Gees

Nouveau; Although I have travelled all over the US, made forays into Canada and Mexico, and even taken a couple of trips to Europe, my best experience was getting on a motorcycle and riding from Michigan to Arizona. I was in my early 20's, had less than $50 in my pocket (gas was about $.25 per gallon), and took five days to get there, but I will never forget it. I camped out at night under the stars, ate picnic foods at rest stops and beside the road, and met a lot of people. The difference in driving a car to Arizona and riding a bike, is like the difference in driving down a road fifty times, then one day walking down that same road. There is so much that we miss when driving by; the difference is in passing something, or experiencing something. I felt the climate around me, smelled the grains growing in the fields, saw a lot of animal wildlife, and was approached by many different people with different accents, circumstances, situations and problems. A lot of people felt the need to welcome and protect a woman alone on a motorcycle. So I was invited to share meals with families and even invited to pitch my tent by theirs, because they were worried about me. Truckers went out of their way to tell me where the Smokies (traffic cops) were parked and where the roads were under construction. Other people advised me about weather problems, bad parts of town, scenic routes, and being careful, and they talked about their lives, their loves, their problems, and their dreams. Whenever I feel down or disillusioned, I just think back to that time and remember that there are a lot of very good people in this country. Of course, on that trip I also learned about a dozen ways to sit on a bike (sore muscles), got a sun tan that went from my shoulders down to the second knuckle on my fingers, because the tips were shaded by the handlebars, and got my picture in the paper in Arizona. Apparently, not very many women made 2,000 mile trips alone on a motorcycle. So I guess it was unique. G

Tar; I hope you enjoyed your family reunion. Regarding your above statements (I cut some comments out to preserve space.) there is a clear pattern. You identify with society, community, and family, and are a very social person. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this, but you also view consciousness from this perspective, so you see it from a "me" or "we" human perspective. This is where our difference begins and ends, because I see consciousness from an "it" perspective as an abstract concept. Now you may disagree, but consider: If a person that you know told you that they had just had a baby, you may ask how they felt about parenthood, you may ask about their feelings, plans, arrangements, and thoughts regarding the new life, but you would also ask about the baby. You would want to know about the sex, health, length, weight, etc. For eight pages now, I have been waiting to find someone who would ask the appropriate questions about consciousness. I have given out more than enough hints that I see it as a real thing, but there have been no takers. No one is asking about the "baby", so I know that they can not see consciousness as a reality except through personal perspective. Personal perspective is an important viewpoint of consciousness, but it is not the only viewpoint. It is my thought that examining consciousness from a personal perspective is about as wise as when the Ancients examined the Universe from the perspective of Earth. They saw Earth as being the center of all, so their viewpoint distorted the truth of the Universe. I understand that consciousness is intangible, so it is an abstract idea, and only about 3 percent of the population is capable of holding an abstract idea in their minds for examination. But this is what I need; one of the 3 percent, who has a strong interest in consciousness. I disagree. Your statement limits your considerations to humans. The supernatural, including religion, is the explanation of how we interpret, or think about, what we feel. All of the things that I listed in my prior post as supernatural bear one similarity, in that they are all interpretations of feeling/emotions. i would like to bypass one step and examine what causes the feeling/emotion to happen, rather than examine why we feel the way we do about the supernatural. To state that consciousness can "understand" itself is to give it a persona, or call it God. Not buying it. But I am a philosopher, and we study reality. I have enjoyed talking with you, but expect that I will get no answers at this forum. G

I disagree. Although it is true that the concepts of awareness and consciousness are often confused and do not have a very clear and distinct difference in definition, consciousness is generally regarded as thought. Greylorn is correct in the position that people become aware of an idea, become aware of the fact that it is accepted, and simply accept the idea without study, experience, or thought. As a friend of mine has often noted, "People would rather die than think." History bears out this simple truth over, and over, and over. G.

