Does Gamma Brain Wave Emission Correlate with Higher Consciousness?
Posted by MoRiDiN at 12:01, 28 Dec 2009this research discusses the brains gamma wave emmissions @ 40 Hz, including, under the influence of psychedelic substances. i found it pretty interesting. check it out...
Does Gamma Brain Wave Emission Correlate with Higher Consciousness?
http://www.scientificexploration.org/tal...
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21 February 2009
15 weeks 1 day
I find this both pretty interesting and annoying at the same time.
Pretty interesting from the perspective of further pinning down the brain processes involved in meditation and its connection to the involved neuro-physiological systems and processes. Though i dare say the link is complicated by the brains ability to do many things at once, both consciously and sub-consciously.
The thing that bugs me is the use of the term 'higher' in 'higher-consciousness'. This seems utterly subjective to me.
Every brain process has its function, as does every emotion. We might like to prioritise the notion of some emotions as being 'better' than others, no doubt because of their feeling in the first place. But if we judge the quality of our emotions based on the feeling of the emotions, so love and happiness are placed ahead of pain and anger because we don't like the feeling of pain and anger then we are missing the point of the emotions in the first place.
Obviously there are more reasons to judge love as being better than the feeling it creates, such as its implications for family and society building, we can judge emotions based on our cultural context and current moral system, but i hope you can see that this is, while not being entirely free, relative.
In essence if we use the experience of the emotions as the context for judging the emotions then of course we will pick the ones we like as being the best, but this is a very simple view of them. Evolutionary history has far more to say, and as such is a broader, more influential, and more interesting, subject than just subjectively picking the ones we like as being the 'best'.
Then there is the problem of consciousness itself. As far as any honest debate goes we can say that we now have a map of the general structure of the brains modular nature, though it has plastic attributes if damaged or raised in a completely different way. Using this map we can make predictions about what functionality will be lost if damage occurs, and what can be gained if repaired (within our current limitations). We also have some insight into the relevance of genes and that of upbringing and culture.
What i have not seen yet is a good description of what consciousness is actually supposed to be, indeed if it even exists at all as an additional special process rather than just some very complicated emergent brain process. Is it macroscopic occuring in the complexity of the neural network? Is it quantum? Or a mixture of the two? Why does it shut down at night? Why can we knock it out with drugs?
Plus a million other questions we can all come up with.
So without an understanding of what consciousness is how can we declare some modes of thought to be 'higher' than others, especially in the context of a scientific paper rather than a pub conversation. How do the researchers know that what they have is an aspect of consciousness and not something else if we cannot even say what it is?
It looks to me as if they are revealing something of themselves, rather than their data.
1 May 2004
18 weeks 1 day
Spirituality creates a problem equivalent to materialism.
It fails to be objective.
It is a way of thinking.
It is a goal set up in front of someone after which he must aim and that he must seek and use all means to rationalize it.
You are quite right. So long as consciousness remains an abstract concept, speaking of 'higher consciousness' remains a spiritual concept.
Like the materialistic view on consciousness as a purely material process fails to explain anything.
21 February 2009
15 weeks 1 day
Agree completely.
The only thing i would add as a strange sort of defense of materialism is that materialism too has become a part of the spiritual outlook. In the way that an idea sometimes needs to define an antithesis to define itself. [edit: ok, thats very simple as well as poorly defined, and i disagree with it myself except in its very broad stroke]
As such the description of philosophical materialism conjured to attack is not one that is strictly encountered out in the wild. I would call it the strong philosophical material hypothesis (SPMH), as opposed to its weak philosophical version (WPMH), with also the need to define practical materialism as a different thing to philosophical materialism.
Personally; rather than holding that everything must be material (as the strawman SPMH excerts), since i can already name numerous examples of things that are not, from probabilities, fields, potentials, patterns to maybe even the fundamental rules and principles governing the nature of baryonic matter, and possibly such things as dimensions and time, i would espouse a slightly different perspective on materialism.
Only much much weaker versions can possibly be near correct and already they must feature non-material aspects, but if they are to be correct they will not be correct in the sense that they are correct today, just like Newtons theory of gravity was not correct, but is not wrong either, at least not in the same way as saying the sky pushes things downwards. Knowledge is not absolute, not right or wrong, just more right or wrong than the last idea - progressive so to speak. (though it is tempting to say that some knowledge is so unlikely to be wrong that we have to have a word for the near complete certainty and 'right' or 'correct' is what we have)
Materialism to me is simply the optimism that these things are understandable. The names we give to things, like electron, photon, boson, meson etc etc etc are a part of the materialistic philosophy - of naming things when they are found - pushing this into the unknown isnt about strictly defining the unknown and saying what it isnt, and materialism shouldnt be either. All it can be, i think, is an optimism that we can understand these things to the point of being able to give them a name and explain their relationships (possibly mathematically). If this is do-able then they will fall within the materialistic world view, but they will also change it. This is the real and historical materialism, not the straw man strict philosophical notion.
I know all this complicates things a little, but the world is rarely simple.
- As an additional thought - one other post around here rightly points out that modern atheism picks the easy targets (though i think this is alot to do with their power and prevalence). Spiritualism, while attacking the easy target of a strict physical materialism, which is not really recognisable outside of the philosophical debates in which it occurs, is doing the same thing.
1 May 2004
18 weeks 1 day
Hello Daydreamer.
That depends.
You pretty well described the scientific process in a nutshell. You described what a reasonable person should do when using his intellect to make sense out of data, old and new, and it works well. It would work even better were it not for pride leading to dogma. But I am not talking about you here, just about human nature.
Science, like anything that stems from human activity, is modelled after the architecture of the mind. In other words, a person has no choice but to issue forms that are conform to his mentality.
