Gees

iNow; I can not make up my mind if you are intentionally misquoting me, or you are reading attitude into my posts where none exists, or if you simply do not understand the concept of a question. This is what happened: Moontanman stated: I know what you asserted is simply not true, I knew it the first time you asserted it, Gees responded: How did you know? I did not take you for a person who studies the Old Testament. iNow, when a person states the words, "How did you know" and puts a question mark at the end of those words, then it is a request for information. If, in fact, Moontanman knows something about this, I would like to find out what (s)he knows as I do not like being ignorant, hence the request. At no time, and in no way, does a request translate to, "doesn't mean they fail to adequately understand your position or the information underlying it." Your statement makes no sense. It appears that you are confused. Possibly your confusion comes from my doubts about Moontanman studying the Old Testament. But I came by these doubts quite honestly. In the thread, "Free Thought Exchange", which you started, some of Moontanman's statements were the reason for my doubts, as follows: By the time I quit that thread, I was shocked and wondering if Moontanman thought that the clergy were magical and could follow people beyond death, or if (s)he had some great trauma involving religion, or if (s)he was just too emotional to think clearly in this type of matter, hence my doubts. If I am wrong in my initial assessment of the hygiene issue in the OT, I would like to learn whatever information that I am missing. This is why I made the request. I can be wrong, but I can also learn. G

Moontanman; I am curious. How did you know? I did not take you for a person who studies the Old Testament. G

Moontanman; Well, I am not sure what to tell you. I will admit that I have not given your request much attention, but that is mostly because I do not believe you are interested in learning about this. I am all about learning. The idea that good hygiene is a part of the Laws in the OT is not new, as a lot of people have realized that some specific laws seem to support a protection against germs. It was clear to me when I read it, but I have since learned that it is clear to a lot of people. If you really have such an aversion to studying the Books of Law, you could use Wiki and look up "clean and unclean", the Jewish religion, the Torah, ritual cleansing, or maybe even find an introduction to the book, "Gifts of the Jews", or maybe it is, "Gifts from the Jews". This is a fairly common idea. But I suspect that this is not what you want to know. Since there is no place in the OT that mentions germs, specifically, I suspect that you would like me to spend hours looking up each and every indication of this idea, each and every law, then share this information with you so that you can challenge me. Since my assertion was in fact ancillary to the point of that paragraph, which was about a spiritual God concerned with physical things; and since my eyes are not very good, I do not feel the need to work hard to give you amunition to shoot at me. So I'll tell you what. I made the whole thing up. It is all nonsense, and anyone who states otherwise is wrong. I take it back. Happy now? G

Tar; Two things in separate containers can not magically connect. This is reality. But one of the few "connections" that science, psychology, has studied and accepts is bonds between people. Bonds are a mental and/or emotional connection between people's minds. So if the "connections" are subjective, that would mean that the subjective extends beyond the body. If this is so, then the solipsists and/or Plato's dream reality may be correct. I don't accept that the subjective is hidden within the body and is unknowable, nor do I accept the dream reality, as I suspect that there is a middle ground. The subjective is anchored to the body, but can extend beyond the body. This is the only thing that makes any sense at all. Every person that I have talked to, who denies the paranormal, makes this same argument. You all state that you imagine that I imagine something and don't understand that it is my imagination. I have never had a real problem determining the difference between what I imagine, what I think, what I believe, and what I feel. If there is a problem with imagination, I suspect that it belongs to the people who imagine that they know what other people imagine. Most of what I imagine is not true, because I imagined it, but most of what I think and feel is true. I can give you a good example of a mistake regarding the paranormal. About 14 years ago, I was convinced that I had cancer. I could almost see this mass that was in my belly. It was just below my stomach and at the back by my spine, and the idea nagged at me for about two years. I found myself pushing my belly out because I did not want this thing to touch any of my other organs, and would often find myself mentally coating it with a substance that looked like thin Elmer's glue, but was slimy instead of sticky. All through my days and even when waking from sleep, I would find myself coating this thing, over and over, trying to prevent it from touching any part of my insides. Sometimes it would seem like a strand would escape this thing and it would seek out my organs, so I would get this slimy stuff and cudgel it back into the mass. I know that this does not make sense, but it was something that I felt and could not stop feeling. I discussed it with my Mother, who is a Registered Nurse, and she did not believe me, but advised me to seek out a doctor. We both knew my health was bad, but did not know why. I went from doctor to doctor with no results. Then I forgot about it. Two years after I had forgotten it, I was sitting in a small office with my Mother and a surgeon. This surgeon was explaining why he could not take out all of the massive tumor, as it was entangled in the small intestines and actually grew out of the artery that was just inside the spine. Although it was a slow growing cancer, the tumor was massive, the size of a grapefruit, and could not be treated with any hope for a cure. As we listened to him, my Mother and I both realized that he was describing the tumor that I had been so concerned about, but it was not in me, it was in my husband. Six months later I lost my husband. Six months after that I was finally diagnosed with MS (Multiple Sclerosis). Looking back, it is easy to see that the pain, that he thought was from a bad back, was actually due to the cancer, but none of the doctors found it in time. I had not yet really studied ESP in a logical way or used any methodology. If I had, I may have been able to see that it was within him, not me, because the paranormal does not work internally. But I did not know that. The paranormal is an external communication. It has limits. It has boundaries. It is real. This, I suspect, is the biggest problem--people think that I am talking about a power. I am not. I know that religions mystify and glorify the paranormal, but it is not a power. It is simply an awareness that most people have and some people have to a greater or lesser degree just like every other human attribute. Some people have very good hunches, others do not; some people have good instincts, or intuition, others do not; some people should follow their gut feelings, others should ignore them. Often we will find that we should accept these feelings in relation to a specific person or a type of event. When this happens, we are beginning to know ourselves and can use the information gained and learn to exercise this awareness. When studies try to test ESP, they are forever trying to prove that thought, or ideas, move from one mind to another, but this is foolish. Thought is internal; it is private and does not transfer well, if at all. After listening to all of the complaints here, apparently I have a fair ability with regard to ESP, but I do not get thoughts. Never. What I get are feelings that nag at me, and sometimes I get pictures, which feel like a memory, but there can be no memory of that event. As with my step-mother, I would sometimes find that she floated through my mind five or six times in one day, so I would wait for 11:00 p.m. to call her when the rates went down. It would be 8:00 p.m. her time, and she would be waiting for my call. The last time, as I reached for the phone at 11:00, I got an image in my mind of her on the floor, and I knew that she could not reach the phone. I did not know where on the floor she was, but assumed that she was at home and alone. I have never seen my step-mother laying on the floor. I agree that this is probably the correct explanation for this event. Well, I'm glad you have some bones to pick with me. I was beginning to think that everyone agreed with me. (chuckle) How long ago was the Psychology class? Things have changed. About two years ago, I started a thread in another science forum and worked with an Animal Behaviorist, a Neurologist, and some other intelligent scientists. I wanted to work out this little problem of instincts. What a joke! What I learned is that instincts are not understood and the whole idea of instincts needs to be revamped by an "Einstein" type of mind that has studied Biology, Psychology, and Animal Behavior. I did learn a great deal, but pinned down little information. First I learned that instincts are a "behavior". Then I learned that, according to the Animal Behaviorist, there is a "frightful" number of instincts in species, so it can not be tracked. According to the Neurologist there is something called "learned intincts". According to Wiki someone mapped out 4,000 instincts in humans. My thoughts on this is that there are a "frightful" number of stars, but we try to map them; the term "learned instincts" is an oxymoron as the term "instincts" means innate; and I doubt that humans have that many instincts. What I think is that this problem originated with religion. Humans, made in God's image, had souls, minds, and thoughts. Lower animals did not, so they had behaviors called instincts. Simple. After reviewing animal behaviors, someone noted that humans have similar behaviors and started to count them, hence the large number of instinctive behavior in humans. Science started to really study animal behavior, document all of these "instincts" then learned through MRI and other technology that some animals actually have thoughts. But no one to date, that I know of, has been able to clearly define what behavior is caused by thought and what behavior is instinctive in all species. I found the Mirror Test interesting. If anyone is not aware of this test, what scientists do is put a splotch of color on the animal, then show the animal a mirror. If the animal tries to remove the splotch from him/her self, rather than removing it from the mirror, the animal passes the test. A lot of species have been able to pass this test. My thought on this is that in order for the animal to pass, it must be able to hold an image of itself in it's mind, and compare that image to the one in the mirror, and this image is from a third-person perspective. This is abstract thought. Interesting. So, until someone brilliant tackles this mess, I will regard instincts as whatever can be connected to hormones or pheromones or basic life. Instincts may be a behavior, but they are motivated by knowledge and feeling or emotion, so instincts are part of consciousness. Every species has instincts, if only the instinct to survive. This looks right to me, but if you go below the surface, there is more. One of the problems that Freud had when he first proposed his ideas was that they did not transfer well to other cultures. These were things that specifically related to sexual functions and societal morals. The SuperEgo became more refined to correct this problem and to include different morals of different societies in it's parameters and understanding. Morals are a product of emotion, religions are a product of emotion, family ties are a product of emotion, and societies are an emotional "connection". So when you track things to the source, the SuperEgo is ruled by emotion. I don't believe that anyone doubts that the Id is about instincts and hormones--drives. The Ego is the arbiture, and it is the rational mind. The rational mind does not only deal with the other parts of mind, it also deals with the input from our five senses, and deals well with the physical real world. I heard about this show, but don't plan to watch it. I am not surprised that your wife and daughter enjoy it, as women seem to be more accepting of and drawn to the paranormal, and I think this is for two reasons. First, women generally have an internal perspective, men divide up the world into parcels and women examine the parcels. A woman's perspective is internal or introspective. The second reason is that women go through such fluxuations of hormones, and I am pretty sure that consciousness outside of the body is linked to chemicals and specifically to hormones. This is why through history, most of the seers, psychics, and witches seem to be women. And there is no basis in science, yet. Nice assertion. Can you prove it? G