Well, I think we are in the same book, but not in complete agreement. I think the thing that frustrates me is that people, who believe in cause and effect, will also believe that mental attributes are somewhat magical. People will argue that physical things can only work in specific ways for specific reasons, but mental things can be whatever we imagine. Nonsense. The mental works through cause and effect just as the physical does. The only real difference is that we have not bothered to learn the rules that regulate the different mental aspects--so it looks like magic. We have learned a great deal about the first division, knowledge, thought, and thinking, as is evidenced by our knowledge of computers. But we know almost nothing about the second division, awareness, feeling, and emotion, so this is where study is required. Mostly we have relegated the second division to religion and/or the supernatural, but until we understand both, we can not understand consciousness. OK. But after life grabs form, then the form dies, then what happens? If we decide that consciousness is floating around, inhabits life, then leaves life--we end up with the "God" idea, or panpsychism (everything is alive). For people who do not buy into religion and think that rocks are not alive, this is a problem. If we believe that there is no consciousness except in life, then we have to explain how this magical thing happens and where knowledge and awareness comes from. We end up back with the "God" idea, or we deny the mental aspects and accept that only the physical exists--and there is no logical explanation for knowledge and awareness. In which case, we ignore the supernatural and pretend that it does not exist. If we go the solipsist route and deny the physical, stating that only the mental exists, we have a pretty logical argument. But there is no purpose for this theory, no why, no reason to even consider physical reality. No reason for evolution. No reason for life. So although the solipsist theory does make a good argument, there seems to be no point in it. This idea also tends to be somewhat magical. It is my opinion that each of these theories make the same mistake. They each choose one aspect of life and use it to explain all of the others, but it does not work. Many philosophers have debated this issue, and many ideas have been brought forth from Plato's forms to Panpsychism, but they each fall short of the explanation and philosophers have long noted that there seem to be at least two divisions. The first is knowledge (forms, matter, and the all-knowing God). This division is the beginning or source of knowledge and awareness, but it is static and has no will or ability to intervene--like a book that has no reader. It is knowledge that is there, but unknown until read. The second division is awareness (spirit, life, and the God of love). This division has will and can manipulate the environment. But it is either short lived, or supernatural. So it is my thought that consciousness is very complex and that each of these theories is only one perspective of consciousness. I think that there are degrees of conscious awareness, and that these degrees are regulated by cause and effect. So this would mean that when we die we have lost? Everyone of us will die, so what is it that we have won? Why is it necessary for all life to continue? Why reproduce? This is not the answer. But why does the universe wish to accomplish this? What is the purpose? What does life give to the universe that is so important that all life has a mandate to continue? True. But how did it happen? Could it happen somewhere else? Because you stated that you were examining this event for truth, I will give you my take on this. First, it was a long time ago, so unless you did something to record the events at that time, you can not trust your memory of them. (If I can find the video on memory, I will post it at the end.) It was probably summertime, which does not tell me a lot. But the age of your young cousin suggests that she would be hormonal, which fits. Because sticking your hand in water caused no shock, it would be my guess that this was kinetic energy rather than electrical shock. So before deciding that she was "wired" differently, I would investigate whether or not she had a synthetic carpet in her room, or if she wore a lot of synthetic clothing, like hose, which caused friction and kinetic energy to build up. Well, hearing a piano is an experience, so this part makes sense. I would want verification on the furniture being rearranged, but the hand on the shoulder could be valid as this is part of awareness, and she was at the right age to be hormonal. I would also ask if she had heard about this "ghost" before. Too many kids. This looks like a group looking for trouble, and makes me wonder if the "new boy" was getting pranked. Feelings of hysteria at this point would be useless to consider because there were too many teenages with excited hormones. How could anyone track down where the emotions came from? If you weren't getting pranked, where did the rag doll end up? Was there some significance to a rag doll and the "ghost"? Did any of the other kids have a younger sister, who may own a rag doll? As to the distributor cap, has it ever popped off before or since? Seems to me that I have heard of distributor caps popping off before, but I am not sure. Why would a "ghost" want to keep you there? This does not make sense, so I doubt this part of the event as being supernatural. Do you think you saw a ghost? How could you know? You should have stopped. Well, if I were investigating this, the first thing that I would do is track down the rumors and compare them to the facts. So check records regarding the ownership of the houses, and if/when you find the owner, check death certificates to see if he actually committed suicide in the way described. These things have a tendency to be exagerated over time. If you get that far, then you would have to try to give a description of the "ghost", a drawing would be nice, then search for a real photo or painting of the man. If all of these things pan out, and the description is valid, before seeing a picture, then you may have seen a ghost. But I am still not buying the rag doll. That was a private reference for someone else; I am no Socrates. Most people hear the word, "collaboration" and believe that Socratic discussion is "nice", "cooperative", or even "civilized"; it is anything but civilized. It could be more closely related to psychoanalysis and requires an openness and honesty that can be quite traumatic. Debate is much more civilized as a person is expected to cross their arms, squint their eyes, and hold a facade of their thoughts up for debate, while never really exposing their true selves. This is a very interesting video that explains why and when we can not trust our memories. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNuARPcb5FA G.

Moontanman; Although a little condescending, all of your above statements sound reasonable and intelligent. This would make anyone reading them think that you are reasonable and intelligent. But there is a bit of a perversity here. Following are the assertions that I made in post # 143. The post that initiated this conversation: Twelve assertions, and each and every one of them could, and probably should, be questioned. Were any of them questioned? No. Did you even ask for clarity on any issue? No. Did you ask for elaboration, references, a citation? No. What you did was ask for a detailed explanation of all of the things that I stated that I could not discuss. You seem to look for the things that I don't care about and have no position on, or the things that I specifically state that I won't discuss, and question only those things. This is not debate, it is not discussion, it is not even conversation--it is a perversion of information. Then you throw the rules in my face and state that I must have a nonsensical debate over these issues that you have carefully selected. And I am supposed to believe that this is accidental? Your accidents are too consistent. So if you want me to leave the thread that badly, I am out of here. Note to all: Socrates was a very passionate man, and his passion was vested in what he liked to call the "virtues". Socrates has been said to leave his opponents "a quivering mass of jelly" after his questioning, but some of his opponents were not so easily intimidated, so instead of quivering, they were enraged. Socrates could "sting people and whip them into a fury", which is probably why he was condemned to death by his own people. The following statement was part of the warning given to me by Imatfaal: Because you were so kind in giving me this warning, I would like to return the favor. So I would like to warn you that if you do not close this thread, you will look like a damned liar. Because: You need a ruling on the rules. Your protocols of debate are not really protocols and do not even bear a similarity to procedures or any kind of reasonable process. Your etcetera is invalid as it follows words that are invalid, so this also needs to be refined. G

No, I should not have. Any discussion would have to be with someone who is at least in the same book as I am, if not on the same page. An honest understanding of religion, God, and the supernatural/paranormal is required before attempting to comprehend consciousness. So Consciousness 101 could be considered a break-down of the supernatural. Consciousness is not simple to understand. You will receive no citations, elaborations, or references regarding any of my ideas, and if I decide to discuss them, it will be a discussion--not a debate. If you again feel that you have the right to demand that I support a position, just because you believe that I hold it, then make more demands. I will simply leave the thread. Enough is enough. G

