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Posted

I think it is absurd that one could say that the brain produces consciousness.

What is the use of consciousness? If the brain is a mechanical chemical electrical device, its ability to survive and thrive could easily be evolved Darwinian style to easily survive. Cars, for god's sake, can survive better right now due to computors and radar and whatever else they use. Already, safer than human drivers.

Do you really believe they could develop consciousness? For what? It would be a burden. Imagine you self-driving car dealing with issues, depressed and deciding to stay home in the garage for lack of motivation.

And what mechanism could be imagined that would create through natural selection an actual awareness?

Totally absurd! Anything you could imagine as a survival trait could easily be designed in without the need for a department of self-awareness being involved!

I really can't imagine how any right-thinking person could not understand the problem!

Pain avoidance is easily replaced by damage avoidance.

It's just that science has a real problem with imagination, the ability to see outside of the box. That's the reason people become scientists or scientific types. In the first place. The syndrome is so extreme that their answers are often completely ridiculous, where they accept the most absurd theories---- anything but give up their love of materialism. they completely dismiss obvious clues, clues that should mean something to any thinking person. They only allow testing in cynical venues, where their own beliefs that nothing should happen manifest as failures of paranormal events.

They make up words like 'mass hallucination' or ;psychosomatic' as if the word itself had any more meaning than a tag to describe what? They don't know but doctors feel perfectly comfortable that they have discovered the problem. How scientific!

"only the placebo effect", or "only a mass hallucination (Fatima Portugal, 1918 tens of thousands seeing the Sun moving around and dropping). Just a mass hallucination. Sure, the word describes what happened scientifically!

It sure doesn't make science look too bright!

Posted

Is nothing obvious? Isn't it possible to simply KNOW that a thing is what it is? We are more than recording and storage devices.

Do you use a calculator to figure out what two plus two is? do you need to prove it?

I'm sorry, but the answer is so obvious to me, I just assume anyone could figure it out.

Awareness is nothing like a brain process. It is Awareness, for God's sake!

It is a witness. Why have a witness? What value would it serve?

Are you saying you would err on the side of brain first over consciousness first for a reason?

What would that reason be? Could you share?

Posted

Is nothing obvious? Isn't it possible to simply KNOW that a thing is what it is?

 

 

No. And no.

 

The whole purpose of the scientific method is to get away from human errors like that.

 

 

Do you use a calculator to figure out what two plus two is? do you need to prove it?

 

It has been proved. So, yes, people did feel the need to prove it.

 

Are you saying you would err on the side of brain first over consciousness first for a reason?

 

There is evidence of consciousness arising from brain function (from neurological studies).

 

There is zero evidence for consciousness existing with the brain.

 

I will go with the balance of evidence.

Posted

Is nothing obvious? Isn't it possible to simply KNOW that a thing is what it is? We are more than recording and storage devices.

Do you use a calculator to figure out what two plus two is? do you need to prove it?

I'm sorry, but the answer is so obvious to me, I just assume anyone could figure it out.

 

So your argument is that math is probably the only thing just about everyone could agree on, so we should be using that instead of ridiculous and imprecise verbal guesses? Hmmm, you make a really good point here.

Posted

How do you know you even have consciousness? Where is your proof?

I think I've discovered that rift between our understandings.

And I am not religious. I haven't been since second grade.

Can either of you tell me why you think that awareness could arise from a piece of meat? To what purpose?

You know, awareness is quite a special thing. It's as if nature one day said, "I know! I'm going to create a witness to make this piece of meat feel what's happening to it!"

Why would nature do that? What impulse, what mechanism would suddenly cause such a thing?

Answer that.

Posted

How do you know you even have consciousness? Where is your proof?

 

 

I thought it was a given (for the purposes of this thread). It seems a bit pointless to discuss "Universal Consciousness" if consciousness is thought not to exist. But, actually, I have seen some interesting arguments that consciousness is just an illusion.

 

 

 

Can either of you tell me why you think that awareness could arise from a piece of meat?

 

Because we have evidence for that and not the alternative.

 

 

 

To what purpose?

 

Why would there be a purpose? That seems to assume some sort of Plan.

 

There may be a survival advantage. Or it may be something that arises when brains reach a certain level of complexity. We don't know which other animals are self-aware so it is hard to know when or why it arose.