Cladking; I think you are laughing at me, but I am serious. When I first started to study this subject, 40 some years ago, I was looking for the connection between people. There were a lot of ideas about this connection, electromagnetic fields, psychic energy, a network of minds, but nothing that I could understand, and I am a visual learner, so I needed something that I could visualize because the subject matter is abstract. I had already learned that emotion was the mechanism for the transfer of information, whether we are talking ESP, or chemistry between people, or religion, or bonding--each of these connections is relative to emotion. Then I read an article about water that noted that although water feels wet, H2O is not wet. And I considered . . . the connection between people and/or Gods, angels, and demons feels like emotion, but does that mean that consciousness (God), in itself, is emotional? It is my opinion that the emotion that we feel is because of the movement or activity of consciousness, but it does not necessarily follow that consciousness, itself, is actually emotional. That would be an assumption. We assume that there is a God that loves us because people, who experience anthropomorphism, feel strong emotion--love. I will grant that the strong emotion comes with the "visions" of gods, but would argue that the emotion may well be part of the communication, not necessarily a personal feeling that a god bestows upon us. People are always asking, "If God is love, why do bad things happen?" Why indeed? A better question might be, "Why is life designed for bad things to happen?" It is, you know. Life consumes life; it is designed that way. We can not live without consuming other life, whether it is plant or animal, we must consume life or die. Of course, we are at the top of the heap, so we are designed in "God's image", which means that we are the consumers rather than the consumed. Religion states that we are designed to be and stay at the top of the heap, but I wonder if T-Rex thought that at some point in history. (chuckle) So I think that the emotion that we feel is a by product of the transfer of information. It is an activity that life can feel. Awareness, feeling (moods), and emotion are all experiences, and I think that what we are experiencing is the activity of consciousness, or the movement of knowledge would be another way to put it. Consider that if you put your hand in water that is the same temperature as your hand, you can barely feel the water. You must actually focus on it, or you don't feel it. This would be like awareness. But if the water moves, then it is easy to feel, so this would be like feelings or moods. And if the water moves rapidly it can become very powerful like emotions. So am I saying that love is not real? No. Emotions are as real as a flowing river, as a raging waterfall, as a soft rain--they are an indication of movement and are experienced. I expect that this is the reason that emotions store so differently in the brain, as they are more experience than thought or knowledge. Many philosophers have used water as a metaphor to help them understand life and consciousness--I am not the first. The biggest problem in understanding consciousness is people's tendency to underestimate it. They find a single truth about consciousness and build a whole theory around that truth. It would be like studying a tree and deciding that you now understand a forest. No! There is a lot more to learn. I like using water because it is neutral with regard to science and religion, and I believe that it shares properties with consciousness. Using a water metaphor has helped me to understand the difference between thought and emotion, to understand anthropomorphism, to understand that density affects consciousness, and to understand that, like water, consciousness reacts to temperature. G Tar; Thank you for the response. I will answer it later or tomorrow.

A true statement and a beginning. Moontanman has a statement in his/her signature line that warns about the illusion of knowledge, which is so very true. As long as we were content to think that consciousness was God, or produced by the brain, or it was a degree of development that we must locate or replicate, it was unknowable. But when we stop believing that, when we start looking, asking questions, and thinking, then it becomes knowable. This always makes me laugh. From the Jetson's robot maid, Rosie, through the various Twilight Zone shows, to the Matrix, there have long been examples of AI that works for us, and we are fine with this. But when the robot, AI, starts to want things for itself, then the plot thickens and the evil robots become our enemies. We have a natural understanding of the competitive nature of life, so if robots "miraculously go 'self-aware'", then they are dangerous to us. Self-aware means that they have "wants", not our wants, their wants. What fools we are. (chuckle chuckle) Well, evolution is a ground up type of theory, and Science embraces this theory, so it accepts the bottom up idea. But Religion sees God as the source, so it is a top down type of theory. I think that they are both correct. Yes, I know this doesn't make sense, but consciousness is not simple. I will try to explain how I think that consciousness starts, but it is not easy to explain so be patient with me. Luckily, EdEarl showed me a video, http://i4.ytimg.com/...k/mqdefault.jpg, that states that thought in the brain works bottom up and top down, so maybe this will seem a little bit more plausible. I mentioned before that I think the Aether is the source of consciousness, and I suspect that Religion anthropomorphizes God out of the Aether--there are reasons for this, but I won't go into them now as it will get too confusing. I see the Aether as being the potential source of all knowledge and awareness, so what we have is something that is aware of all things, in all circumstances, in all times, but knows nothing. It does not actually know any single thing. The reason that it does not know any single thing is that in order to know something, it would have to be able to focus on that something, so it would have to be able to focus from some where. But the Aether is not matter, so it does not have a "where" to focus from. It would be like jumping into a pool of water in search of a water molecule. Although surrounded by water molecules, you would not be able to find one, because you could not discern one. This is where the idea of Panpsychism comes in with it's understanding that all matter has a sort of knowledge of itself. Matter possesses identify, so when the Aether and matter combine, it gives awareness an identity and a point of focus so that knowledge can be known--we call this life. This would mean that all life has a "me" identity, and life would follow the rules of chaos and balance because it is part of the Aether. So all life would have a direct and personal relationship with the Aether (God) and all life would be capable of pulling knowledge from the Aether in a direct relationship to it's ability to want, comprehend, and absorb that knowledge. As evolution advances, more knowledge would become available as more knowledge would be wanted and absorbed. So, yes, I think it could be a top down and bottom up type of communication. This is part of what I think. (chuckle) I could be wrong, but I like it because it fits with the general idea behind every valid theory of consciousness that I have considered. Well, I can't define it either--not much of a scientist--but I do have some ideas about it. I think that the properties of consciousness are comparable to the properties of water. Water has always been considered unique, but I am no longer sure that it is. In order to show you what I mean, we will posit that you have no knowledge of water, and I am trying to describe it to you, as follows: Water can be a solid, a liquid, or a gas (steam, fog, etc.); it has a unique feeling that can be recognized; it is reflective and does not show itself when you look into it, but shows a reflection of you instead; it has the ability to divide itself into individual pieces (drops) and then disappear (evaporate) only to reform in a larger body of water. When mixed with other matter, it has an almost unlimited ability to become or create new materials. Water is powerful and can be useful as a source of energy, but it can also be destructive as in tsunamis, floods, avalanches, and ice storms. It has an almost miraculous ability to heal, cleanse, and restore life. It can help to reduce a fever and save a life, or to warm a half frozen person and restore life. If you float on it, the feeling is like heaven, but it can also suck you down and drown you. It can pelt you with ice or freeze you. It can burn you with steam. It can rage and destroy everything that you know, tsunami or flood. But we can not survive without it. If water were invisible, do you think we would call it a God? Absolutely! Consider that: Water feels wet; consciousness feels like emotion. Water is reflective; consciousness is anthropomorphized. Water forms drops; consciousness forms individual souls. Water evaporates; conscious life dies. Water reforms; consciousness reforms? Maybe. Water makes new materials; consciousness makes new life. Water can make energy; consciousness makes life which is energy. Water can destroy; conscious life is very good at destruction--war. Water can restore life; conscious life restores and maintains itself and reproduces itself. The feeling of floating on water; Monks that float in consciousness--enlightenment. Water and consciousness are both necessary to life. Water is self leveling; consciousness is self balancing. That would be ambitious. I just want people to think about it and question possibilities. Agreed. But a question that is not asked, will not be answered. I haven't found anyone who can answer my questions. I am very good at questions. But I will be satisfied if people will start to think, rather than to deny. It remains that the paranormal or supernatural is the only third-party perspective that is available to us. Do you have a better idea? G