Tar; I should not have brought up my health, and you don't have to be sorry, but if you are, then you can apologize for making me jealous. I would love to be able to jump in the shower and go to work--I loved my job. I think that the work we do is a treasure that we give to ourselves, so enjoy it while you have it. As far as my ideas are concerned, this is what I know. There are 34 people following this thread and I have -4 points. Since I have discussed and introduced many different topics and provided links and references to many of my ideas, it appears to me that my ideas are not worth noting. Or people are simply waiting for me to fail, so that is why they are following this thread. Most of what I have been doing so far is trying to dislodge many of the ideas from religions and the supernatural superstitions that corrupt our understanding of consciousness. If we were in fact discussing my ideas, we would be talking about why life cannot spontaneously start in space, why it started around the equator, and why it diversifies more often around the equator. Why some species hibernate, why a child that fell in a river and was "dead" for more than 15 minutes can recover fully, what water has to do with consciousnes, what temperature has to do with consciousness, and why density affects consciousness. We would be discussing universal truths and body language and language, and what these things tell us about consciousness. I have not come close to discussing my ideas. True, but that is introspective. Consider that when you see something, a vision is stored in your brain; when hearing, a sound is stored; but the act of seeing or hearing is not stored--that is experienced. Emotion and feeling work the same way, so what we feel is stored by the thoughts that accumulate around our emotions. Emotion, by itself, is not stored in the brain any more than seeing or hearing is, but we know that hearing comes from the ears and seeing comes from the eyes, but where does emotion come from? Emotion and feeling work through chemicals, but chemicals in a jar are not emotional, they have no feeling, so they do not really produce feeling. I think that they connect us to feeling and emotion, and the connection is, or is to, consciousness. Agreed. And if words are not necessary, then there is no reason to dispute the idea that all life knows this stipulation as language is not required. All life has a knowledge of what we call God. Agreed. So I see only two ways to avoid religious differences. Either all people have to be of the same language and society, or all people have to respect the differences in other's society/religion. Since people have a tendency to group, causing different dialects and customs within the same country, it is unlikely that all people could be of the same society--so I recommend respect. Agreed. But I doubt that Mohammed did this intentionally with malice. It is my thought that he did this while looking to his own people and their problems. Whether it is called prophesy, visions, premonitions, or something else, it is very difficult to discern what comes to you and what comes from you when attempting to understand prophesy. This is because it works through the unconscious mind, so it is a lot like dreaming and must be interpreted. imo G

Well, apparently someone, who is less than eloquent, took exception to my last post. This is evidenced by the red -1 that has been tacked to the bottom of my post. I wonder why someone took exception to it. Could it be because I stated that there is some truth in religion? Because I stated that the supernatural is not something that we can just make up? Because I stated that simple truths can lead to truth? Or maybe it is because I made a request regarding ghosts? My guess would be that this is about religion, and that there are some people who are so involved with hating religion that they could not find truth if it was pinned to their noses, if that truth had anything to do with religion. But maybe I am wrong. Any comments? G

Tar; You and Science4ever both deserve answers to your posts. It has not been my intention to ignore you, as I have been too ill to respond. The frustration that I deal with in this forum has little to do with the members, and is more about my inability to formulate the words that will help people to understand my ideas. So I never quite get to the discussion that I need because no one is on the same page, and unless the doctors do something brilliant, my health is going to cause me to run out of time. You are a smart man, so you know that 9/11 has as much to do with politics as it has to do with religion. In this thread religion is a subset of the supernatural, and the supernatural is a perspective of consciousness, so religion, God, and the supernatural are just study guides for learning about consciousness. No. Imagination is not the only explanation, it is one explanation, and it is a poor one. If, in fact, there was no truth in Mohammed's interpretation, then it would not be a belief. It would have died out before it began. This is a truth that people like to ignore, but it can not be ignored. Consider that you go to a movie, watch the whole thing, then walk out believing that it was an absurd plot, a bad story line, and lousy acting--there was nothing believable in it. That movie will be a flop because no one can identify with it. You can watch another movie and find it to be one of the best you have ever seen, but both movies are just imagination. So what is the difference? The second movie has truth in it, it is believable, so it has value. Religions are like this. If they have no truth, then they have no value and die off in a very short time. Islam is very old, so it has value, and it has truth. It also has a lot of other stuff, some of it imagination, some of it culture, some of it personal interpretation, some of it a guide to living and morals, but some of it is truth. So how do we discover which is which? I think that the issue that I have with this paragraph are the words "imagination" and "make it so". This implies that the supernatural can be whatever we wish it to be, and this is where I disagree. The supernatural is what it is, we can't change that because it would be convenient. Good question. My thought is that the only way to understand what is real and what is projection is simple truths. We know that belief in God and the supernatural is common, so it is likely that there is a reason for this--simple truth. We know that different religions interpret God to be of their culture--simple truth. So we know that people consider God to be personal--simple truth. Therefore, God can not be a being, and has to be a mental abstract. When you have six witnesses to a crime, and five of them agree on a description of the suspect, you go with that description, as it is most likely true. So what are the common descriptions of God? He is all knowing, the source of life, all about love, and he is unknowable. First, the all knowing part makes one thing clear--God does not think. When we think, what we do it compare, deduce, and extrapolate information in order to get new information, so this would be a silly waste of time for a God that already knows everything. So God is knowledge, not thought--simple truth. God is the source of life, not the source of humans, so all life is in some way connected to God--simple truth. God is about emotion, and that emotion can be negative or positive. This is the source of our morals, but this is also interpreted through religions and cultures, so a more valid interpretation of what causes negative and positive emotions needs to be made. We need to find the simple truth here. What about the God is unknowable? That always looked like an intentional mystery factor to me, but what if it is true. Could God actually be unknowable? Well, if God is all knowing, then we could not wrap our puny little brains around all of that knowledge. If God is emotion, then we can not know God, because we can not know emotion--we can only experience it. Emotion must be interpreted and connected to thought before it can be known in our minds, so if God is emotion, then he can not be known except through interpretation--simple truth. So tell me about your ghost. Where were you? Country and state. Did you have prior knowledge that a ghost was there? Was it a one time only? Were there other witnesses? What season was it? What was the weather like? What did you experience? G

I am not sure if I have ever read more nonsense in my life, but I doubt it. You have compared the supernatural and ESP to Imagination, magic, the unexplainable, power, pretend, play, a feeling entity, outside knowledge, and even wondered if clouds experience emotions. Are you serious? The supernatural, ESP, and all the rest are just interpretations of awareness and emotion. That's all. We all feel awareness and we all feel emotion, but that is all that we know about it. We don't know what it is, we don't know how it works, and apparently, we don't want to find out. Maybe I should have watched more scary movies when I was growing up, because this hysterical reaction to emotion was more than I anticipated. G