From this I can say that if our science can be called experimental, so then is our mentality and our mentality is our mode of consciousness.
It does not need to be a metaphysical concept neither does it need to be a materialistic concept.
Your use of materialism to me is not correct, although your explanation for the process is quite right. The way you put materialism makes it fair and reasonable, although I do not particularly like this last term, but reasonable in the sense that it is honest.
I would prefer to call this approach scientific rather than materialistic. Materialism has this bias inscribed into it's history that calls for matter to be the origin rather than the result.
So it goes then that material activities can create the invisible, namely consciousness, and not the other way around, meaning the invisible creating matter.
If we only consider the world of particles or concepts touching entities of sub-atomic size, already we are beginning to thread the invisible.
Where these forces bind and coalesce into lower vibrational entities to form atoms, molecules and associate into increasing levels of complexity to allow the expression of life is characterized in the data available to science.
Somehow, (lets not call it materialism then but reductionism instead) somehow, reductionists insist that the product of all this binding and expression of forces results from the result rather than from the source of the expression. In that sense, reductionism does not explain anything but recuperates the data to suit a way of thinking.
I have and have had friends that do fundamental research on the brain. Really nice chaps, open minded. Got to be pretty open minded when you do this kind of research and still enjoy a conversation with me. But obviously, even given their interest for my input on these subjects, their mind is already made because their very work is totally built upon the building block of matter as a starting point and matter being the emitter of the forces that interact to together form an apparently coherent perceived entity that we refer to as consciousness.
This is this experimental position based on the fact that science has started from gross matter, even before considering elementary particles, to try and climb the latter of reality.
It needed a starting point and that starting point did not begin with the forces behind matter but with their resultant which is matter. And science as we have it today might have a hard time were it to try and change its starting point. It is still looking for it in a movement reminiscent of inverse engineering.
I am not attacking this process. Obviously it has had enormous impacts and benefits. We can't start attacking scientists without whom we would not benefit today from a certain comfort in life for instance. We cannot criticize people who have put their minds together to bring us to the moon. And I don't know of many metaphysicists who have either.
And that is where spiritual minded people bug the hell out of me. Where they are expecting that some benevolent force owes them the gift of so called 'higher consciousness'. That they can just sit and plug themselves under the tree and expect the light to shine through their forehead.
Then people wonder why there has been so much poverty in India.
If any real illumination could be achieved this way, India would have been the seat of a science that would have surpassed anything we have seen so far. It's obviously not the case.
I thoroughly enjoyed your reply and wish more scientifically minded people, even laymen,would have a mentality sufficiently deprived of prejudice to enter into discussions and studies rather than argumentations.
21 February 2009
15 weeks 1 day
Hi Richard,
Good comments.
Science, like anything that stems from human activity, is modelled after the architecture of the mind. In other words, a person has no choice but to issue forms that are conform to his mentality.
From this I can say that if our science can be called experimental, so then is our mentality and our mentality is our mode of consciousness.
I can see your logic here, but i think the weakness lies in your definition that we have no choice but to conform to our mentalities. Then the link from this to the rules of science, rather than the imagination involved in the conception of hypothesis and the biases possible in the formation of conclusions, is also a little tenuous. Sort of as if saying that mathematics must conform to mentality so 2+2 must be modeled on the architecture of the mind, rather than being a discovered relationship.
I agree that limitations of imagination are an important aspect of the 'architecture of the mind', especially when conceiving of ideas. We must be able to conceive of something before we can design tests to see if we are correct. As Hume pointed out though we are limited by experience. I guess this would hold over material as well as spiritual matters (though i don't usually divide the two in the normal classical way). Our imaginations are informed by our experience, so we must see wings and people before we can conceive of winged people or see gold and a mountain before we can conceive of a gold mountain. In the same way physicists seem to be led by the experiences they gather through mathematics - even if these begin in a conceptual formation instead of a physical one. In essence there are some aspects where the maths leads the mind, rather than the other way around - we cannot conceive of nine dimensional space other than using the words, even though the maths is more sophisticated. It is almost as if the tools we use are more conceptually intact than our imaginations, which is along the lines of what i would expect in a complex understanding of the world.
Your use of materialism to me is not correct, although your explanation for the process is quite right. The way you put materialism makes it fair and reasonable, although I do not particularly like this last term, but reasonable in the sense that it is honest.
I would prefer to call this approach scientific rather than materialistic. Materialism has this bias inscribed into it's history that calls for matter to be the origin rather than the result.
This is interesting, but seems more like the strict philosophical definition, which you seem to admit in accepting that the materialism inclusive to the modern scientific understanding (rather than just how some scientists choose to hypothesize and argue) is more reasonable, as opposed to the strong philosophical stance, which as a strict philosophy is, by definition, not reasonable.
As for the history speaking about matter being the origin; i guess if you looked back at Greek philosophical history you can find trends like that, but they had no idea so were free to play around with ideas. The same is true of non-material philosophy though, which has a good history of strictly defining a non-material world - typically without good evidence.
I feel as if these things meet in the middle at the point when we come to understand them, name them, and include them in the scientific body. Outside of this process all is fair game as it is imaginary. The natural world has a good history of mythologisation; of being mythologised. Electricity, gravity, wind, light, darkness, fire, etc All these things seemed non-material. In fact, as you say, you are still free to consider the quantum mechanical properties of the electron as 'non-material' or even 'magical' if you like.
We are playing with definitions here. There is no reason to have moved the electron from 'non-material' to 'material' philosophically other than we like these boundaries and debates in the first place - it hasn't moved. If we imagine a person that did not play this game and still maintained the awe and magic of the world without feeling that understanding it denigrated it - understanding it naturally doesn't change it, it only changes us, and our relationship with that understanding is a matter of personal responsibility, not bracketing terminology and philosophy into what we would like it to be.