Hi iNow; Maybe I am misunderstanding your question, but I looked up metaphysics in Wiki and it looks like wisdom would be a predictable and testable example of metaphysics. Yes? No? When I was young, my Mother used to often quote an old wisdom, "The liar never believes anyone; the theif locks his door; and the murder fears for his life." She explained that the reason is that we believe that other people think like we do. I have found this to be true. I believe that Psychology calls this "Projecting", and has proven that my Mother's interpretation and the old wisdom is correct. G

I do not see "will" as being the mechanism for ghosts. My reasoning in this is that ghosts do not seem to have a will. I know that stories like "Ghost Busters" and "The Ghost Whisperer" will state otherwise, but those are stories. In actual studies of the common ghost, there is always a tragedy and history of why the ghost exists, there is a misty something that is most often not seen clearly, there is often cold, and there are sometimes noises or scents associated with the ghost. Such as, there might be a scent of smoke if the ghost died in a fire. The common ghost does not interact with people or even reality. In one case the people who lived in the house noted that the ghost seemed to float up by the ceiling, but after reviewing the old records, it was discovered that the ghost was actually floating where the old second story used to be. None of this is indicative of a "will", or awareness of reality. Of course there are also stories of angels and demons, but I think this is more relevant to anthropomorphism--my opinion. The idea of an active "ghost" would be a poltergeist, which has the ability to move objects around. But this "ghost" is often short lived, a few months, and is often associated with a live agent. That agent is a person in the household, who seems to be emotional, maybe hormonal, and usually young and female--so we may not even be talking ghost in this instance. Some studies have linked a poltergeist to psychic or kinetic energy coming from a live person. My interest lies in the perception of ghosts as that could be relative to my studies. The coldness interests me as I think that consciousness is affected by temperature--or maybe affects temperature. The similarity of rain and fog being present in most ghost sightings is also interesting as I think that consciousness is affected by water and density. I agree. This was one of the levels that I considered when I wrote the Levels of Awareness in Species. When a specie manipulates it's environment for it's own purposes, that demonstrates awareness in the self and in the environment and in the knowledge that the self is above the environment. It is also necessary to be able to compare and evaluate materials, so this is clearly indication of self-awareness and thought. Well, I agree with most of this, but other species also have language. We just don't know what they are saying. This may well be true, as long as we remember that there are many books in the Bible and they have multiple sources. Some are more valid than others. It is nice to know that there is another person who realizes that Religion is the keeper of knowledge. Although not religious, I respect Religion and understand that it has an important job to do. It holds our traditions, our wisdom, and our knowledge--it gives us continuity. I will grant that sometimes that knowledge is wrong, or maybe it is mixed up in so much dogma that it is invisible, but change must come slowly. People need something to believe in. Of course the nay sayers will argue that Religion is not necessary and point to the growing number of Atheists. That is all good and well, but what about the growing number of suicides? Or broken families? Or people on antidepressants? Or belief in the supernatural? Or superstitious beliefs? Or treating science like it is a belief? Or the Atheists, who turn to the Eastern Religions because they need something? Emotional thoughts do not accept change so easily, and Religion understands this, so Religion must move slowly even when it knows that change is necessary. Until I read this, I did not understand. But what about a "sense of direction"--you either have it, or you don't. A "sense of style"--you either have it, or you don't. I remember a comedian talking about the "sense of timing" that must be employed to do comedy. He stated a few sentences that were not remotely funny, then he stated them again putting the emphasis on different words, and it was hysterical. The audience erupted in laughter, but one would not think that a change in emphasis could be so funny. I am sure that there are many more, and think that we would describe them as instinctive knowledge, or natural skills. It is interesting to note that the Ancients apparently studied natural subjective abilities, which would help a person to know who they are and what they would be good at; while we insist that we can mold our children into whatever we think they should be without regard to their natural skills. This is just another example of a dismissal of the subjective self, and maybe an invitation to have some lost, confused, lonely people, who do not know themselves. Was it Socrates who said that the best thing that we could do would be to "know ourselves"? G

Hi Cladking; It took me a while, and I don't think that I found the same report that I first read, but following is some information regarding Plato and the divisions of mind. This is from the IEP (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy) under Freud. You can read more at: http://www.iep.utm.edu/freud/ This article did not state that Freud was a neurologist; it stated that he was a medical doctor and a physiologist, along with psychology/psychiatry. I am not sure what a physiologist is, but my information that he was a neurologist may well be wrong. I apologize for that mistake. If you want to learn more about Plato's concepts regarding the structure of mind, you would be better off looking them up yourself, because I am lousy at Google and never find what I want. But this should be enough to verify that they existed. G

BrightQuark; Thank you for your insightful response. The idea that knowledge comes from somewhere is well studied and an important part of consciousness. Plato tried to explain "forms", and religion talks of the all-knowing God. Even science seems to agree that matter has a sort of knowledge about itself, as in atoms know how to work in molecules, but I do not understand how this concept could be real. On the other hand, knowledge seems to exist, so it must be real. (chuckle) I suspect that this is where the concept of Panpsychism comes from, the idea that the Universe has an aspect of knowledge that is part of everything. But this concept blurs the definitions of what is life and what is not life, so I have problems with it. It also does not seem to account for the differences in time or change. Of course, people have gotten around that problem with the idea of multi-verses. We are to believe that there is a separate universe for each and every moment, thought, and potential future. Although this could explain the problem, it does not ring true as it is too complex, too orderly and organized, and not reflected in any other aspect of life. If one examines an ecosystem, what we find is chaos. This chaos is not orderly; it is not organized; it is in constant flux, yet it remains balanced and can endure for centuries. It will also rebuild itself if it is demolished by tsunami or volcano. Our bodies are the same way in that there are many different systems that can be very chaotic, but they are in balance providing and promoting life. The more we learn about mind, the more we see that it also is more than one part in balance. It is my opinion that if one looks closely, things will show a true reflection of what they are, so my thought is that consciousness has to be a self-balancing chaos. My studies indicate that consciousness is real, that it has properties, so if I look for the source of consciousness it can not be in matter because matter is not a self-balancing chaos. Simple deduction tells me that it has to be in the "in between", or what the Ancients called the Aether. So I think that the Aether is the source, or raw material, for consciousness, and that it has rules regarding balance, and that it is a swirling morass of knowledge of all things in all times. I don't see how anything else is possible. What do you think? G You also see the flaw in this thinking. It doesn't make sense, does it? We did not get consciousness from Aliens. (chuckle) I already stated that the information could be found in Deuteronomy and Leviticus in the Old Testaments of the Bible. I even noted that looking for the words "clean" and "unclean" would help you to find it. Bibles can be found almost anywhere, but if you do not have any available, then you can Google these books and read them on-line. I have no intention of cutting and pasting the information for your perusal. Do the work. If, after reviewing these books, you can not see where a requirement to wash hands and change clothes after dealing with things that will obviously contain germs, we can discuss it. In Philosophy it has been proven that there is no way to prove that anyone else has a mind. I can prove that I have a mind thanks to Descartes, but I can not know for sure that you have a mind. You could simply be a dream in my mind. Or maybe you are a robot or a zombie. How can I know? Where is the proof? You can say that you have a mind, but you could lie or be my delusion, so you can not prove it to me. I can not prove it to you. This is the kind of circular nonsense that came out of Philosophy pretending to be Science. Things do not exist unless proven. So how does one prove something that is known only to another subjective mind? It is not possible. This means that my experiences mean nothing and are not proof. Your experiences mean nothing and are not proof. So we end up being irrelevant and devalued. The subjective self is not proven to exist, it does not work within any understanding of science, it is supernatural. So subjective values are also supernatural, as there is no evidence of them. G

Cladking; I disagree. The problem with your assertion is that Freud did not invent the sub/unconscious, he merely defined and argued for and proved the sub/unconscious. Knowledge of the sub or unconscious mind can be traced back to the Ancients, and I believe that Plato had some very clear ideas on this concept. It is not a new idea. Most people tend to forget that Freud was a neurologist, so what he did was take the different aspects of mind, Ego, SuperEgo, and Id, and attach these concepts to different parts of the brain, thereby proving the existence of these concepts. He mixed philosophy with science to prove a philosophical concept. We must bear in mind that even though this was just a little over 100 years ago, the belief at that time made sub/unconscious thoughts superstition. The unconscious mind was somewhat supernatural, and "The devil made me do it." was believed, rather than a joke. Once the unconscious was proven, then science was dealing with knowns, so it investigated how to predict, control, manipulate, or affect mind. Science, believing that it had definable parameters and knowable outcomes, started testing and experimenting. This is where everything went a little crazy for two reasons. First, there are always problems when learning about a new concept, and second, science did not know that it did not understand more than the tip of the iceberg with regard to mind. As I keep stating, consciousness is not a pure singular thing--and it is not simple. Philosophy had already lost it's credibility at that time, so prior to the proof, the sub/unconscious mind was supernatural, unknown, even though philosophy knew of it. This seems to prove my point. My daughter is studying psychology and has informed me that Freud was doing every one of his female co-workers. I really don't care who he was doing as this is not relevant to my studies. G