Tar; You do understand that the point of my last post was to compare the different circumstances where hormones seem to cause an effect of delusion, didn't you? I must agree that your last post was not off-topic, because with consciousness nothing is really off topic. On the other hand, an honest evaluation will sometimes show that although on topic, the conversation imparts no feeling of integrity to the topic. So, if I am understanding you correctly, you seem to think that hormones and delusions are simply ways that we learn to win, and we intentionally cause this because we are addicted to winning. I can see where this type of thinking could be applied to the monks, shamans, and seers, but question it in other circumstances. So you think that cats intentionally cause delusions, because they are bored, and want something to attack so they can win? This is amazing. We should report this find to science as I am sure that they had no idea of a cat's abilities in this matter. It is also clear why a young female would imitate a poltergeist, as that way she could get her temper out, throw things around, and not get blamed for it. Very clever. Of course, women are always getting pregnant just so they can have more hormones and be a smarty pants. And it is clear that elderly people intentionally reduce their hormone levels so that they can not drop into REM sleep. This helps them to experience memory loss, a little psychosis, maybe some alzheimers, and prepares them for being the losers that will soon die. But I draw the line at schizophrenia. Anyone stupid enough to think that living in a nightmare, where one can not know what is real, has anything to do with winning or is acceptable or has any value at all, is too deluded in their thinking to be of any value in this conversation. G

Ah ha! Now I get it. We are looking at this word from two different perspectives that reflect the way we think about this issue. You are considering it from a very rational mind perspective and seeing it as something that is imagined, "putting ourselves in the other's shoes". I am looking at this from the perspective of the supernatural or religion, and see it as something that is perceived--not thought. From Wiki: "Anthropomorphism, or personification, is attribution of human form or other characteristics to anything other than a human being. Examples include depicting deities with human form and ascribing human emotions or motives to forces of nature, such as hurricanes or earthquakes." So my understanding of anthropomorphism is more in line with what you would find under the religion section. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropomorphism When a person believes that they have encountered a god, or angels and demons, or ghosts, or relatives when near death, it is assumed that they either imagined it, or it was delusion. That is the answer. But it is not an answer, it is a dismissal, as neither of these explanations give a cause for the experience. When we imagine something, it is an activity that we actually do, so we know we are doing it. If it is delusion, then what causes the delusion, because these people are not crazy, so something is going on. Looking for the answer to this is what brought me to emotion. Well I never said that it comes from "outside" the Earth, but Dr. Stevenson's work does suggest that there may be some flitting about. I think that it is stretching things to say that there is a "human consciousness" that permeates the universe and think that it is much more likely that we interpret it as a human consciousness--anthropomorphize it. The simple fact is this; there was knowledge and awareness before there were humans, like it or not. This is evidenced by lower life forms. Agreed. G Following is a post that I wrote a few years ago in response to a Blog about Delusions in Religion. Below is a paragraph from your Blog which deals with ideas about delusion and your considerations. Mine follow. While reading the above paragraph I watched my cat jump three feet into the air to attack nothing. She does that a lot. We say she is attacking "thick pieces of air" and laugh. Many years ago a pet handbook explained that the reason cats do this is because they have an over abundance of hormones. Is she attacking delusions? That thought triggered a number of others. I remember reading that a poltergeist was not really a ghost. That instead it was discovered that an "agent" living in the home where the poltergeist resided was the actual cause of the disturbance. That "agent" was usually young, under 20, and female. Hormones? More recently I read an article that explained that pregnant women have psychic experiences, and if one is going to have a psychic experience, it would most likely be when pregnant. It was also noted that the reason for this phenomenon was that pregnant women were reaching out mentally for the child they carried. But pregnant women are also full of hormones. In ancient Egypt cats were revered and thought to have some connection to the spirit world. The current explanation is that they were valuable in killing rodents/snakes, bullwhacky, they do that all over the world and no one else reveres them. I personally have long believed that their value was in their ability to attack scorpions without being damaged--good for dessert life. But I think maybe I was wrong. Maybe ancient Egyptians noted the cats' "delusions". So I got on Google, confirmed the poltergeist thing, and found two more occurances of hormones and "delusions". Psychiatrists are now using hormones with anti-psychotic drugs to treat schizophrenia (delusions) with some success. Doctors are also using hormones to correct sleep apnea problems with older people, as it seems that they cannot drop into REM (delusional) sleep if hormone levels are off. I checked Wikipedia and could not make sense of it, except to note that there are three classes of chemical hormones, Peptide, Lipid and Phospholipid, and Monoamines. The SEP has one reference to hormones that does not involve "feminism", and that is Connectionism involving cognitive science. Sorry, not much of a scientist. Now we have six completely different situations where hormones are linked to "delusion". Who was the guy who said that when too many indicators point in one direction, it is time to look in that direction? I can not say that delusion does not exist, but it appears to me that something more is also going on here. I have watched schizophrenics and thouht that they seem to have an untuned, out of focus type of radio/TV going on in their heads that they can not turn off, which would drive anyone mad. I am sure that their minds try to absorb and make sense of the information coming in, and so, if they were religious, they would apply their knowledge to the problem and "see". or interpret, angels and demons. Science has been trying to find and identify consciousness for some time now. And I believe that "feelings" and/or "emotions" is one of the identifiers of consciousness/life. Is there any chance that these "delusions" are in reality unfocused and ill-defined connections to that consciousness? And that hormones play the role of telephone? Just a thought. After posting this, other members there noted that monks use starvation, sleep deprivation, and intense physical discipline to help them reach enlightenment--all of these things will throw off hormone levels. Shaman of old often used drugs to enhance their experiences, which will throw off hormone levels. The Oracle(s) of Delphi lived in a cave that is thought to produce a gas, which would throw off hormone levels. I have heard of two different cases where people were hospitalized and received large doses of steroids and morphine, who refused their morphine because they saw angels and demons. They would rather deal with the pain. So this is what started my investigations into hormones, pheromones, delusions, and finally back to emotion. It appears that hormones not only connect us physically to life, but may also connect us through conscious awareness. G