This is where i come down on a holistic materialism. That phrase might seem bizarre, but i don't see any big difference between the material and non-material, or the interface, through understanding, of the two.
If an entity does not interact with this universe then perhaps it will remain non-material, but as soon as it interacts in some way we can give it a name, describe it's interaction, and call it material - it is only a name after all.
As for the history of materialism requiring matter to be the origin rather than the result; this might be true of philosophical materialism, but it is not true of science, which i guess should make everyone happy - if we allow ourselves to bracket terminology in this way, which i guess i am arguing against.
Science currently has little to say about origins, other than educated guesses. The origin of life is not as murky as it once was, though we are obviously never going to see how it happened on Earth, even if we have an understanding of processes though which it could have.
As for the origin of the universe i havn't read an idea that places matter as the origin.
The idea i have read of the big bang uses gravity and an inflation field. In the analogy gravity is like an elastic band stretched across a box, as the box expands the elastic band is stretched and receives energy. Gravity is like this when the universe expands - it receives energy from the expansion of the universe. The special thing about the Inflaton Field is that it is the special 'negative energy' (sort of like a negative tension - tension in relativity creates gravity just like mass does) in Einsteins general theory of relativity - resulting in negative gravity, or repulsive gravity. This repulsive gravity or negative energy drives the expansion, but it also feeds off of gravity, which also receives more energy so it becomes a very powerful feedback loop. Second to this, and if you have ever wondered where all the matter and energy is supposed to have come from, the Inflaton Field looses energy through conversion to mass so as it drove the massive expansion of the universe, adding energy to gravity, but also feeding from it, it converted to conventional mass/energy.
Apparently the special thing is that it was uniform, which caused it to expand. Maybe there are non-uniform pockets somewhere outside of this universe, who knows. Anyway, a uniform Inflaton Field field weighing just 21 lbs would have enough energy to create the mass/energy through conversion of gravitational energy of all the observed mass/energy of the universe. So if you ever thought physicists couldn't conceive of how all this matter came about, or that the big bang required infinite energy, it didn't. Just 21 lbs of uniform Inflaton Field.
Now obviously that is a hypothesis as it stands, but i find it fascinating that we are that sort of level of possible understanding. Plus time dilation felt improbable when it was first proposed.
Either way this is quite far from materialism demanding matter to have come from matter, unless non-materialism is just as strident in demanding that it cannot be due to some sort of rule set, but must be a breach of a rule set and so fit closer to some sort of description of 'magic'. I guess we could further complicate this by introducing the relationship between materialism and naturalism as opposed to 'non-materialism', 'magic', and supernaturalism. I for one would fall down the line of supernatural ideas also being absorbed into natural language if ever pinned down, just like everything else. I see no reason something like a soul/quantum soul would ever need to stay outside of being called natural in scientific language if proven.
Somehow, (lets not call it materialism then but reductionism instead) somehow, reductionists insist that the product of all this binding and expression of forces results from the result rather than from the source of the expression. In that sense, reductionism does not explain anything but recuperates the data to suit a way of thinking.
I think you might have to expand on this idea a little. reductionism to me is used to explain bigger things by looking at smaller things or at their processes. It has been hugely successful.
The scale we live at, the quantum being about 10 to the power of minus 30 meters, and the universe being about 10 to the power of 32 meters (from memory) mean that there is a great deal of activity occurring below us (in scale). Especially since we exist in the universes golden complexity zone. Reductionism, as an explanatory activity, is required.
Are you talking about the universe as a whole? In the context of everything resulting from the universe, but the universe resulting from everything? If so then physics would sort of blow that out of the water. Or do you mean life and evolution? In which case reductionism does quite a good job expanding from quantum mechanics, through to organic chemistry, molecular evolution through natural selection, increased complexity, sexual selection etc etc etc. I don't know to what exactly you refer.
This is this experimental position based on the fact that science has started from gross matter, even before considering elementary particles, to try and climb the latter of reality.
It needed a starting point and that starting point did not begin with the forces behind matter but with their resultant which is matter. And science as we have it today might have a hard time were it to try and change its starting point. It is still looking for it in a movement reminiscent of inverse engineering.
Science started from the point of very limited experimental ability. So yes, they had to only use their senses. This was very limited, but there was enough data to give clues on how to build better equipment. The trend since then has been based on increasing technical ambition and ability followed by discovery (generally - allowing for mathematics).
The answer to this lies in reductionism. The starting point for any building of knowledge from start to end rests with understanding of the constituents and processes. Science started with input only from the human senses, but since then has undergone so many shifts in understanding that we could spend a lifetime trying to understand just a few of them.
The hypothetical starting point of understanding no longer begins with matter. Pick anything, from a car, aeroplane, human heart, microchip, satellite, nuclear reactor, diamond ring, donut, fence panel, contact lense, etc and to be complete in your description you must start at quantum mechanics, the current base of our understanding of the world. Here you find what constitutes matter, the quarks, or the bosons that create the forces that allow interactions and bind everything together. Building up from there you must go through each scale of understanding until you have built a complete description of the object.
Even adding the history and purpose would require a reductionist slant in one way or another. I know of no way of describing something without this technique. Ever sentence we write requires the brain to be reductionist in picking the constituent parts of the sentence.
Again, there is probably a difference between this practical reductionism, required by nature to understand it, and a strict philosophical reductionism, though given that everything i have ever met was made of something and that understanding of that does not mean you can ignore the larger processes and meaning of entities, even that strict philosophical reductionism doesn't bother me too much. Perhaps you could define it more?
26 June 2005
1 week 1 hour
I just can't resist, can I?