If you think the information is really interesting, then send it to me in a PM. Is it possible that these "hundreds of senses" were in reality hundreds of sensations? People tend to catagorize things differently, which does not necessarily mean that the things in the catagories are different. Right now, we tend to lump a great deal under "feelings"; such as, touch sensations, moods, and even hormone driven sensations, and these do not belong together as they are quite different. I think that I should discuss this and give the people who are viewing this thread something to talk about. (chuckle) I don't know about ghosts and have never seen one, but there are stories about them in almost every, if not every, culture, so something is going on. I read in Wiki that there was a guy, don't remember the name, who thought that ghosts were a kind of stain on reality. He described it as a sort of negative like film--not the real thing--but a kind of image produced by the strong emotion. It is as good an explanation as I have seen so far. I do have some thoughts on why people would see ghosts, but don't yet understand what ghosts are. As far as UFO's are concerned, there are books everywhere about how the aliens came down to earth like gods some four thousand years ago. It is even claimed that they manipulated our DNA and gave us consciousness. I can neither confirm nor deny this, as I don't know, but my thought is; if they gave us consciousness, then they had it. So where did they get it? Other aliens? (chuckle) So this is not relevant to my studies. The Bible is relevant to my studies, and I find it interesting that the Old Testament is about an invisible god, who is very concerned with physical things. This is a god of war and government and laws; many of our current Common Laws are rooted in these laws. This god also seems overly concerned with hygiene and food supplies. If you look through Deuteronomy and Leviticus, the Books of Law, you will find a great deal that protects against germs, couched in the dogma "clean" and "unclean". But how could they have known about germs? On the other hand, the New Testament is about a physical god, Jesus, who is very concerned with spiritual things. So the whole Bible is really very interesting and food for thought. This is from your prior post, and I thought that it should be answered. Although it looks like Science is responsible for this mess, it is not. The responsibility lies with Philosophy. When Steven Hawkins stated that Philosophy is dead, he was correct. I don't know why he made that statement, as I have never read it in context, but he is a brilliant man and is essentially correct. Philosophy has destroyed itself by trying to be Science. The simple explanation is that Philosophy determines what is real, and what is not real; Science studies the known; when you mix them together, what you get is that only known things can be real. So people will seriously demand empirical and reproducable evidence to prove something that is known subjectively, while denying the reality of subjectivity. This thinking is so circular, that it boggles the mind. I suspect that this is why we have so many solipsists, because they at least know that they have a mind. Over time all of the lovely intangibles, that can not be proven to exist, start to be devalued. Things like integrity, honor, wisdom, respect, emotions, traditions, Gods, vows, the subjective self. Eventually vows, like in marriage are treated like, "as long as we want to", rather than "as long as we live", because vows don't mean anything anymore--they are just contracts. People who have faith and belief in anything are considered rather foolish. Wisdom and tradition are old fashioned ideas. Integrity, respect, and honor just means that it is easier for someone to take advantage of you. The God idea is rather silly and emotions are to be controlled or enjoyed. But religions are falling apart, people don't know what to believe in, suicide is up worldwide 60%, suicide beats homicide in the US two to one, and teens are shooting people. Families are falling apart, any man that marries is looking to get ripped off by his wife, children are developing all kinds of behavior problems, and too many people are on antidepressants. The needs and realities of the subjective self are ignored, until it is time for blame--then the cause is subjective. (It's your fault.) Do you remember when I stated that if Science became faith based it would destroy itself? Well, when Philosophy decided to limit itself to knowns, it destroyed itself. There are three truth seekers, Science, Philosophy, and Religion, and each one is unique and necessary. Philosophy has dropped the ball, and I am just trying to help pick it up. G

Cladking; An interesting post, but there is no way that I will be able to respond to all of your points. It is disheartening to learn that you can not agree with some of my statements, but I have to guess which ones; on the other hand, it is good to know that you recognize some truth in them, as philosophers like truth. What should be remembered about emotion is that there is always a source, but that source can be experiences, events, memories, thoughts, or even chemicals and hormones. It can sometimes be difficult to determine the source of the emotion. I agree with this. I think that it is important to note that "want" is the director and maybe the instigator of life, because when "want" stops, so does life. While considering the essence of consciousness, and how to describe it, I thought that it seemed to be a self-balancing chaos motivated by want. If one considers an ecosystem, it is a constant chaos of different life forms in competition, but it is also balanced. Well, I agree with this, but telling people that their "cherry picked" denials look like superstition makes them a little angry--even if it is true. Do you think that I believe the Ancients had supernatural abilities? I don't know if any of them did or didn't, but I know that they were allowed to consider the supernatural. Plato's references to the Oracle of Delphi is evidence of this. A person does not have to have paranormal abilities to study the paranormal. But when the Christian church started, they divided the paranormal into good and bad. It was either of God or of the Devil, so to consider any ungodly paranormal/supernatural ideas was like inviting yourself to Hell. Subsequently, science and philosophy disregarded the paranormal until Freud and Jung, and we learned very little about consciousness in all that time. When I first started to study ESP, what I noted was that emotion was involved, or there was a bond between two people, which is also relative to emotion. When people experience ESP, they do not get the idea that Dad is going to work, what they get is Dad is going to have an accident on the way to work, or Dad's work is going to be robbed, or Dad's workplace is blowing up. It is always relative to emotion. It became clear to me that emotion was the mechanism for the transfer of information, the stronger the emotion, the more information. So I began to question how this information moved, what it moved through, and whether emotion carried knowledge, or whether moving knowledge felt like emotion. There were a lot of questions. It was the 70's and there were all kinds of ideas about an electromagnetic field, or a network of minds. Some of these ideas were in the SEP, which is a very respected encyclopedia. Spiritualism was revived, and the idea that all life is connected became popular. Science has actually given a boost to spiritualism with it's discovery of pheromones. If you Google "plant communication" you will get a lot of information on pheromones and all kinds of plant communication. So at least this aspect of communication outside of the body has been confirmed by science. I expect there will be more in this regard as time passes. While reading a post about ghosts, I remember thinking, "Yada yada yada. Someone was betrayed, then died, and now walks the earth reliving the event over and over. It sounds like PTSD to me." Then I laughed because I was trying to psychoanalyze a ghost. Then I thought about it. Actually, it sounds just like Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. If you have never experienced this Disorder, I can tell you that your mind can be whisked away to the time and place of the trauma without your consent or knowledge, and you will hear, smell, feel, see, and know only that trauma until you have relived it, then you come back to yourself. Eventually the episodes come less often until they disappear and you have full control, but what would happen if you had died? Could you get stuck in a PTSD loop forever? Is it possible? I have no idea, but considering this led me to considering all of the other ways that emotion can affect mind. This led to my writing "Formation of Mind?" which is posted in the Psychology Forum of this site. So far, no one has disputed or confirmed my thoughts in this matter. So I think that studying the supernatural can give us insights into consciousness that we would not get using introspection. I don't agree with you here. But I am getting tired, so I will look at this tomorrow. G