Note: Today's life lesson is that it is a bad idea to take the medications prescribed by the good doctors, then try to sound intelligent while typing in a philosophy forum. My apologies to all. Tar; In my opinion there are two problems with your theory that are obvious. The first is that you have not incorporated the attributes of the mental aspects into your thinking, the second is that you still think that it is "all in our heads". Regarding the first; remember that emotion is inherently honest, thought is not, and this information comes from science, psychology. So using thought to decide what is real with regard to the supernatural, without considering the attributes of emotion and thought, is looking for deception. Imagination is something that is thought, not felt. The supernatural is felt. Regarding the second; when I stated that emotion (e-motion) is external, I meant that it is external. It may feel internal, but it works externally. It is movement and connects two or more things, so when discussing unrequited love, it is an internal feeling. But it is also an external expression. There is nothing that will pump up a mood better than love and adoration being aimed at you, whether that love is returned or not. I don't see how this fits with the definition of anthropomorphism. Imagination is thought; the supernatural is felt--big difference. The problem with religions is that they must also interpret their information, so it is easy to get wrong. People, who experience anthropomorphism do often state that they also get knowledge, but this knowledge is dumped into the unconscious, not the rational mind. Often they will state that the knowledge becomes known to them in their dreams, but this is after they have incorporated any "knowledge" with their own thoughts, personalities, and values--so it is not necessarily true knowledge, and is probably corrupted. A person must first determine if it is imagination or supernatural. Then they must stop themselves from getting too involved in the emotional aspect and corrupting the information. Then they must have the ability to logically analyze what actually happened, and try real hard to not incorporate their imagination into the analysis. It is not easy. An understanding of how emotion works is necessary, or deception is inevitable. I think that the key is hormones, and science is already using this key. I will post the Delusions in Religion after this post so you can see what I mean. Mother Teresa is gone, and I am not sure that a generous spirit is supernatural. Emotion is an external communication and affects the people around us--this is well known. But if you need examples, consider; the "party pooper" that makes everyone feel bad; the "ball of energy" that is the life of the party; the maternal figure that brings comfort; the father figure that makes people feel safe; the sneaky person, who makes people uncomfortable; the radiant person, who brings joy; the coach or motivational speaker, who seem to be able to impart strength. This is a small example of the feelings that we routinely get from other people. Often these feelings are understood unconsciously, but they exist and are real. G

Tar; I apologize. I feel like I am letting you down, and you are working so hard to understand this. But I am not sure what to do. If I bring up personal experience, then I just open myself to ridicule, and if I bring up religion, the whole thread becomes a denial of any value in religion, so I am not sure how to get my ideas across without explaining how I learned about them. After talking about the physical aspects of hormones, I intended to go over the mental aspects, but I learned about them in a thread named, Delusions in Religion, so that is bound to stir up some trouble for me here. As far as anthropomorphism is concerned, I had an experience when my husband died that led me to understanding how anthropomorphism works, but that is personal. Not sure how to approach this. So I was sitting here waiting for the codine to kick in so I can sleep when I saw your post, and will try to address some of the issues. You are correct when you stated that something that is not noted by others would be supernatural as the supernatural is subjectively known. Next you have to define if it is something that you think or something that you feel. It can sometimes be difficult to tell, but you must be sure. If is it something that you think, then it is imagination--not supernatural. It is like the difference between talking and listening, so if you have been thinking about it, you are probably imagining it. The supernatural comes to you like listening, so you don't expect it, and are not sure why you think it--sometimes it makes no sense at all because it was not on your mind and may even be irrational. Like my irrational fear that my last child would get stuck inside me and die because she could not deliver. That is ridiculous. I knew it was ridiculous but could not shake the fear and talked to my husband, mother, friends, and even the doctor about it. Eventually, I threatened the doctor and was changed to another doctor. When I went into the hospital to deliver, my labor was very fast and no doctor was there, so they held my legs together so I would not deliver until another doctor could be called in--hospital policy. She was stuck inside. When she finally delivered, she had an APGAR score of 1 at 10 minutes, which means that she was a blue lifeless ragdoll with no muscle reflex and was not breathing on her own, but had an irregular heart beat when she was ten minutes old. It was years of doctors to correct the damage from that birth. The codine must be kicking in. I wasn't going to talk about this. The key to anthropomorphism is belief. People who experience this often have a life changing belief that is attached to this experience. They also often lose their fear of death. So we are talking about emotion, and it is strong emotion. If the emotion is not there, or if the emotion is fleeting, then it is definitely imagination. Anthropomorphism is not something that you "get over" tomorrow. So belief is the key to knowing what is supernatural, which means that it is all about emotion. And how does emotion work within our bodies? Chemicals and hormones. I do not think that chemicals are conscious within our bodies, but I know little about science. I used to think that chemicals and hormones draw consciousness like a magnet draws iron, but think that maybe it is more of an activation of consciousness. But however it works, emotion causes the production of chemicals, and chemicals cause emotion--it is circular, not one way. So when people say that these experiences are caused by chemical changes in the body, they are only half right. Regarding anthropomorphism, I am going to use my water metaphor again. When you look into still water, what do you see? Is it the water, or your own reflection? You see yourself, not the water. This is how anthropomorphism works. What you actually get is emotion, no pictures. Often people will feel like they also gained knowledge, but don't know what it is, probably because it is in the unconscious part of the mind. But there are no pictures, so why do people believe that they have seen God? The problem here is that there is no memory slot in the brain for emotion--it does not store by itself and must be attached to thought. So if one can not store emotion in memory without thought, how would anyone remember that the event happened? Well, they wouldn't. So our efficient little brains evaluate the emotion, attach whatever it thinks matches that emotion, then stores it as a memory. So if one is a Christian, they may have a memory of Jesus or Mary; if one is a Viking, they may have a memory of Thor; if one is near death, they may have a memory of family members that have passed and feel like home or love; if they just watched their friend die in a terrible accident, they will see their friend whole and unharmed. This is the delusion that everybody believes invalidates anthropomorphism. It is just the brain's interpretation of the emotion that was experienced. My foot doesn't hurt anymore. I'm going to sleep. G