Daydreamer, I think that you know very well what point Richard was making and that you delight in splitting hairs to confuse and distract. He explained very well the point that the difference between his view and that of what he terms the materialist view is one of fundamental reality. In short, a materialist will not entertain the idea that consciousness (higher or otherwise) might be the fundamental reality. A materialist will insist that we exist in a self contained universe and that all forces, energy/matter and dimensions of space and time exist within and because of that physical universe.
How you define the material or the physical is a side issue. Yes, it does come down to philosophy because the evidence is not (and might never be) conclusive one way or the other. A couple of examples (indeed, the subject of this thread - mind brain correlates - is a prime example):
I look at a flock of starlings creating truly awesome displays in the evening sky and I am convinced that there is a group consciousness at work. You might look at the same display and be equally in awe of the speed at which each individual bird can react to slight and subtle physical signals from its nearest neighbour. Physical senses or group consciousness?
In another example we might consider the ant colony. Such a marvel of cooperative endeavour. Is it all down to chemical markers? Surely they must have a big part to play but do they explain it all? Or is it possible that there is a colony mind? Our own bodies use chemical signals too but we have a brain to control the interactions. And a mind which affects the brain ... feelings and emotions which produce physical effects in the brain and then in the body.
Strong arguments can be made for either side, and I am not claiming these examples to be representative of the best evidence, so it comes down to subjectivity in the end. I *feel* that the physicalist view is cold an empty. I am convinced that the universe has a purpose and am therefore inclined towards the holistic idealist answers. For someone who would diminish the notion of feelings to some kind of curious side effect of evolution in a wholly pointless, arbitrary and accidental universe, then subjectivity must be denied at all costs. Nevertheless, even Spock had a human (subjective) side - maybe even a soul?
Dave.
Wanted: More White Crows ... http://whitecrows.davidsmuse.co.uk
12 April 2007
7 hours 9 min
I understand your argument —and I respect it— because I've pondered upon it many many times.
And yet, why should we think that a Universe that has a materialistic origin —the way Daydreamer propose we understand the term— be devoid of purpose as well?
And take into account that, for a person like Daydreamer, the term 'materialist' merely implies that the Universe can be knowable; and that such concepts as the soul could be understood by our rational process (or at least, that it's worth the try!). personally I don't see any problem with that whatsoever.
But, even if we were to use the term 'materialism' as we gnostic New Agers usually understand it —almost as a curse or a bad word in our turf— why should we still think that's a cold appraisal of the Universe?
I think that, what I'm getting at here is this: Even if there's no God with a higher plan for it all, why should that stop us from finding a bigger meaning to the universe?
It would only mean that it's up to US to create that bigger meaning, instead of trying to follow someone else's script.
It's not the depth of the rabbit hole that bugs me...
It's all the rabbit SH*T you stumble over on your way down!!!
Red Pill Junkie
_______________
@red_pill_junkie
26 June 2005
1 week 1 hour
And yet, why should we think that a Universe that has a materialistic origin —the way Daydreamer propose we understand the term— be devoid of purpose as well?
And take into account that, for a person like Daydreamer, the term 'materialist' merely implies that the Universe can be knowable; and that such concepts as the soul could be understood by our rational process (or at least, that it's worth the try!). personally I don't see any problem with that whatsoever.
Firsty, I was responding to comments from Daydreamer so I was putting an alternative point of view - not ruling anything out. Nevertheless, nothing stops us from seeking the knowable within an idealistic framwork, does it? Are you implying that to be a non-materialist is to abandon the quest for the truth? And why is it only rational to look for answers within a materialistic framework? Is the concept of a non-physical soul irrational?
Yes, I accept that we must be careful not to daemonise materialism. I tried to indicate that there is no conclusive evidence either way. The point I am (poorly) attempting to make is that to, a priori, dismiss phenomena apparently beyond what we understand as physical just because "it can't happen" is surely blinkered. The materialists use of the word irrational is equivalent to that "it can't happen".
Now, I do take the point that perhaps what we deem to be non-physical (mind, spirits, the afterlife, etc.) may turn out to be some form of as yet undiscovered energy or field or other dimension. I have no problem with that because I too hold a similar view - that there is no dividing line between the physical and the non-physical. Going back to Richard's comment, though, the difference is the starting point. I start from imagining a universal mind. Daydreamer (I think) starts from the already known: particles, forces, and fields and the laws of physics and says that whatever we may discover in the future must conform to that paradigm.
He may be right. I am not confident enough in my own understanding to enjoy any degree of certainty. I am still afraid of death and oblivion but that is what drives me on to look for answers. That fear isn't, in itself, the reason for my present worldview though.
By the way, sometimes I get a little over-enthusiastic about making a point and come across a little preachy. If so, I apologise. I do respect other views and enjoy reading and debating them.
Dave.
Wanted: More White Crows ... http://whitecrows.davidsmuse.co.uk
12 April 2007
7 hours 9 min
Indeed, the current dogmatic skeptical materialistic paradigm uses the term "irrational" as equal to "it can't happen". When in reality irrational should merely mean that "it cannot be addressed by reason".
Are there phenomena or events that cannot be addressed by reason? Religions seem to think so; and yet to a scientist that's a luxury one cannot make, since we should always face a mystery with the pretension (or delusion) that it can be tackled through the tools of reason and deduction... eventually.
And that is something that, to a Grailer such as ourselves, should be held in high regard; because something that we all have in common, is little respect for dogma.
It's not the depth of the rabbit hole that bugs me...
It's all the rabbit SH*T you stumble over on your way down!!!
Red Pill Junkie
_______________
@red_pill_junkie
21 February 2009
15 weeks 1 day
Hi RPJ,
I guess you definitely see the term irrational being equated to that. They shouldn't really, the only thing that contends with any explanation, be it natural or supernatural, is another explanation. Throwing a single word forward is never going to cut the mustard.