 

 

 

Why would nature do that? What impulse, what mechanism would suddenly cause such a thing?

 

Nature doesn't work that way. There is no Plan. There does not have to be a reason.

Posted

Is nothing obvious? Isn't it possible to simply KNOW that a thing is what it is? We are more than recording and storage devices.

Do you use a calculator to figure out what two plus two is? do you need to prove it?

I'm sorry, but the answer is so obvious to me, I just assume anyone could figure it out.

I get your point. With only minor thought I can figure it out. It is obvious to me that you don't know what you are talking about.

Posted

In a way, it's true. I don't know what I'm talking about.

I am full of wonder. I wonder why I am here.

I have sought truth your way, Argent. It has led nowhere. After so many years of stumbling along in the dark, I asked, what do I know? What is the value in applying technology to the bigger questions and expecting answers?

What is it that I can know?

I can't trust my senses. They lie to me. I can't trust information. It only guesses. Worse, it often lies.

Detective work is no longer good enough. Knowledge, that which may be limited, but nevertheless is real and true.

I used to be interested in strange things. things like the paranormal, UFOs, Crop Formations, and so forth.

Then one day, I had a very strange event occur in my life.

I had what some people call an awakening experience.

Do you know what the major change was that was a result of this awakening? I know longer had any interest in investigating all those strange things any more. They held nothing for me any more than any normal every day occurrence.

Another thing was that I only knew as true the simple things I must have been born knowing, but had never developed due to having never known a language to describe them to myself.

When I later awoke, I realized I had become exposed to a new kind of knowing that was real. It required no description yet it was real and it could even predict.

I knew, for example, that belief had power. I tested my new knowledge. There was a crop circle forum I belonged to. The moderator was an electrical engineer named Paul Vigay.

Paul had invented and built a meter that could pick up magnetic fields in crop formations. Paul was a hard-nose scientific type like you. Whenever he was in a "real" crop formation, his meter would register anomalous readings.

at one point, Paul and I had a disagreement. I claimed that reality was subjective, that each of us, due to or differing beliefs, manifested entirely different realities.

Paul said that the temperature of water to boil was the same around the world at sea level, and so forth, and I disagreed, saying it could be different depending on the person. I asked him if his little meter always told him if a crop formation was genuine rather than man made. Other tests such as would correlate with magnetic anomalies always aligned with features also considered anomalous. Ninety degree bends of stalks, as if steamed over at the node of the stalks, things like that.

I told him that if ever National Geographic ever visited a site he deemed genuine, his e-meter (he called it) would suddenly malfunction.

A couple of months passed and as luck would have it, Paul actually was asked by National Geographic if he would meet them in a field he deemed genuine and show them his meter readings, which were supposed to be anomalous compared to outside the formation.

Unfortunately, for the first time ever, his meter didn't show any response even though it could be tested with a magnet, for example.

Paul never did own up to my being right. Not long after, he was found floating in the Atlantic ocean, drowned by either suicide or murder, it was never discovered.

Later, I was able to predict a lot of things. That evidence would go missing, whether concerning crop circles or chem trails or UFO videos, or Bigfoot sightings, or anything that would be considered impossible to the general culture---- but mostof these were geographically specific. In the USA, crop formations were rare but in England where they abounded, anyone could see them by taking a drive. When a phenomenon was prevalent in some particular place, it seemed to "grow" there as if a seed had been planted. As if belief of local people were allowing such things to exist there more than other places because they had been exposed to their existence on a more personal level.

I remembered the observer effect and how science also knew that reality issued from human expectation (they would not use those words, but it's the same thing).

Science would prefer to use terminology that resulted in long equations and complicated theories rather than ever use the term, 'Expectation'.

But there it is. You could call the expectation that manifested reality the 'Observer's effect' and then it was just an effect.

You could call the miracle at Fatima Portugal a mass hysteria or hallucination and walk away satisfied that the terms themselves were an explanation all by themselves.

Just like the word, 'psychosomatic', which explains nothing but is accepted as a real thing nonetheless.

Words are like that. we eventually just accept them just because they have a name.

So science has proven that belief or expectation (same thing) manifests reality in a very obvious way. You look and reality suddenly manifests. Before, it was a probability and a later choice could effect a past event, no matter how long ago. No paradox would surface because cheating was impossible. You had to hide the test results to maintain the possibility of later choosing.