This is an assertion and it is also false. If nothing else, all of the churches, temples, etc., all over the world give empirical evidence of human belief in God. Whether or not the belief exists is already fact, so what I am trying to find out is why the belief exists. What causes the belief to exist? How does it happen? How does it work? This is an assertion and it is also false. It may imply it, but it certainly does not require it. There is aware, and there is self aware--two different things. Did you consider the information that I gave earlier about the "Mirror" test? You can look up Mirror test in Wiki if you do not believe me. This is an assertion and it is also false. Let us try to be honest here for one little minute. There is absolutely no evidence that Darwin's theory and idea of advancement is correct. It is correct only from our perspective and religious declarations. The facts state otherwise, as bacteria can survive quite well without humans, but we can not survive without bacteria. So which is the higher life form? Maybe we evolved to give bacteria something to do. (chuckle chuckle) Consider this from another perspective: Bacterium A states: I am starting to feel bad because we are damaging these human forms, and I think that they might be aware. Bacterium B states: Whether or not they are aware is not relevant, the fact is that they would not even survive without us, so they should be damned well grateful for the time we give them. (Life is a chuckle.) This is a strawman argument as I did not assert any such thing. The whole end of the video was about TV evangelists. Did you watch the video? This is nonsense. This is an insult. I review every link that is offered in my threads--even when I can not see the connection or relevance of it. If you look under Forum Announcements and find the thread Science Forum Etiquette, under section II Replying to Threads, you will find the following rule: "Read Links If a user provides a link for more information, and you don't believe them, read the link. It may provide better information for you; if you ignore it, you may be missing vital information that supports their point. Purposefully ignoring it is strawmanning, and nobody likes that." Purposefully ignoring information offered is also a promotion of my own ignorance, and I like to learn, so I review anything offered or give an explanation of why I did not review it--as when people provide too many similar links--2 or 3 links make the point. Since you either do not understand, or will not disclose, your position in this matter, I have decided to review this entire thread to see if I can determine your position. After this review, I will post my thoughts here for your review. Maybe we can establish our positions and start to find a way to see some common ground. That is my hope. G

Andrewcellini; I apologize. It was not my intent to offend. Most people in a science forum equate consciousness with thought. It is reasonable to do so, because we test a person's thoughts to see if they are conscious, comatose, brain dead, etc. I don't find it to be a very large leap to call bacteria conscious because all life is conscious, and bacteria is alive. Consider how we recognize life, we look for something that will eat, reproduce, and maintain it's life in anyway that it can. All life has an internal mandate to continue, and exhibits a survival instinct when it works to continue--so it is aware (conscious) of this need. The question is not if life is conscious, the question is what are different life forms conscious of? G Please explain. I think that my definition of consciousness is limited to life--but what do I know? So none of the things on the list are real, ergo the supernatural does not exist. Correct? This looks hopeless, and I am too tired to try to explain it--again. You want me to explain something mental using only physical things. I can probably do it, but not now. Tomorrow I am going in for my last test, then the good doctors will probably chop off my foot. At some point in the future, when I have no more pain and am not so tired, I will work on this for you. Well, I don't like TV evangelists either, but the video is not about critical thinking. It does not even make a very logical case as it is mostly assertion. G

Cladking; I loved it and watched the whole thing. Thank you for finding this video. Four and a half minutes into the video the speaker stated that bacteria produce a chemical molecule that works like a "hormone", which is how they communicate. This is very much like the way that other species use pheromones to communicate outside of the body and is very compatible with my understanding. Science is again working hard in support of my ideas. Prior to this, the only evidence that I had that bacteria were conscious was the endospore. Some bacteria can turn themselves into endospore and go into a kind of hibernation for hundreds of thousands of years. In this state, bacteria seem to have little or no metabolism and have a thick coating that is protective and can sustain them through harsh chemicals, freezing cold, and high heat. One source claimed to have found endospore that were 400,000 years old, which is amazing. When the endospore finds itself in an environment that is compatible to life, it simply turns back into bacteria and starts to eat and reproduce. Of course, a lot of people will say that this does not prove consciousness. But my thought is, if the endospore is wrapped in a thick shell, how could it possibly know when it is in a life supporting environment, so that it can turn back into bacteria? It would have to be aware. Andrewcellini; It might help if you read this thread. Consider that we are not discussing thought--we are discussing awareness. Generally speaking, when people can not wrap their minds around this concept, it is because they equate consciousness with thinking. We can be aware of thinking, but we can not think ourselves aware. Consciousness is not thought, it is awareness. G Moontanman; How could I possibly show you a connection between consciousness and the supernatural if you disagree with my concept of consciousness and won't define what you think is supernatural? It is like asking me to connect something you don't believe with something that you don't know. An answer to this request is impossible. Where is your logic? G

Science4ever; I am very sorry to hear about your Mother's stroke. It is difficult to see the people we love in pain and confusion. I hope she improves. I understand the problem with definition as I have studied consciousness for most of my life. This is why I specifically stated that it was the philosophical definition that I was using. I don't think that general science actually has a definition, the definition that science uses is the medical, or neurological definition. And you are correct, this a the study of the higher consciousness. Consciousness is not a single thing, it is degrees of many different mental aspects, and that is how I study it. When I use the word consciousness, I am talking about life. All life is aware, but all life is not aware of the same things. I am pretty sure that a slug is not aware of the same things that I am, but it is still aware of the need to eat and reproduce and live. You can argue that plant consciousness is just chemical. OK But so is our consciousness, just chemical. G