I would disagree with you in a sense regarding religious appeals to, and explanations of, the seemingly irrational. Religion, to my perspective, is the ultimate rationaliser. By saying that there is a being of unlimited power and ability that acts in the world and is behind such things as miracles (for example; else other irrational events) we ultimately act to rationalise them - religion to me is one of the ultimate rationalisers. It has a simple, rational, answer to everything (super dude) - baring perhaps Theodicy, which it attempts to answer with free will; another attempt at rationality.
and yet to a scientist that's a luxury one cannot make, since we should always face a mystery with the pretension (or delusion) that it can be tackled through the tools of reason and deduction... eventually
You knew i'd have fun with this one ;)
The only tool of 'reason' i guess i should stick to philosophically is the scientific method, though you are right to highlight any deductive method.
If you think about it any method we care to devise should have the quality of its output weighted to the quality of its input. In principle you can input irrationality in any method, so long as you correctly assess the uncertainty in your conclusion. Perhaps the conclusion will be 100% uncertain, which is the line you almost seem to be inferring in your notion that the inputs of the phenomena describing the mystery will remain a mystery throughout the course of any investigation.
I would say the above should hold whether you use mathematics and an electron microscope or a ouija board. The skill is not in deciding the irrationality or rationality of the input, but the accuracy and value of the experiment and the error margin of the conclusion.
If you think about it you cannot actually say that something is irrational until you understand it to be, prior to that you can only say it appears to be irrational. Therefore the 'appearance of irrationality', being a weaker philosophical disposition than 'substantiated irrationality' would serve as even less of a problem to the input of investigation. Many investigations have probably been started on the seemingly irrational' i would guess, looking at mythology, at one point or another, most of the natural world.
During the 'state of mystery', which is really only a way of saying 'we don't know' we are not able to determine the difference between apparent and actual irrationality. So the problem is reduced as far as rationality is used. In fact you could argue that the appeal to irrationality as an explanation for mystery during the period where irrationality is only apparent, and not substantiated, is the only thing that, at that point, is 'irrational', though better philosophical terms probably exist to describe second guessing a phenomena without understanding.
As for who is guilty of this, i would guess everybody.
12 April 2007
7 hours 9 min
Ah; I never thought of religions like that. I agree with you; perhaps the only difference in that sense between religion and science, in their methodology to rationalize the world, is that religion seeks to deliberately impose restrictions to queries, covering all with the blanket of "God did it", so we can move to "better" things :)
And there lies the paradox of religions, I would imagine. The same paradox Orwell tried to portray with the idea of "doublespeak", perhaps?
Indeed, you bring up a fundamental point: how do we determine if something is an irrationality, or merely an uncertainty (unknown yet).
And that would bring me to another problem: does irrationality really exist? I know Mathematicians use irrational numbers, but that only seems to serve to emphasize that such numbers need to be applied through different standards of 'normal' numbers. I'm sure our friend Earthling could enlighten us further in this matter [queue]
It's not the depth of the rabbit hole that bugs me...
It's all the rabbit SH*T you stumble over on your way down!!!
Red Pill Junkie
_______________
@red_pill_junkie
21 February 2009
15 weeks 1 day
perhaps the only difference in that sense between religion and science, in their methodology to rationalize the world, is that religion seeks to deliberately impose restrictions to queries
I'm definitely going to end up agreeing with that! Even if we could debate the exact, and changing, ways in which they do it. It struck me the other day that they have parallels with the Orwellian Ministry of Truth. They declare the truth then ultimately ask for emotional and intellectual submission to it. Then they attempt to control it, and in many ways 'delete' opposing ideas. Orwellian to a T (at least in that respect). Orwell perhaps exaggerated the evilness for the stories affect. People on the whole are good so the implementation and execution of evil on large scales must also contain quantities of good, in fact over time the two would become entwined, which i think is what we are left with today.
The notion of devotional reading is important. Any of us can be loyal to a text, which is why i must be willing to ditch plate tectonics if a better idea comes along. To see the weaknesses in it you cannot just read it, but must compare it; gospel to gospel, verse to verse, story to story, revision to revision, bible to bible, then ultimately text to text, language to language, to earlier versions, to the Dead Sea Scrolls, Masoretic Text, Leningrad Codex, biblical archeology. After this you will gain an insight not into 'Christianity', but into the diverse culture of a group of ancient people we could perhaps more call 'Christianites' and how their culture has grown to entwine ours. This is a far cry educationally and politically from our current church controlled world. Though they are losing power at an exponential rate, freeing more space for spirituality and science alike, which can only help the cause of honesty.
Anyway, since i don't seem to be able to talk about that without seemingly ranting.
how do we determine if something is an irrationality, or merely an uncertainty (unknown yet)
Exactly! Or- what sort of universe do we live in?
Right now a cake could appear right next to you, or you could get up and walk through your door as you try to open it. This is extremely unlikely, but could happen. If a million people develop cancer and in 50 of them the immune system realises what is happening at a late stage (something it should have realised at an early stage since it is supposed to kill abnormal cells) that surely compares as completely normal in comparison.
If there are multiple universes and they do interact, something some physicists argue quantum computing has already proven, and since the physics suggests that only universes that are sufficiently alike will superimpose, is anything that appears paranormal irrational. Perhaps we are already close to a scientific answer to such things as prophecy. Given that mirror versions of ourselves will also have a religious explanation of these things could they be under the misconception they are contacting the dead if they contact us? If consciousness is quantum is it able to superimpose, just like the electrons used by quantum computers to process information in other universes? If so can we 'feel' the information in other universes, giving an avenue of explaining much of the paranormal - though sadly without many peoples favored narrative - the soul.