Hello iNow; Well, I can see why you might think so. Neuroscience studies only a portion of what we call consciousness, but even so, it can not be called a "simpler" study. There is nothing simple about neuroscience, as it is a massive study that involves neurology, biology, psychology, endocrinology, and many more divisions of science. But it is mostly a study of animals, specifically humans. Neuroscience studies consciousness, but what they study specifically is our ability to know that we are conscious. This is what philosophy calls being aware that we are aware. Consider that leaves, bacteria, and slugs are all sentient, so they are conscious, but do you think that they know it? I seriously doubt it. I did a break-down on the levels of awareness in species and ended up with ten distinct levels of what I think that the different species might be aware of and reasons why I think so. But knowledge of our own consciousness is mostly a human trait, so it could be said that neuroscience studies the higher level of consciousness. Regarding philosophy, when I first started in the philosophy forums, I believed that I had a pretty good understanding of consciousness. But the other members were discussing aspects that I had not considered, so I went to the on-line SEP (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) and studied everything under the heading of Consciousness. They had a tremendous amount of information on the states of consciousness; such as, conscious, unconscious, subconscious, the various states of consciousness in coma, in hypnotism, in sleep, etc. They also had theories of consciousness such as solipsism and panpsychism, in it's various forms, but they had little on other species, almost nothing on emotion, and avoided anything to do with religion. So I finished my studies believing that consciousness was a much more massive study than I had realized, and that the SEP did not have a clue as to what consciousness really is. If anyone has an interest, you can Google the SEP, but it is not an easy read, and is a rather pretentious, pompous, and name dropping kind of encyclopedia. If you want understanding, I would recommend the on-line IEP (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy). G Cladking; Thank you for your response, and I am sorry that you are frustrated. What you have stated is absolutely true, we do view observations and understandings through the veil of our beliefs. If I could just get past the denials of the "science" people, then I could explain the part of my understanding that will infuriate the "religious" people. That ought to be interesting, if I ever get there. I don't think that the problem is language as much as it is the artificial divisions. If I say the word "mind" then I am talking philosophy or science, and if I say the word "soul" then I am talking religion, but they are both words that describe the intangible "self"--and everybody knows it. Instead of using words for communication, we have started to use them to fortify our beliefs and to construct artificial divisions. Because I study all of the aspects of consciousness, I understand why people will choose belief over facts. It took a while to figure this out, but the reason is in the difference between thought and emotion. As I stated before, emotion is inherently honest--it does not know how to lie. Does that mean that it is good or bad, right or wrong? No. It just means that it is true. We can not feel something other than what we feel, we can pretend, and we can deny the emotion, but it is still true. This is what psychology is based on, the knowledge that our true emotions will eventually show. Thought, on the other hand, can lie and then rationalize that lie. Like a computer, thought can spit out the most ridiculous things if the wrong data is entered. So thought may or may not be true, but if emotion is attached to that thought, then it becomes belief. That is what belief is, emotional thought. So why do we accept emotional thought over thought? Because we have an innate understanding that our emotions are true. We know that we have at least one foot in reality when we deal with our emotions, so we accept emotional thoughts to be true. But this is not always so. (chuckle) To make this concept easier to understand, consider: You are in a store shopping for sun glasses. The stack of cereal boxes next to you is knocked down, so you reflexively slip the glasses on top of your head, and go to help. You forget the sunglasses and walk out of the store. Two people see you do this. One of the people respects and admires you, and knows that the theft was an accident. One of the people envies and despises you, and knows that you are an opportunist that intentionally committed theft. Both people can produce valid arguments to support their beliefs. But what is the truth? An understanding of how belief works has helped me to be more patient with people, who do not know that they are thinking with their beliefs. Consciousness is a subject that is part of everything, so science, philosophy, and religion all have some information about it, so I don't think we need more knowledge as much as we need to compare the knowledge that we already posses in differing disciplines. G

This thread is becoming frustrating. I feel like a director auditioning actresses for the part of the virgin in a Dracula movie, and have heard enough, "No! No! No!", to last a lifetime. Except for denials, I have gotten no real information from anyone. That is not true. EdEarl did provide some information early on, but consciousness is not his subject, so although he at least tried, he does not really understand consciousness. He is more of an AI person, who studies intelligence and brains and computers. Is there anyone here who studies consciousness and knows anything at all about it? Let's start with simple basics. What is consciousness? The easiest way to describe it is that it is a communication. It is information that is communicated from one place to another, and awareness of that communication is what we call consciousness. The transmitters and receivers of that communication are called life, as life is aware of the communication, hence life is conscious. A rock is not conscious, because a rock is not aware of any communication. This is the reason that Panpsychism does not work. Although it can be argued that all matter has a sort of knowledge of itself, as in atoms seem to know how they fit into molecules, etc., the knowledge is static, it does not move, so there is no awareness, no communication, no consciousness. Like the rock, there is also information within us, but it is not static. Our cells can actually learn and remember. Our immune system can learn about one disease, remember that information, and use it to combat another disease that is similar. Our brains are a wealth of constant movement and processing of information. This is true of all life, whether it be the most simple or the most complex, it can move information and is aware of the movement of information, so it is conscious. So does this mean that moving information equates to consciousness? No. My cell phone, TV, radio, and computer all move information, but they are not conscious, because they are not aware of the movement. How do I know that they are not aware of the movement? Because they do not try to influence it. They do not try to stop it or start it or speed it up or slow it down, they are indifferent to the information. Life is not indifferent to the information and will actively pursue any course that will ensure the survival of the life form. This is consciousness. But what does this have to do with feeling and emotion? Good question. I am not sure that anybody knows. I am tired now, so review the above, that I believe conforms with mainstream philosophy and science, and post any comments or questions that you may have regarding the above. Tomorrow I will post what I think that I know about feeling and emotion. G

Moontanman; Of course I know that the number of people who believe something does not equate with truth. A lot of people used to think the world was flat. On the other hand, if six people come running down the street and say that the house at the end of the block is on fire, would you believe it if you saw no smoke? Maybe, maybe not, but would you walk into your house and assume that there was no fire? No. You would go and take a look. That is all that I am asking, for people to stop hiding in their unwarrented beliefs and take a look. You have told me that there is no proof of the supernatural, so by default, it does not exist. You are wrong. There is evidence of belief in the supernatural in every culture, every society, and every country from the beginning of recorded history and beyond. It is older than science, it is older than philosophy, and it is probably older than religion. So by default, the supernatural does exist. If you would like to prove that it does not exist, then you must explain what it is that is thought to be supernatural. Denying it proves nothing. And cherry picking the denials--consciousness is ok, mind is ok, soul is acceptable, intuition is ok, whatever is within us is ok, but things outside of us are not ok--looks like bias, because none of these things are proven. Regarding the supernatural, I see three possibilities, either it is "God", or it is magic, or it is real. I chose real. You choose denial. Can you deal with the possibility that it could be real? There is a whole page of things that I stated, so what "assertions" did you take issue with? I tried to use reason and logic to make my points and to corroborate any new ideas with other evidence. Are you talking about my personal experiences with ESP? I can retract that if you think it necessary. I hate putting my personal experiences on-line for the world to view, and only stated it because I wanted people to understand how I first learned that emotion can actually move and control knowledge and thought outside of the body. G