Andrewcellini; Yes. Like all life forms, plants are conscious of the need to survive and exhibit this in many ways. We have long known that leaves and flowers will turn toward the sun, and that roots will grow toward water, which proves sentience. Wiki's definition of sentience: Sentience is the ability to feel, perceive, or be conscious, or to experience subjectivity. But the recent discovery of pheromones has pretty much put the question of consciousness to rest with regard to plants. Through pheromones, trees will inform other trees to protect themselves chemically from pests in the area, and grasses will inform other grasses to produce more tannin to make themselves less tasty when a herd drops by. The last time I Googled "plant communication", I got an article about tumble weeds that could recognize their own spores over the spores of other plants. I did not check to see how valid that testing was, because I was laughing so hard at the absurdity of it. But there is a lot of new information in this area. This is not even considering that plants are the only species that I know of that regularly exhibit what is essentially mind over matter. It can be argued that I possess mind over matter when I demand that my body do something and it does, but I can not control the growth of my body. Plants can and do. They will even warp their natural form in order to survive. That is pretty impressive. If I can find the site for the unusual trees, I will post it. http://www.hoax-slayer.com/amazing-trees.shtml These trees really worked to survive, and warped their natural shape. G Moontanman; Do you ever have a position, or do you just argue about everyone else's position? In what sense are these things real? Any sense? Are they just superstitious beliefs about the supernatural? Do you have an opinion, rather than a denial? If you can not name your position, you are certainly not going to earn much respect from me. It is very easy to pick at other people's ideas and never have one of your own, as it takes less courage. Anthropomorphism is an effect of a real thing. I expect that I know a lot more about it than you do. G

Science4ever; So it is your position that consciousness can only exist when there is a brain? Then please explain to me how life forms that do not have a brain can be sentient, aware, and have feeling and experience. G

Moontanman and Tar; You are correct in that I have not really defined what I think that the supernatural is, with regard to consciousness. I forget that other people have not been studying this for 40 years, and can not read my mind. My apologies for that oversight. So I went to Wiki and picked out the relevant things that were listed under the supernatural/paranormal and listed them below. I think that every one of these things can be real and works through consciousness outside of the body. Please review this list and indicate which of these things you think are real, and which are supernatural. God angels and demons reincarnation prophesy premonitions ESP ghosts spirit souls spiritual healing auras channeling near death visions anthropomorphism Moontanman, following is the definition of consciousness from Wiki: "Consciousness is the quality or state of being aware of an external object or something within oneself.[1][2] It has been defined as: sentience, awareness, subjectivity, the ability to experience or to feel, wakefulness, having a sense of selfhood, and the executive control system of the mind." You will note that this does not define consciousness as being exclusively related to the brain. All life is sentient, a leaf is conscious of light, but has no brain. I made it clear from the beginning of this thread that I was not talking about the medical scientific definition of a conscious brain, so to reinterpret the word for the purpose of confusing the issue is a strawman argument. G

Science4ever; Consciousness is a term that is used by science to explain certain aspects of mind produced by the brain. Consciousness is a term used by philosophy that means awareness, and is not exclusive to the brain. Consciousness in philosophy is more closely related to life, as all life is sentient and therefore aware. If you review post # 27 on page 2 of this thread, there is an explanation of consciousness in philosophy and references as to where you can go to learn more. This thread is about the philosophical definition of consciousness, so please read the thread as questions like this have already been answered. Thank you for your interest. G

Moontanman; Sometimes I think that you go out of your way to argue with me. Can you see pheromones? I can't. Can you see radio waves? I can't. Can you see the voice that comes into your cell phone? I can't. These things are only observable because of science. Radio waves are produced by humans for communication; cell phone communication is produced by humans for communication; pheromones are produced by nature for communication. What is the difference? Consciousness is communication produced by nature, but as yet it is unknown to science, so people call it supernatural and act all superstitious--that is the point of this thread. If, 500 years ago, I told someone that people die of fever because little bitty tiny life forms invade the body and attack it, I would likely be burned as a witch. If, 400 years ago, I produced a box that could sing and talk without having any people in or around it, I would likely be burned as a witch--and the box smashed. If, 300 years ago, I told people that we could string a wire from New York to San Francisco, and people could talk through it in real time, I would be run out of town--because they stopped burning witches. If, 200 years ago, I told people that we could talk through a little box to anyone in the world, that also had a little box, and that our voices would go into space, bounce off of a satelite, then go into another person's little box so they could hear us, I would probably end up in an asylum. If, 100 years ago, I told people that the plants are talking to each other, but we can't hear it, I would likely get myself some really good drugs and a stay in a padded room. We are just as superstitious as we ever were; we are just a little less violent. What people call the supernatural is just communication. This communication works through consciousness. I think it is time to take a look at it and see how it works. Let us be honest here. People like to pretend that this communication is not real, only imagination; but it exists. People like to pretend that it is God. All of the things that we have so far discovered that used to be considered an aspect of God, are real and work through cause and effect--they are not God. So if this is also something that is real and not God, then it would also work through cause and effect. If I am right, and this communication works through chemistry and hormones, then we could cause an effect, as we are playing with chemicals and hormones. So could we accidentally cause an effect that we don't want? Could we corrupt or change conscious awareness? Like autism? Maybe. If anyone does believe in God, please note that He has never seen the need to save us from our own stupidity. G