In this context i don't think irrationality exists. This is the scientific use of irrationality though - in a reasoned conversation. I do think that an appeal to not even search for rationality (or to consider whether such a search is deluded, given the nature of the definition) is a good basis for a definition of irrationality.
22 November 2004
3 days 22 hours
I look at a flock of starlings creating truly awesome displays in the evening sky and I am convinced that there is a group consciousness at work. You might look at the same display and be equally in awe of the speed at which each individual bird can react to slight and subtle physical signals from its nearest neighbour. Physical senses or group consciousness?
In another example we might consider the ant colony. Such a marvel of cooperative endeavour. Is it all down to chemical markers? Surely they must have a big part to play but do they explain it all? Or is it possible that there is a colony mind? Our own bodies use chemical signals too but we have a brain to control the interactions. And a mind which affects the brain ... feelings and emotions which produce physical effects in the brain and then in the body.
Another alternative is that the behaviour of the group comes from the interactions between the individual members. In the case of bird flocks, schools of fish, stampeding buffalo herds etc this is very likely the case.
In these cases the individuals have no intention of forming the patterns we observe. They are not even aware that they are doing this. Instead they interact with a few others in the group, and the nature of these interactions results in the group behaviour.
Ant colonies likely do the same thing.
People do the same thing in large enough groups. That's why it is relatively easy to herd people.
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We are the cat.
26 June 2005
1 week 1 hour
Another alternative is that the behaviour of the group comes from the interactions between the individual members. In the case of bird flocks, schools of fish, stampeding buffalo herds etc this is very likely the case.
....
Ant colonies likely do the same thing.
I thought that was the alternative I was indeed presenting:
You might look at the same display and be equally in awe of the speed at which each individual bird can react to slight and subtle physical signals from its nearest neighbour.
Your point about human groups is an interesting one. I have often thought that a crowd generates a kind of temporary group mind. It is fascinating to observe this at a football (soccer) match - if you can take your eyes of the game for a few moments. :)
Dave.
Wanted: More White Crows ... http://whitecrows.davidsmuse.co.uk
1 May 2004
13 weeks 2 days
indeed is displayed by large groups of all living creatures. If you were to take the reaction time into account, then what we witness would be impossible. As Kamarling wrote about the starling flocks. A bird on the outer edge reacts as quick as one in the middle and opposite. Almost as if the signal to each bird is simultaneous.
Our own cells work the same way, sure there are enzymes and antigens and other chemical reactions taking place, but there also must be a form of co-operative inteligents between DNA of one cell to another. Think of the implications of that if it where to be discovered.
Same as the inner workings of an atom. We have yet to unlock that door but when it is unlocked you will find a similar story of interaction.
I thought the 100th monkey already proved the species group consciousnes?
"Life can be whatever you want it to be, as long as you do what your told."
LRF.
22 November 2004
3 days 22 hours
Actually the behaviour of the starling flocks follows the normal reaction times very well. There does not appear to be any communication between distant parts of the flock.
It is nearest neighbour stuff, or a fairly small local neighbourhood.
Inanimate particles show very similar movement. So do traffic jams. It doesn't seem to matter much if the particle involved can think.
But that is for simple movement that we can casually observe. Personally I suspect that similar emergent behaviour shows up with interactions where some amount of thinking is involved.
The crowds at football games are an example for humans. I think cities and countries are other examples.
Physical proximity doesn't seem to be necessary, writing letters is fast enough.
As for the 100th monkey, there are plenty of examples where isolated small populations of animals develop completely divergent behaviours, why are those not viewed as proof of the absence of group consciousness?
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We are the cat.
1 May 2004
13 weeks 2 days
that is enviromental. When 100th monkey first came to light it was an action that was not determined by enviroment but by the animal trying something new, and it worked.
If you have a reaction time of .7 seconds, and a flock that is 100 birds across, then you have a reaction time from the furtherest apart of 70 seconds. Which is over a minute. That is not what you see..............
"Life can be whatever you want it to be, as long as you do what your told."
LRF.
22 November 2004
3 days 22 hours
The movement in the flocks is gradual. Each bird pushes or pulls the neighbours a little. The spaces between them narrow and widen. The birds want to keep their neighbours at a comfortable distance, and that is what you do see.
I don't know if the 100th monkey stuff is normal behaviour, or exceptional. I have only heard about the one anecdotal report. If it hasn't been observed more generally, I would not call that conclusive evidence.
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We are the cat.
1 May 2004
13 weeks 2 days
forget starlings and look at racing pidgeons. There ain't nothing gradual about their movement. It is instantanious.
If you have ever observed a flock of pidgeons let out for exercise, you would be amazed. They move like one organism.
You know earthling, I can always count on you for a little amusment. Thankyou.
"Life can be whatever you want it to be, as long as you do what your told."
LRF.
22 November 2004
3 days 22 hours
starlings fly at speeds exceeding 80 miles an hour.
It is often interesting how you can misunderstand things that seem pretty straightforward. Such as absolute forward speed versus relative speed towards other birds.
I have done the particle simulations, they work. Many other people have done this for birds. For traffic flow. It works.
But I know that some folks have made up their mind.
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We are the cat.
21 February 2009
15 weeks 1 day
Hi Floppy1,
I get your point. A reaction time of 0.7 seconds sounds slow though, but may be fair enough for an average. Where did that time period come from?
Anyway, that figure of 70 seconds is assuming that each bird only reacts after its neighbor has done so. I find this very unlikely. It is surely much more likely that they do not just watch their immediate neighbor, but birds further away to give clues as to which way to turn.