Arc; Yes, this is a Science site, but we are in the Philosophy section and forum of the Science site. When I go to the Science section, I go to ask questions and learn. Science is fascinating, it is awesome, but I can't do it, so I joined the Science forums to seek answers to questions. Science is good at answers, but I am a philosopher, so I excel at questions. What "extraordinary claims"? That bacteria in cheese is revolting to look at? That bacteria is on the skin and in the body, and that we would die if we disposed of all bacteria in us? Or maybe you think that the existence of consciousness, life, and mind are extraordinary? Well, you have a point there, but this is usually not disputed. I suspect that you think that the "connection" between people is "extraordinary". We call this "connection" ESP, chemistry, or bonds between people, and it is not extraordinary at all. In fact it is common and commonly known to exist. What you must consider here is that I am not in the business of proving the supernatural, I just use it to study consciousness. As to the supernatural/paranormal being commonly known, consider the following: According to Wiki, under the heading of Paranormal, the following polls have belief in some form of paranormal at around 70%--this excluded religious beliefs. 2005 Gallup Organizations 73% Australia's Monash University 70% 2006 Oklahoma City University 70% There were other polls if this is not enough. As far as religion goes, which is arguably belief in the supernatural, Wiki has it at around 59%. But that is only a measure of people, who actually practice their religion. Although there will be some overlap, many religions deny their parishoners the right to believe in paranormal activity that is not proscribed by the religion. So I think that between religion and paranormal beliefs, we can call this a common belief in the paranormal/supernatural. Now you can argue that I can not use something that is unproven (supernatural) to understand how something that is unproven (mind) works within something that is unproven (consciousness), but that would get a little silly. It is the responsibility of philosophy to determine what is real, so we can not cherry pick our unprovens. I have no ambition to form grand theories and would like to find small truths that I can be relatively sure of, then expose those truths to intelligent people so that someone can show me if I am wrong in my logic or where I am cherry picking. What I have learned is that emotions connect people; and that sometimes the emotions transfer information, and sometimes this connection does not seem to be relevant to family or a discernable bond, but it seems to be necessary to life. Consider the following that can be found in Wiki: "Pair Bonding"--biology: Many species bond for long periods or for life. Although it can be argued that this is instinctive behavior, that does not change the fact that it is relevant to consciousness. "Human Bonding": There is a lot of information on human bonding, too much to reproduce here. Suffice it to say that human bonding seems to be necessary. If you look up "Orphanages" and "Deinstitutionalisation" you will discover that it is very important for little ones to bond. Babies under the age of two can actually die for want of a bond, and older children can become physically and mentally sick and underdeveloped. The Bucharest Early Intervention information was interesting and is found under "Deinstitutionalisation". "Solitary Confinement" is also interesting. It has been called "psychological torture" and some prisoners actually stated that they would prefer to be lashed than go into solidary confinement because there is no permanent damage or madness associated with the lash. We have juveniles on, I believe it was Riker Island, in New York, who are put into solitary confinement, and it is estimated that 48% of them have mental issues caused from confinement. In the US, we regularly put prisoners in solitary confinement and wonder why they are nuts when they get released. The World Health Organization is not happy with us in this regard. If you check out Ergonomics, you will find that office workers, who are isolated are less productive, so they came up with the little booths that give privacy, but don't cut the person off from everyone else. I found that being marooned is not good, but it also does not guarantee madness, so being cut off from people is bad, but I suspect that being cut off from life is what makes people lose their minds. Why? For a long time, we believed that it was being cut off from light that made people go mad, but I am beginning to suspect that this is not the whole truth. What is cut off? Is there a connection between life forms? Are we saying that the "connection" can not go through walls? Everyone knows that the "laying on of hands" is nonsense, but apparently, it can be the difference between life and death for a newborn. And if an institutionalised infant bonds with a worker, then that worker changes jobs, it can mean the death of that newborn. Why? There are probably ten more ways to prove this that I have not considered, but it seems clear that conscious life requires other conscious life, and there has to be a reason. What is it that we get when we are around life that is necessary to life--the connection? Consciousness? I think so. Maybe you should read my post again. What I showed evidence of is that I can NOT do these things. That I have absolutely no control over it. Do you imagine that I would want a connection to one child and deny the connection to another? I love all of my children, so I would want to be connected to each of them in any way that I can. Do you imagine that I would want a closer connection to a step-mother that I have never lived with, only knew for about 15 years, and mostly talked to on the phone, over a connection to my own Mother and Father? Where is your logic? I told about those events because I wanted people to understand that I, myself, find that this connection is valid--it exists. But it works through feelings and emotion, which means that it works through the unconscious part of mind, so it is not very controllable or very reproducable. Demanding that I be able to control and reproduce it, would be like demanding that I control and reproduce my dreams in order to prove that they exist. I can't, but we know that if people do not dream, they die. There is reason to suspect that if we did not have this connection to others, we would die. It is interesting to note that subjective unprovable dreams are accepted, but subjective unprovable knowledge from outside the body is not, because some people suspect that our dreams do not come solely from within. OK. I don't want you to take this as an insult either, but to answer your demand would be pseudophilosophy. Apparently, you would like me to take something that is not even proven to exist, the mind, and show a "high degree of proof" as to how it works. The demand is illogical. The proof unattainable until mind and consciousness are understood, so to prove this prior to a theory would be pseudophllosophy. I am still working on the theory. Just looking for little truths. Most people will accept that each of us have a mind, except maybe the solipsists (Can there be more than one solipsist? chuckle), but we know almost nothing about mind. Do we know where it is? No. Do we know what it is made up of? No. Do we know how it works? A little, because of Freud and Jung. Almost everything that we know about consciousness and mind came either from the Ancients, or from Freud and Jung. What I find interesting is that the Ancients accepted the paranormal, and that Freud and Jung studied the paranormal. Coincidence? I don't think so. The only other source of information is religion, and religion states that the soul (self) is within us, which translates to the mind (self) is within us. Science knows nothing about mind, and I will not let religion dictate to philosophy. The unknown falls under the venue of philosophy. So far, what I have claimed is that study of the paranormal is necessary to understanding consciousness. If you disagree, please explain why. G

Arc; Thank you for that honest and sincere response. You have exactly captured the feelings that people have when the words paranormal, supernatural, and superstition are brought up. Between some of the terrifying things that religions teach, the superstitious folklore, our natural fear of the unknown, and the works that Hollywood has produced, the supernatural has become quite terrifying. But I do not study vampires, werewolves, and things that go bump in the night--I study consciousness. Do you remember the first time you were required to look at cheese under a microscope in school? I do and did not eat cheese for years--all those wiggly bacteria could not be good for anyone. Then I caught a documentary on TV that showed some little creature that looked like a very ugly rhino, and this documentary explained that these creatures are all over the body all of the time, and showering does not get rid of them. Ugh! Then I learned that my body is loaded with bacteria all of the time, and that without the bacteria I would die. Disturbing as this seems when we think about it, eventually we put these thoughts to the back of our minds, because it really does not matter. This is how life works. We don't know how consciousness works. If I decide to stand up, then my body does what I want it to do, that is mind over matter. We can trace the thought through the brain to the nerves to the muscles that make me stand up, but we do not know what connects the conscious desire to the action. If you put a flowering plant next to a window, with the flowers facing the room, the next day you will find that most of the flowers have turned to face the sun. Mind over matter? Every species that we know of will do everything within it's power to continue living, and to continue it's line through reproduction. This is the magic of consciousness awareness, because this is the magic of life. It is not something to fear. More than 40 years ago, I found that I had a connection to some people. When in their presence, I could read their emotions very well, but even when they were not with me, I could sometimes discern strong emotion coming from them. Why? It has been stated that some people seem to have a chemistry, but that is more often about hormones, pheromones, and attraction. I assure you that I had no unnatural attachment to my step-mother. I always knew to call her when she needed me, and I cried for days when she was dying. She was 3,000 miles away, on the floor of her home, and I did not know what to do. I considered calling her, but knew she could not reach the phone. I considered calling the police, but knew that even if they believed me, they would only take her to a hospital and prolong her agony. She did not want that. Her health had been bad for years, and my Father had died the year before, so i knew she was ready even though her death was unexpected. So I prayed for her and cried. Three days later I got the call that she was found on the floor of her bedroom. I never had any connection to my Father, and none with my Mother. I remember that my Mother, who was 80 years old, had hung up her phone improperly so I got a constant busy signal. After a few days I began to worry and worked myself into a panic. I went to her house, and she was fine. And when she was in a bad car accident and ended up in the hospital, I did not have a clue. I have one child that I always know how he is feeling. I just sit quietly for a few minutes, clear my mind then search him out. I am always right. I have another child that I sometimes know when she is in trouble. I have another child that could be being tortured three feet away from me behind a wall, and as long as I did not hear anything, I would not have any idea that she was in trouble. That child worried me to death, because I knew that I would not know. So I know that ESP does exist, but I won't be calling "Dial-a-Psychic" anytime soon because I do not believe that this connection is strong enough to discern between all people. So a lot of "psychics" are playing games with people's minds. There are probably some that have real abilities, but I would not trust anyone who is using those abilities to make a living. Over a period of 50 years, I have connected to maybe seven people--not many--but the connection does exist, so how does it exist? We are told that our minds are within us. If we are religious, then we are told that our souls are within us. But if this is so, then how does one mind connect to another? These are the questions that caused me to study the paranormal 40 years ago. Like it or not, the paranormal is part of consciousness, and the reason that I study it, is because it is the only part of consciousness that can be studied in an objective third-party manner. G