Yet. physicists almost invariably would disagree that any expectation could produce full blown reality. It funny, isn't it?

Obvious, you might say. But, I'm sure your arguments are honed. You would never allow words like 'expectation" or "belief fulfillment". You would only agree that when we look, we are doing something we don't understand. Anything but say what's really going on, because in doing so we are admitting our world view is incorrect.

If we can change whether a phosphor screen had a diffraction pattern or not just by asking the question, what does that translate to on a larger scale?

The answer is, it means that our supposition that we are actually making a choice is incorrect. Better to call it delayed action, not choice, and any erasing would be simply the discovery of what we were always going to do.

All this makes for fat grants and years of employment, which supposedly might one day lead to a grand unified theory of everything, but it never will. Not because it can't, but because it isn't possible in a "universe" that is constructed out of paradoxes.

A Universe that is based on both free will and determinism, and subjective reality and objective reality. Those are the major paradoxes, no matter how much math you throw at the problem.

Never will such a paradox resolve.

Thought experiments show that a simple quantum test with delayed choice can easily be enlarged to blow up an object on the far side of the moon. Causally speaking, a major catastrophic event could easily be initiated by a quantum delayed choice experiment. So there's your macro event. There can't be a difference from micro to macro if that is possible.

None of this was available to me before my awakening experience. Yet, it isn't exactly difficult to grasp.

Posted

Paul said that the temperature of water to boil was the same around the world at sea level, and so forth, and I disagreed, saying it could be different depending on the person.

 

 

And you are wrong.

Posted

Just to be clear, the number of people who have measured the boiling point of water in different places around the world, at sea level and other altitudes, must be in the millions: it is a basic physics class experiment.

 

No one has ever reported a different boiling point because they "believe" it should be different.

Posted

Vigay said that, and I disagreed. It wasn't a great example, but it could be disagreed with.

This highlights what I can't seem to convey to you. Something dead simple.

That where belief is concerned, because belief manifests reality (observer effect), you get what you expect within the bounds of all plausible outcomes viewed retrospectively by all persons involved, at the least net energy expenditure on average.

which is a mouthful, I know, but I understand it perfectly.

It's why you can't prove things to unbelievers, especially if they are going to announce findings. Belief is only "moved" energetically.

One must consider what new evidence would come up against. For example, a scientist might peek at 'which slit' detector information, but have a heart attack and die without anyone knowing he'd peeked. Next morning, the others come in and find him dead. They now destroy the detector information and viola! All diffraction! It should have shown no diffraction but since the peeking guy is dead and they don't BELIVE he peeked, its as if he himself was only a detector!

Posted

That where belief is concerned, because belief manifests reality (observer effect), you get what you expect within the bounds of all plausible outcomes viewed retrospectively by all persons involved, at the least net energy expenditure on average.

 

 

And the measurement of boiling point proves this is wrong. Everyone measures the same thing. It is not dependent on belief.

 

 

 

For example, a scientist might peek at 'which slit' detector information, but have a heart attack and die without anyone knowing he'd peeked. Next morning, the others come in and find him dead. They now destroy the detector information and viola! All diffraction! It should have shown no diffraction but since the peeking guy is dead and they don't BELIVE he peeked, its as if he himself was only a detector!

 

That is not how it works. It has nothing to do with wether a person looks at it or not. It is nothing to do with the observer effect.

 

You are making up things that don't happen (varying boiling point, fantasy physics) to support your point of view. That doesn't seem very rational. But neither is believing in "chem trails".

 

 

It's why you can't prove things to unbelievers

 

Actually, you can. You just provide evidence.

 

On the other hand, you can't change the view of believers because their beliefs trump evidence. They will find ways to explain it away. Or just ignore it (one Creationist said that "if the Bible and reality disagree then it must be reality that is wrong").

Posted

Yea - it's frustrating isn't it - I've said before about the person that claimed video evidence of paranormal activity.... there was a shop video of a bag of sugar floating off a shelf and then falling. This person was convinced it was a ghost. Our local paper reported a week later that the shop owner had made the video as a hoax for publicity... I showed this to the 'believer' and they just claimed that the shop keeper had been paid to say it was a hoax or that he was lying.... even though there was an interview with him saying it was a publicity stunt they still were convinced the vid was absolute evidence of the paranormal. :doh:

Posted (edited)

Well, strange, I think you are talking about your favorite theory. The fact that observation collapses the wave function is rather obvious.