It might also be that they micro-manage mistakes, constantly making errors but correcting them before they become large. Fighter pilots learn to do this with practice so they can stay in formation. Even if you let the leader make random movements they would be able to adjust and stay in rough formation. A pilot on one side would not need to wait until the neighbor plane moved as information on what the group has done reaches him beforehand.
1 May 2004
13 weeks 2 days
I was taking it to the extreme of one end (for earthlings sake). There is a lot of evidence out there to surport a communication other then what we understand now. But this evidence is fragmented and not been correlated.
The more they learn about quantum behaviour, the more this concept is surported. We evolve because of this principle.
It's like data being stored in the DNA over time and this data is communicated between cells to enhance the biological functions for the inviroment. Thanks daydreamer for your balanced responce.
"Life can be whatever you want it to be, as long as you do what your told."
LRF.
22 November 2004
3 days 22 hours
Balanced has little to do with it.
I look at things that can be described in a verifiable way. On the other side, I don't see any convincing evidence. What is nobody correlating it? All I see is vague claims, and those
are not even new. These views have been around for more than 2500 years that we know of, probably longer.
The problem seems to be that verifying any of this is actual work. And the new age crowd doesn't like that, repeating
vague claims is easier.
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We are the cat.
1 May 2004
13 weeks 2 days
I find myself having to thankyou for the amusing comment earthling.
"Life can be whatever you want it to be, as long as you do what your told."
LRF.
22 November 2004
3 days 22 hours
You are up there with the laziest of them bro.
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We are the cat.
24 May 2010
2 years 52 weeks
Ive think we can learn how to function on our theta wave, it makes perfect sense. I think it is the next stage of evolution. In a coma the brain is still functioning on the delts wave. i think our human bodies have not yet evolutionsized to functino on any waves higher than delta. It's like overload of enery.
12 April 2007
7 hours 9 min
Well, all I know is that Power Point presentations in which the speaker limits to read the text of the slides, are successful in lowering *MY* level of consciousness!
It's not the depth of the rabbit hole that bugs me...
It's all the rabbit SH*T you stumble over on your way down!!!
Red Pill Junkie
_______________
@red_pill_junkie
3 July 2009
8 weeks 1 day
if we live in an 11th dimensional universe as string theory seems to predict, then knowing we can only perceive 3 spacial dimensions + one temporal dimension, it always leaves me thinking there may be other dimensions "overlayed" across what we call reality. it isnt a place to "travel" to.... its already here, we just cant perceive it in a "normal" state.
that leaves open so many what-ifs... but what i would like to entertain in my mind personally... is that one or more of the various psychedelic substances we have come to call research chemicals could alter our perception, possibly through "opening the third eye", or whatever, but the altered perception while tripping could be sensory input from a dimension other than our 4D paradigm.
the synesthesia could be caused by the extra-dimensional input our minds aren't use to processing.
is that too far out of the realm of possibilities?
i would like to think it isn't....
12 April 2007
7 hours 9 min
The idea that there can be tools to help us access more "channels" of reality makes a lot of sense.
But we must always realize that, ultimately, all those channels will need to be filtered through our human mind, filled with cultural baggage and an entrenched world view.
It's not the depth of the rabbit hole that bugs me...
It's all the rabbit SH*T you stumble over on your way down!!!
Red Pill Junkie
_______________
@red_pill_junkie
21 February 2009
15 weeks 1 day
I'm short on time here so will just have to add little comments until i can get a bit more time. Thanks for all the comments though everyone, you have some replies coming!
RPJ,
It does indeed make sense that there be more 'channels' so to speak.
In a more standard view of physics and biology though these will be tailored to the relevant physics and evolution. This can offer insight into why we have what we have, and why it is limited in the fashion it is.
The notion of 'channels' is interesting. Just out of interest should we call the photon one channel and the compression of gasses another? Visible (to us) light one channel and x-ray another? What about other forces that act on us other than electromagnetism? Gravity for example? I only ponder this as these relate in ways to those other dimensions. Gravity for example is thought to be so weak as it 'bleeds' into those dimensions and the other forces do not. For those of you keeping up with string theory we are already supposed to exist in those 9 or 11 or 23 dimensions, with point particles being replaced by energy 'strings' wrapped round these Calabi-Yau shapes/manifolds - i don't know how we would choose to use these as the 'spiritual dimensions' if we are already in them. Anyway...
But we must always realize that, ultimately, all those channels will need to be filtered through our human mind, filled with cultural baggage and an entrenched world view.
I understand the sentiment here, but i am going to be picky. Much of 'soul' philosophy almost places itself as an antithesis to material thought. Given this why would channels that might be called 'spiritual' be necessarily filtered though the human mind.
I don't know whether people here would find it hard to think that the material aspects of our world are processed by the material aspects of our form (pure consciousness theories aside). Most ideas subdivide our existence into body/mind, body/(mind/soul) or (body/mind)/soul.
You can transplant brain where body is i guess to get brain/mind, brain/(mind/soul) or (brain/mind)/soul.
Could channels not be filtered and 'processed' within the soul rather than in more mundane parts such as the visual, auditory, olfactory cortex's?
I only draw attention to this as when dealing with an unknown like sensory perception and processing of the brain/mind/soul assumptions of the form 'need to be' don't need to be made.
(especially since saying that the data handling is done by the human mind rather than energy X of consciousness X of dimension 123 surely creeps towards more stereotypical materialism, though granted the caveat is how you define the mind)
Later all
12 April 2007
7 hours 9 min
The idea of 'channels', I think we all agree, is merely a metaphor to understand other levels of reality that are usually outside our natural sensory input and perception processing.
For example, bees & butterflies can see in ultra-violet. That means that the world they perceive is fundamentally different than ours, and yet it remains the same world, right? It's interesting to consider how much different our society would be if humans had a broader (or narrower) perception of the electromagnetic spectrum.
