event in the scientist's life makes them search outside of their discipline for answers. Does the author reference the work of Baron Carl von Reichenbach? Seems to have a bit in common, from a cursory glance. |
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Post by seekeroftruth on Dec 17, 2010 18:53:50 GMT -5
What if, instead of consciousness being in physicality, physicality is in consciousness? What then becomes of your empirical support, and how would it be provided? I want to answer your question, but can you please explain it in layman terms. I feel that I have an idea of what your asking, but if you could clarify it for me a little I would appreciate it. As much detail as possible please. |
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Post by seekeroftruth on Dec 17, 2010 19:24:27 GMT -5
can you give an example (ie a page number) where this is done? I found some pages where the author suggested experiments that could be done, but didn't see any where trials were referenced. But then I didn't read the whole book. The author is saying the following: Read the accepted empirical support for our current conclusions on emotions and consciousness and substitute those conclusions for the authors conclusion that emotions and consciousness are electricity and the authors conclusion will fit better and address the gaps that the current conclusions do not properly address. He also adds and uses examples in his book of sodium pores, action potentials, ion pumps, electrical firing of the brain, Immortal DNA sense hypothesis peer reviewed articles, applying conservation laws to emotions, examples with animals, etc An example though is: If emotional energy permeates the entire universe Emotional electricity permeates the entire universe not emotional energy. Energy is too much of a loaded term to use and it throws hard science people into a whirlwind of confusion. then why can it not be retained by improperly organized DNA? Many DNA combinations that we think are improperly organised are properly organized to start. But if the DNA is missing very important parts of the code then like an incorrect code written for a computer program, the program will not work at all. Now sometimes there are major errors with a computer code and a buggy version of the program is made, this would be an example of an organized code that is still good. Its all or nothing. Without core elements in the code, DNA will not create a living cell due to physiological problems that will prevent it to maintain the electrical balance of the emotional electricity. Apply conservation of charge reasoning to DNA. Cells can live for quite some time without a nucleus (eg red blood cells), so it seems unlikely to me that emotional energy stored in the sense strand is the mechanism for life. Cells will no longer have a consciousness or experience emotions once its DNA is removed. We still consider cells without DNA alive because they perform functions associated with life and they respond to their environment by chemical reaction. Does the author reference the work of Baron Carl von Reichenbach? Seems to have a bit in common, from a cursory glance. If you understand the authors work you will realize that it is not similar to Baron Carl von Reichenbach's work. |
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Post by enigma on Dec 17, 2010 23:27:22 GMT -5
What if, instead of consciousness being in physicality, physicality is in consciousness? What then becomes of your empirical support, and how would it be provided? I want to answer your question, but can you please explain it in layman terms. I feel that I have an idea of what your asking, but if you could clarify it for me a little I would appreciate it. As much detail as possible please. Maybe it's difficult for me. It's sufficiently obvious to me that what appears in consciousness cannot be outside of consciousness, that the notion of one of those appearances being, itself, in possession of consciousness seems dream-like or absurd storytelling. Maybe the projection has moved outward instead of being withdrawn. That is, the 'me' that appears here in consciousness, and is then identified as that which is conscious, is a projection. To imagine that this projection perceives another object, like a cell, (or even a person) that has it's own consciousness is a projection of a projection. To say it another way, instead of moving attention outward into the objects that appear to you, move the attention backward and notice that everything that appears to you is appearing in consciousness or it could not appear. The body appears to you, the brain, it's function and structure appears in your consciousness and cannot be the source of that consciousness. Consciousness must exist prior to any object that appears within it, or to it, or in front of it. Further, consciousness is more subtle than any form that takes shape within it. Consciousness does not have a form and cannot arise from the forms that appear within it and are of a more gross nature. The subtle cannot arise from the less subtle, but rather the reverse. The use of empirical evidence suggests that form can say something about the nature of the formless out of which all form arises. This is like doing scientific experiments in your nightly dream in order to prove some natural law is operative in the waking world from which your dream world is created. |
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Post by runstill on Dec 18, 2010 0:48:27 GMT -5
Hi seeker, may I recommend a visit to the website 'consciousness is all-peter dziuban' google will bring it right up, there is material offered for sale but I haven't bought anything yet. There is very good free information that expands on exactly what enigma explains in his 11:27 pm post. The information is put forth in a way that even anyone with out a spiritual background can grasp, not implying anything here and advanced non-dualist may acquire more clarity. Click on writings and there are six free chapters from dziuban's book to read, I am curious what your thoughts or anyone on the forum for that matter are when read. cheers  |
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Post by seekeroftruth on Dec 18, 2010 5:57:22 GMT -5
Taken directly from the book: “Both information and physical substrate problems point to one solution; that consciousness is a property of a cell, not a group of cells. No one special cell is implicated. It is proposed that all neurons are conscious, or sentient, to a degree; that the single subjective 'soul' is a confabulation.” www.ucl.ac.uk/~regfjxe/aw.htm
Jonathan CW Edwards
University College London“Electrochemical messages are passed between brain cells. Similar signals are passed to every cell in the body… What Freud termed the 'subconscious' mind is actually a measurable physical process. In other words, there is no 'mind-body problem'. Your body is your subconscious mind.” Candace Pert
Georgetown University"when concurrent to suprathreshold synaptic input, small electric fields can have significant effects on spike timing. For low-frequency fields, our theory predicts a linear dependency of spike timing changes on field strength. For high-frequency fields (relative to the synaptic input), the theory predicts coherent firing, with mean firing phase and coherence each increasing monotonically with field strength. Importantly, in both cases, the effects of fields on spike timing are amplified with decreasing synaptic input slope and increased cell susceptibility (millivolt membrane polarization per field amplitude). We confirmed these predictions experimentally using CA1 hippocampal neurons in vitro exposed to static (direct current) and oscillating (alternating current) uniform electric fields. In addition, we develop a robust method to quantify cell susceptibility using spike timing. Our results provide a precise mechanism for a functional role of endogenous field oscillations (e.g., gamma) in brain function and introduce a framework for considering the effects of environmental fields and design of low-intensity therapeutic neurostimulation technologies." www.jneurosci.org/cgi/content/full/27/11/3030
Thomas Radman, Yuzhuo Su, Je Hi An, Lucas C. Parra, and Marom Bikson
Department of Biomedical Engineering, City College of the City University
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