Tar; I apologize for taking so long to get back to you. I missed answering this post. Don't know why except that I have not been well, and doctors are a pain. I have never read Kant's Pure Reason, but I know that a lot of other people in different forums have used his work to challenge mine, so I don't believe that our thinking is in aline in this matter. As a philosopher, Kant was brilliant, and i agree with much of what I know about his work, but his ideas regarding God tell me that he was more involved with the rational mind than the whole mind. Considering that he lived and worked in the 1700's, it would be expected that he would delve into learning about the rational mind, which needed to be understood. But he believed that God was not real, only a necessity for ethics and morality--a belief that many people share today. So I don't believe that he understood emotion, the unconscious mind, the "supernatural", or God. Although many people may disagree, it appears that Kant was a dualist, as he saw emotion, the unconscious, religion, and God as something separate. Most people consider a dualist as a person who accepts God and sees matter as different from spirit, but anyone who sees them as divided is actually a dualist. The important word here is "thing". He studied the rational mind only. Well, I think he missed something, and doubt that the intuition of time and space are already "in there". I think that these "intuitions" are learned. If one considers the adult rational mind, then the concepts of time and space are well entrenched, but they are not known and understood at birth. Have you ever watched an infant sitting in a high chair pick up a piece of food, drop it off the side, and be delighted with the way that it always goes down--just like magic! They will often smile and clap their hands like they performed some great trick. Peek-a-boo is another example of a baby learning that things can still exist when they are not seen. For the first few years of life, an infant spends most of it's time studying cause and effect, gravity, and time and space, so it is reasonable to consider that they do not know about these things yet. Dr. Blanco's study of the unconscious mind indicates that it is not familiar with time and space. But the rational mind is designed to work with physical reality and the senses that show us physical reality, so I expect that we start to learn about this as soon as we are part of physical reality--when we are born. Spinoza's work is much more in aline with my thinking. He was not a dualist, but a neutral monist, even though he lived 100 years before Kant. Spinoza was also a determinist, so our ideas are not fully compatible, but he understood emotion better than anyone I know of--for his time. His understanding of the passive and agressive sides of emotion has been called a precursor to Freud, so he studied emotion. I do not believe that he studied the supernatural. He believed that God was real, but not a being--as I do. He saw God as an impersonal part of nature, or maybe one could say a law of nature, much like laws of physics. I first became aware of Spinoza when someone mentioned to me that his understanding of consciousness was in aline with the Verdanta tradition, or philosophy, of India--so was mine. We are not perfectly in accord in our thinking, but it is close; Spinoze saw life, consciousness, as being motivated by "need", I see it as "want". Neither of our words are actually correct and other philosophers have tried to name this motivation as "will", but we are all talking about the same thing. It is my thought that I have a real advantage over the philosophers that came before me, because of science. People like Spinoza had to deal with physical cause and effect that could be understood, but I know about pheromones; I know about radio; I know about cell phones. So I can conceive that a communication and connection does not have to be magical to exist without an observable cause. G

Tar; A very insightful post. I feel like I am finally reaching some people. After spending almost 40 years studying the paranormal, religion, life, and people, I finally started to look at philosophy and science in the last few years to see what they think of the understanding that I developed over the years. As I stated before, philosophy does not seem to know much, but I think that science is investigating consciousness in a number of different fields and does not realize it. Most of science still believes that conscious awareness emits from the brain, but they don't seem to remember that the brain is saturated in chemicals and hormones. I think that hormones are the key to unlocking consciousness. So I will try to share some of the things that I have learned about hormones. First, we have not come close to mastering hormones. Second, hormones are much more than sexual hormones, they are the stuff of life. Consider: 1. We know that hormones are communicators. That is their job. They govern communication between cells, between body systems, and between the body and the world outside of the body with regard to bodily needs; such as, food, shelter and habitat, danger, and sleep, to name a few. 2. All species, whether plant or animal, have hormones of some kind--if they have more than one cell. We have a different name for the ones that are in plants, but they do the same job. Since all species, up from one cell species, have some kind of hormone, and hormones are communicators, it is pretty safe to say that hormones are necessary to turn a group of cells into a single life form that works as a unit. So hormones create a sort of cooperation that promotes the life form. 3. All of our most basic instincts that hold us to life work with basic hormones. From Wiki: Hormones have the following effects on the body: stimulation or inhibition of growth mood swings induction or suppression of apoptosis (programmed cell death) activation or inhibition of the immune system regulation of metabolism preparation of the body for mating, fighting, fleeing, and other activity preparation of the body for a new phase of life, such as puberty, parenting, and menopause control of the reproductive cycle hunger cravings sexual arousal A hormone may also regulate the production and release of other hormones. Hormone signals control the internal environment of the body through homeostasis. 4. Hormones will substitute for each other--most people do not realize this. An example would be when a person has all of the symptoms of low thyroid, but testing shows the thyroid levels to be good, but the estrogen levels to be very low. The doctor theorized that the thyroid hormones were substituting for the estrogen hormones, which were low, so he wrote a prescription for estrogen which solved the thyroid problem. Once the estrogen levels improved, the thyroid hormones went back to doing their normal work. In another example, a patient was given massive doses of steroids in the hospital because of inflamation, and in response the body shut down the insulin produced in an attempt to balance the hormone levels, resulting in the patient becoming a raging diabetic while in the hospital. As soon as the problem was resolved and steroids were no longer needed, the patient stopped being a diabetic. Hormones are self balancing, which means that they can get very tricky when we think that we are correcting or adjusting a problem. 5. Pheromones are very much like hormones, but they seem to work outside of the body. We are discovering more pheromones almost daily, and it is pretty safe to assume that all species that have hormones most likely also produce pheromones. The thing that I find interesting about pheromones is that they again seem to be a communication between like life forms. In the example that I gave earlier about the oak trees, it was noted in the article that this information regarding pests did not inform elm trees, or maple trees, or pine trees--only oak trees. So it appears that hormones create a kind of communication between cells and systems within, but the pheromones create a kind of communication between the species. There will be more on this when I discuss the mental aspects. 6. Another interesting thing about hormones is that they have the ability to turn on and off different parts of DNA, which makes me wonder how involved they are with evolution. When a new species does evolve, do the pheromones from the prior species interact with the new, or is there a new set of pheromones that is unique to the new species? Is there an overlap between species regarding pheromones? Could pheromones unintentionally influence another species? There seems to be some disagreement here, and if I can find the article in, I think if was Scientific American, I will post it here. I actually know very little about hormones and am far from an expert, but the above are some of the physical attributes of hormones that I have discovered. I will post the mental attributes later. G Couldn't find the article--no surprise. I am horrible with Google. If anyone else can find it, there was a group of scientists who were arguing with the EPA and stating that hormons/pheromones work differently at different levels, and it does not take a lot to create unforseen changes. The EPA disagreed.