Moontanman; Please consider my responses to your last post as follows. You are moving off point. The point is that the theory came before the testing, but there is no valid theory of consciousness. There is not even a theory that comes close to explaining consciousness. This is what I have been working on for decades, an understanding of consciousness. Regarding gravity, I was thinking of the chambers that NASA developed to prepare astronauts for the lack of gravity in space . I apologize. I did not realize that English is not your first language. If you could review just the first sentence and tell me what you think it means, I will try to explain further. You are confusing the issue. Consider the word "brain", and then consider the word "consciousness". You will notice that they are two different words, which is because they are two different things. I will grant that there is a connection between the brain and consciousness, and that connection is referred to as "mind". But of the three, brain, consciousness, and mind, mind is the least known and understood. In the OP, I tried to make it clear that this thread was about the philosophical definition of consciousness, not the scientific definition. In philosophy, the word consciousness means that something is "conscious of" or "aware of" something. It is the ability to "perceive", so although it is closely connected to brain activity, conscious awareness is also part of all life, as all life is aware of the need to continue, as exhibited by eating, reproducing, etc., and the instinct to survive. Flowers do not have a brain, but are aware, so consciousness is not limited to the brain. No citation is needed. This is a philosophy forum and thinking is allowed. But if I am wrong and a citation is needed, then please provide evidence that philosophers, who "lived thousands of years ago" knew about the "Earth" also experiencing "tides". I tend to think of consciousness more as a soup, but salad works also. When the average person considers the word, consciousness, what they consider is thought. Thought is a product of thinking, and thinking is done in the logical, rational part of the mind. When the average person thinks of emotion, they will often consider it to be thought that is rather unruly and difficult to control, but this is a mistake. Thought and emotion are alike in two ways; they are both mental aspects, and we are aware of both of them; that is where the similarity ends. Although I can not possibly give a full accounting of the known differences between the mental aspects, because that would take two or three threads, I will give you a brief outline. Generally speaking, there are two main divisions, knowledge, memory, and thought would be the first, and awareness, feeling, and emotion would be the second. The first division regarding thought is private and internal. Our thoughts are not known by another unless we consciously share them. The second division regarding emotion is shared and external. Our emotions are noted by others unless we consciously hide them. Conscious thought is directed by us, is known in the rational mind (Ego), is logical and rational, is neither honest nor dishonest and is limited only by imagination and intelligence. It is processed in the brain with a lot of neurons and things that I don't understand. When stored in the brain, it is static and unchanging (unless emotion is attached to it) and is stored only as long as it is needed. Thought is known. Conscious emotion is not directed, it is realized through the unconscious mind (SuperEgo), is reactionary and always has a source, is inherently honest and incapable of lies. It processes through chemicals, which I don't understand either. When stored in memory, it is capable of changing memory by enhancing it, blotting it out entirely, or even changing the thoughts that it is attached to. Emotional memory can last a lifetime. Emotion is experienced and can only be known by connecting it to thought. Things like dreams, intuition, and creativity seem to be a combination of information from the conscious and unconscious parts of mind. Which brings us to instincts. Freud called the Id, drives, but we now know enough about hormones to understand that the Id is about instincts. Instincts are behaviors, but the behaviors are caused by knowledge and feeling/emotion, so instincts are also part of consciousness, and are reactionary, rather than directed, so they are part of the unconscious. Instinct is an aspect of consciousness that relates both to the external world and to the internal. Thanks to science, we now know that thought relates to grey matter, emotion relates to chemistry, and instincts relate to hormones. There is a different combination of these aspects of consciousness in each and every species. Some, like humans, seem to have all of the aspects; some, like grass, seem to have few, so consciousness can not be one pure singular thing. I do not share the panpsychist view that the universe is alive, but it is clear to me that the raw material that causes awareness is part of our universe. I have no idea, never having had that experience, so I can give you a definite--maybe. (chuckle) I will grant that OCD could be the source of some superstition, but what is considered superstition is too varied to be explained so simply. Psychology tries to interpret all of the various paranormal, supernatural, and superstitious phenomenon, but as much as I like psychology, it is making the same mistake that religions make when they interpret everything as a manifestation of gods. Psychology is doing the same thing, explaining these things as a manifestation of human thoughts. Consciousness is not nearly so simple. G

Agreed. But empirical evidence is generally found after the theory, which is generally theorized after acknowledgement of the event. We have known for tens of thousands of years that gravity existed--I think my dog even knows. Then we developed a theory of how gravity worked, then we were able to cause anti-gravity. It took some time even though everyone acknowledged gravity because everyone could feel it and see the effects of it. I suspect that much of the paranormal or supernatural is in reality a manifestation of consciousness. Now you can disagree, but it won't get you very far because whether you believe that the supernatural is illusion, imagination, God, lies, or if it is real, it is unquestionably known only to the subjective conscious mind--so it is an aspect of consciousness. Lightening and meteorites are good examples of things that were thought to be supernatural and of the "gods", but are now known by science. But consciousness is a much more difficult subject because it is invisible, intangible, and subjective--so it is very difficult to comprehend. Consider two philosophers that lived thousands of years ago, who are in a debate about the cause of the tides moving along the shore. The religious philosopher states that it is Posiden that draws the tides forth. The science philosopher says, no, it is the moon that draws the tides forth. Both would be wrong. It is the properties of water that make it draw forth in response to gravity. So what are the properties of consciousness? There do not seem to be very many people asking this question, as most studies are introspective. I think that consciousness has properties, that like the water noted above, consciousness responds to different forces, energies, and matter. This means that consciousness is not one pure singular thing. I suspect that we see it as a singular thing because we are considering it like the singular God, but that is very unlikely. There are many different types of matter, types of chemical, types of forces, and types of energy, so it seems unlikely that there is only one type of mental consciousness that seems to be somewhat magical. It is much more likely that consciousness is a natural part of reality that interacts with other forces, energies, and materials to cause different manifestations of consciousness. The point is that logic and rational thought can not find the answer as explained in my prior post. I disagree. If everyone on my block thinks that I live in a house, but you think that it is in reality a bon fire looking to be lit, I believe that you are likely to find yourself arrested. Generally speaking, reality is based on what everyone thinks that it is. Get yourself a science book, then find one that is 50 years older on the same subject, then find one that is 200 years older on the same subject, and compare them. When science stops learning and growing, when it decides that all is known and nothing else must be learned, then it becomes faith based and destroys itself. I hope that never happens, as we have enough religion. Yes, I do. I was very impressed with Dr. Stevenson's work, and I am not alone. Have you read the work? Dr. Stevenson was meticulous with his procedures and methods, so all of the people who have reviewed his work and tried to shoot down his findings have failed. G

EdEarl and Moontanman; Obviously I have made a hash out of explaining my position, so I will try one more time. First let me make it clear that I use logic and rationalization regularly and believe them to be necessary and valuable tools, methodologies, in the studies of science and philosophy. But what I value the highest is truth, so when logic and rationalization fail to find truth, I have to examine these methods to find the problem. While reviewing arguments regarding the Monism v Dualism issue, I noted that if a person believes in God, they can find logical rational arguments to suppot their belief; if they do not believe in God, they can also find logical rational arguments to support their belief. This debate has gone on for a thousand years. But what is the truth? This question led me to many hours of contemplating truth and methodologies. If you go to a site that teaches formal logic, you will read in the introduction that formal logic has nothing to do with truth. Something that is true can be proven false, and something that is false can be proven true because formal logic is about the consistency of an argument, not about truth. It is an internal examination of the argument. Heidegger stated the same thing when he explained--I am paraphrasing here--that logic and rationalization are "school room" tools to check the consistency of theories and arguments. But I like logical and I like rational, so how and when can I use them and rely on them to find truth? Consider the following: A man is going to get on a plane to . . . (a) go to China, or (b) to go to his closest neighbor's house for dinner. The obvious and rational answer is (a) because we do not get on a plane to see our neighbor--usually we walk. But if the man is a forest ranger who lives by a lake and owns a sea plane, and his closest neighbor lives on the other side of the lake, eight miles away, then the answer would be (b). Rationalizing does not work when the beginning and end points are not known. The best we can do is guess, using our best judgments, experience, opinions, and the facts at hand. But there is no guarantee of truth. Many philosophers have realized this, and if you go to Wiki and look up rationalizing, you will find all kinds of advice on how to avoid many of the pitfalls that can corrupt rationalization. Consider the following: A forest ranger who owns a sea plane is going to . . . (a) fly, or (b) walk, to his closest neighbor's house on the other side of the lake, eight miles away, for dinner. The obvious and rational answer is (a). Rationalization works here because we know the beginning and end points. The simple explanation here is that logic and rational thought both are methods that compare two or more things, so those things need to be known. Critical thinking examines one thing thoroughly, then examines another like looking at puzzle pieces. Once the things are known, then rational thought can compare them. Since the supernatural is an unknown, it can not be explained by logic or rational thought--critical thinking must be employed. Which means that people have to stop spitting out denials and actually consider it. I have been considering the supernatural for decades and would like to discuss it with any person who is not afraid to look at it and consider it honestly. G