I'm one of those people who feel uncomfortable with the terms "spiritual" or "supernatural" :)
Let's propose another idea —just for kicks as usual ;)—: let's suppose that the use of entheogens or other tools help us to alter our natural perception of the flow of time. The idea among some physicists is that Time is something like a movie film, with all the moments in our lives existing fixed and static forever, but that it's only our consciousness the one that allows us to perceive the 'illusion' that those frames have a continuity. What if entheogens helped us turn off the projector, or fast-forward the movie?
I think I know where you're getting at here. I'm trying to make the point that all the experiences we have —specially the extraordinary ones— need to be interpreted because it's part of the human condition to try to make sense of the world; and we usually do that through our pre-conceptions. That's why South-American shamans explain their visions through their cultural metaphors and frameworks, while Westerners use other frameworks.
But here I think you're wondering whether the soul is also a participant of the processing alongside the brain. This is as difficult to respond as the answer to the question "what is the mind?" IMO. And I'm sure other Grailers have many interesting things to add to this.
Returning briefly to the link that sparked this loose discussion, I think the assumption among some researchers of the mind, is that meditation and other 'higher' levels of consciousness, are considered high *not* because of the increase in the frequency of the brain waves, but because —somehow— the higher levels allow a much 'unfiltered' or 'distorted' perception of reality.
Or to say it differently: our brain is less in the way of our soul. At least that's my interpretation of it. And I honestly don't know if they are correct.
I do remember one Darklore essay in which the author studied cases of patients in their death-beds, in which it was reported an incredible recovery of long-lost cognitive functions —the patients were able to recognize relatives and friends after being reported senile, etc— so what does that tell us?
It's not the depth of the rabbit hole that bugs me...
It's all the rabbit SH*T you stumble over on your way down!!!
Red Pill Junkie
_______________
@red_pill_junkie
21 February 2009
15 weeks 1 day
Yeah, i was pulling your leg a bit ;)
Channels are an interesting extension of our abilities. A fuller understanding of the nature of our senses and their respective workings has given us more to appreciate, especially of how things might have been.
Somethings perhaps might not have been too different. A slightly broader electromagnetic sight range might just have resulted in a broader ink pallet for use in paintings etc.
Spiritually the world might have been quite different. A more obvious supernatural element, such as people appearing rather than being born, would no doubt have ended much speculation.
I too do not really like terms like 'spiritual', 'supernatural' etc. Though i might not say exactly why for want of not starting that conversation in this one.
I have been reading a book about multiple universes and it has a good section on time in it. It blows your mind. I sometimes wonder why some people are drawn to ideas that other than surface polish seem devoid of real content when the ideas of quantum physics (not of the Deepak Chopra home-brand) can be so mysterious that, at least for people who desire mystery, there is plenty of space for anyone.
Your idea of turning off the projector/suspending the movie is possibly not far from the mark, though consideration of the thermodynamics for a more substantial answer might be in order. Personally i might suspect that fast forwarding the movie, though the metaphor holds for time dilation, is probably not what is going on. At least not by the best modern understanding. Perhaps something more along the lines of superposition of other universes would be a better attempt, the other being too close to human metaphor and hence further from the universes possibilities.
Yeah, i was wondering about 'data processing' and especially this in terms of the 'soul'/consciousness. If we came across a computer without having seen one before, or say an alien computer, we may have no idea how its 'consciousness' worked. How it managed to correctly ascertain its data (especially if it passed a turning test). However there may be a difference between understanding how the consciousness works (quantum/neural net/other dimensional energy symbiotic with a neural network/etc) and where it is occuring/processing data. For example with the brain, even if we say we do not know exactly how consciousness works, we can still identify areas where the processing appears to be occurring. I think this difference between data and data processing is a way into understanding the phenomena, even if it is not a complete understanding.
because of the increase in the frequency of the brain waves, but because —somehow— the higher levels allow a much 'unfiltered' or 'distorted' perception of reality.
I would be very interested if this was the case. I guess i am a bit skeptical of this in many ways because the claimed appreciation of the universe is subjective. We can say we feel more in touch with it, or that our understanding is improved, but against what do we test this. I mean philosophically more than scientifically here. If someone claims to understand something there are only a few ways to tell if they do and taking their word for it isn't really the best. However, this does not mean that something new is not being experienced. I suspect the universe is a little too difficult to be garnered by experience. I wonder what the scientists in the afterlife have to say about it? :)
3 July 2009
8 weeks 1 day
so check out the first post on this blog..
http://lspaceshelf.spaces.live.com/blog/
working within the same framework of my original post about "higher" conciousness and then the altering of the perception of it (through an entheogen); the ability to collapse less likely probability waves could be one of the myriad possibilities resulting from this type of experimenting..
as illustrated by the thought experiment of the cat..
all probabilities coexist until the observation is made....
19 December 2007
2 years 34 weeks
. . . that are worth consideration.
First is Haisch's "Quantum Mechanics and Consciousness: A New Measurement", and second is "Higher States of Consciousness Beyond Space and Time: A Comparative Perspective from Eastern Cosmologies and Western Science" by Syldona.
Both can be accessed at this page:
http://www.scientificexploration.org/sse...
There are many, many indications coming from physics that suggest that consciousness itself is at the core of existence, but as long as it is widely accepted that the Aristotelian approach to knowledge is sacrosanct, the full implication and direct realization of the truth of consciousness as the ground of being will remain beyond the grasp of most.
In other words, until we learn to respect the use of our minds as a receiver as fully as we respect the use of our minds as a computer, we'll remain in the position of speculating (and arguing) about the nature of existence. And with close to seven billion perspectives on earth, we won't run out of people to speculate or argue with any time soon.
So it goes.