If it makes sense to you, why people believe in the paranormal, you must also agree that it exists, or you have decided that it does not, but is understandable. Interesting. You have already stated that you do not believe in the paranormal, and that science can not prove the paranormal, so I have to conclude that you have rationalized an understanding. This is a problem that I have noted before, but maybe it is time to expain why rationalization is a useless tool in this circumstance. Rationalizing is a process. When we rationalize, what we do is place sequential cogent steps from one thing to another to establish an orderly proof of the relationship. For example, if I wanted to go to the store to purchase something, I would make sure that I am dressed, put on my shoes, get my wallet, make sure that I have money, grab my keys and get in the car. This is rational behavior, and each step is required to accomplish my task. But if I did all of these things in the proper order and then got into the shower, rather than my car, it would not be rational. It would in fact be irrational behavior because all of the steps led to the wrong end. What this tells us about rationalization, is that it is an internal process that works between two knowns. If either the beginning point or the end point is unknown, then rationalization does not work. Rationalizing is goal oriented, it is a linear process, so if I use rationalization to build sequential cogent steps to an unknown, what am I actually doing? How will I know where to place the steps? I will place them to wherever I want to go. This has nothing to do with truth and encourages self supporting deceptions. If you look through the logical and rational arguments that were made in our history, it becomes very clear that rationalization does not work with unknowns. While reviewing arguments made by Plantation owners with regard to their slaves, it became clear to me that these people really saw themselves as good people protecting the "negroes". They stated that they provided food, shelter, religion, and a good outlet for the "negroes" natural need to be kept busy--to keep them out of trouble. There was even a psychiatrist, don't remember his name, who realized that some of the slaves were mentally unstable and created a name and diagnosis for the slaves who ran away repeatedly. He explained that a slave who would leave his home, shelter, food, and productive work, so that he could run around in the forest, was obviously mad--like a mad dog--so he had to be punished, or put down. The insanity was in the thinking, not the strong-willed slave. Whether it was slavery, witch burning, religious inquisitions, or hanging little boys for stealing apples, in each of these cases logical rational arguments were made to justify the action. And in each of these cases, the rational argument did not account for an unknown--the subjective mind. Rationalization can not be used to learn about an unknown, which means that it can not be used to understand the subjective mind--which is always unknown except to the subject. Critical thinking must be employed, and critical thinking is exploratory. So unless you have actually explored the subject and learned as much as there is to know, you do not have an understanding. What you have is a self-supporting assumption, which may well be deception. There is lots of evidence. Too much to be ignored. Every poll that I have seen puts belief in the paranormal at around 70%, and that does not include religious belief, which is clearly paranormal in nature. Every culture and society that we know of has had a belief system that dealt with the supernatural. So I would put belief in the supernatural at about 90%, and suggest that most people simply will not admit their belief unless they can connect it to a recognized religion. Are you trying to imply that all of this is coincidence? One of the things that I admire most about science is that it grows and learns. If religion is the static representation of faith that is never changing, then science is the progressive representation of learning and growth. Any scientist can explain that what we know now can be changed at any time in the future as we learn. Agreed. And if one could prove them possible, many people would deny the proof. I don't believe that there is any such thing as the supernatural. There is the natural and there is man made. To imply that there is something above the natural (physical) is to imply that life, mind, and consciousness are supernatural. I don't believe it, and see no reason to. What is called the supernatural is simply a part of the natural that we have not yet uncovered and learned about, so I think it is time. Following is a link to the University of Virginia that regards the late Dr. Ian Stevenson's work. If I did it right, you will get the page of his publications. If not, just go to publications. Below each of the published works, that can be purchased, is a list of the articles that can be viewed on-line. Just select the (pdf) after the article that you are interested in. http://www.medicine.virginia.edu/clinical/departments/psychiatry/sections/cspp/dops/publications-page Before viewing his work, I did not believe in reincarnation and thought it to be a religious concept. But Dr. Stevenson has some very compelling evidence. Some of his cases could possibly be influence or argued to be invalid, as when a child states that he lived before, gives his name, place where he lived, and cause of his death. But when Dr. Stevenson's team investigates and reads the Medical Examiner's report that indicates the tearing of flesh that caused death, and that tearing seems to be duplicated on the child's stomach as a birth mark--one has to wonder. There is a lot of interesting reading there, and some evidence as well. G

I think that you mistook my meaning, which is my fault, not yours. When I read your prior post, I smiled and wondered how the hell you managed to maintain your position without attacking my position, yet not really supporting your position either. Few people can manage this, and I find it to be an enviable quality that I have never been able to acquire. I have a daughter who possesses this quality, and we call her a natural-born politician, but I am entirely too passionate and forthright in my opinions, which does not always serve me well. No insult was intended. It makes a great deal of sense, and I agree that it is most probably the answer. Well, I do have a "gift of gab", but I can blame it on the Blarney Stone. Do I really believe that kissing the Blarney Stone gave me the "gift of gab" (blarney)? No, but it is a fun story. (chuckle) So why did I kiss the Blarney Stone? Because I said I would. But that was before I learned that I would have to climb up seven stories of a decrepid ancient castle, where the floors inside had fallen away centuries ago, and where I had to lay down and stretch out to reach the Blarney Stone while looking at the tops of trees that looked like bushes because they were so far down--and all of this with an ancient Irishman there to hold my legs so that I would not fall. I did it because I apparently would rather look like a lunatic than look like a coward. As for belief in the paranormal, it is not required. 'This is not like the movie, Peter Pan, where one has to clap their hands and say, "I believe" in order for Tinker Bell to come back to life. ESP, the paranormal, and supernatural events exist just like my kitchen chairs exist, whether anyone believes in them or not. If writing is hard work, then just ask me questions. It would help me to understand what people are skeptical about, so that I could explain my reasoning. G.

EdEarl; Did you retire from politics? You did a great job of side-stepping any traps while maintaining your position, admitting nothing, and saying nothing. The idea that Skinner's conclusions seem "reasonable" has nothing to do with facts or truth, as many things can seem reasonable and be totally false. Skinner took a dubious word, superstition, and tacked it onto a behavior for the purpose of confusing the issue. In order to use the word superstition, Skinner would have had to prove that pigeons are capable of belief--he did not. So his conclusions in that regard are false. I do not find his experiments interesting at all. There were a lot of studies in the 70's regarding the paranormal, and most of the paranormal was proven to be false in experiments much like Skinner's. I remember some of the experiments regarding auras, and it was proven in those experiments that people can not see auras. In those tests, the subjects were shadowed, behind thin veils, or behind glass--to prevent the aura readers from cheating. But recently I had the opportunity to talk to a person who sees auras and while questioning her, I learned some things. She can not see auras in pictures, through media, or through any kind of material, but especially, she can not see auras through glass or water. She mentioned that she will often put on a pair of sunglasses when in a crowd, to dispel the disorienting effect of seeing so many auras. So it appears that the testers, rather than the testees, were the ones who were cheating on the tests. There were also a lot of studies regarding ESP, but it was not found that it could be controlled, so the studies lost funding. After all, the government would love to be able to learn things through ESP, whether for communication or for premonitions, advanced warning, but not unless it could be controlled. What most people do not consider about ESP is that although knowledge does transfer, the mechanism for the transfer is emotion. So I am sure that if two people were found that seemed to have a connection, and they were separated, and someone started to cut off the fingers of one party, the other party would be better able to receive information. This would seriously impact control and increase reliability, but it might be hard to find participants. (chuckle) Learning that emotion was the mechanism for transfer of information, and knowing that emotion is relative to chemicals, the studies started to experiment with drugs. This kind of thinking follows in the foot steps of many religions and shamans, etc., but was not terribly successful. There were studies that proved and verified premonitions in some people, but noted that in almost all instances, the person who had the premonition was pregnant. In one article the opinion stated was that pregnant women were reaching out to their unborn child, and that this reaching is what caused the ability to have the premonition. Hogwash. I suspect that the person making this statement had a serious Madonna complex, as it is insane to imply that a woman has this ability and need to protect her unborn child, but loses this ability and need when her child is born and no longer safe and under Mom's protection. It is much more likely that her ability is directed by hormones. It is also interesting to note that monks, shamans, and many other religious persons use drugs, starvation, and sleep deprivation to reach a state where they can acquire information. All of these things affect the hormone levels in a person. Consider that the person mentioned above who reads auras stated that she has seen them since she was a little girl, but when I questioned her, she admitted that there are two circumstances that prevent her from seeing auras. When she was a teen, she experimented with mescalin (spelling?) and did not see auras for two years, and she never sees auras in her third trimester of pregnancy. These abilities all seem to be related to chemistry, and it is my understanding that chemistry connects us to consciousness. But finding the right combination of chemicals under the right circumstance is difficult, almost like a child with a cell phone who is punching numbers trying to reach it's mother. If he does not know the number, he will get nothing but frustration. G

What are you trying to say here, Ed? Are you saying that Skinner taught pigeons to become superstitious by conditioning them? Or are you saying that Skinner discovered that pigeons are superstitious? Wouldn't that require pigeons to have minds that believe something? Pigeons would have to have thoughts and emotions in order to create beliefs. Does science accept that pigeons have minds, thoughts, and emotions? Or are we talking behaviors? I am not sure that watching a pigeon's behavior objectively can automatically translate to a conclusion that pigeon's have a subjective superstious belief. If I am wrong, please explain this. In the above noted article on Skinner, it stated that he was a behaviorist, who made objective studies of behavior in order to modify behavior, control behavior, and presumably to advance society with his understanding of behavior. The article also stated that he was an Athiest, a Determinist, and that he had some serious issues with religion and family, so it is my thought that he rejected the subjective supernatural in totality, so I can see where he could mistake the matter. I am not a neurologist, but I have talked to a few and know that the brain is a very impressive organ--even bird brains. A great deal of behavior is activated by the brain without our ever thinking about it, or even acknowledging it, so I would be reluctant to state that the above mentioned behavior is caused by belief or any superstition. There are innate instinctive behaviors, learned instinctive and reactionary behaviors, and obsessive compulsive behaviors, just to name a few. The supernatural is known subjectively, but superstition is an objective perspective of what may be belief in the supernatural, or may be caused by some other brain activity, or experience. So I don't think that Skinner's study is relevant to my studies. I don't remember where I got my information on the word superstition, but I was wrong as it is much older than the word supernatural and dates back to before the Christian era. My apologies. G