I think there are a few physicists that still share that view.

That may not be your understanding. And yes, it is the observer effect. Just because the terminology has been applied elsewhere doesn't mean I don't know it's the same dynamic.

And belief, belief that a particular outcome will ensue with a high degree of certainty allows collapse.

Your arguments make little sense. This is what happens when you simply regurgitate what you've been told. It doesn'tseem to matter how ridiculous your beliefs are. If a ridiculous theory is shared, it feels safe to repeat it. You are provided with a lot of mathematical mumbo-jumbo and like so many throughout history, you stand not on your own feet but behind the crowd. In the eighteenth century, learned men all seemed to agree that blacks were a lower form of life, and almost all agreed that they ought to therefore be slaves, bought and sold like cattle. Smart people like you. Smart people like Washington and Jefferson.

It seems so strange to people today. It seems like people back then were blind to some things, even while they could do math, or design a bill of rights and be considered wise men.

I doubt you could make any sense of the delayed choice experiments. All you could do is theorize, and use someone else's theory to do so.

Belief is the thing that you can't pin down. I have outlined many times a very simple way to show why belief could effect your perception to observe such things as different temperature readings. In a deterministic "universe", the script has already been written. Thus, any evidence that later arrives is custom tailored for you alone, and that is due to subjective perception. You are fooled every time.

I began to describe it for you but the thread was destroyed by Phi, I think it was.

It's all common sense. You could say, "It just sounds too wild to believe", and I could accept that, but you couldn't find fault with the logic.

Normally one might say this was because your intellect was failing but I would never say that because I understand what cognitive dissonance is.

Again, if subjective reality allows one to project his reality, it will never cause a paradox if others' realities are also projecting what they believe. Determinism guarantees this can be "arranged" to a high level of efficacy.

You could never get proof of something around disbelievers who represented the consensus beliefs without an enormous quantity of energy.

There is no single reality, just a consensus that manifests easily at a very low energy to those who always go with the flow, which means almost everyone.

The king of consensus is the amazing Randi, the most unimaginative and cynical human being alive. Nobody can prove anything to him because he stands with the consensus and their beliefs cannot allow such a paradox to occur. So he keeps his million dollars and takes a bow for being so clever when in fact he's not really doing anything special.

The fact that you can't understand this is normal, so I get it. I am writing here more for others who read it and CAN make sense of it.

Edited by Dave Moore
Posted

Yea - it's frustrating isn't it - I've said before about the person that claimed video evidence of paranormal activity.... there was a shop video of a bag of sugar floating off a shelf and then falling. This person was convinced it was a ghost. Our local paper reported a week later that the shop owner had made the video as a hoax for publicity... I showed this to the 'believer' and they just claimed that the shop keeper had been paid to say it was a hoax or that he was lying.... even though there was an interview with him saying it was a publicity stunt they still were convinced the vid was absolute evidence of the paranormal. :doh:

 

 

And presumably all the people who make videos showing how they make crop circles have been paid to fake them (by the aliens who made the real ones).

Well, strange, I think you are talking about your favorite theory. The fact that observation collapses the wave function is rather obvious.

I think there are a few physicists that still share that view.

 

 

But that observation has nothing to do with humans looking at it (or looking at it and then dying).

Posted

regarding Randi - I have seen many of those vids where people have tried and failed to claim the $1M. Every time it seems he gets a team of specialists in the field to make sure the test is fair. I think he is great - to say "nobody can prove anything to him" is ridiculous - the reason they can't prove anything to him is because they are a bunch of charlatans and their 'special powers' are just parlour tricks and cons... if not, then why haven't they claimed the money? He is open to being shown evidence of these extraordinary things that people claim.... no-one has EVER proved their claims.... why is that? ANS: because they are full of crap.

Posted

No more responses to you, DrP. You waste my time by not even attempting to understand what I'm saying.

I said why Randi will keep his money. Argue with that or shut up.

Posted (edited)

The man ensures people are tested under strict scrutiny to ensure they can't cheat - the tests are clearly fair, the participants are clearly cheats or dolts - which can been seen easily by watching his show.

 

Sorry - I over reacted a bit there- stressy and at work.

Edited by DrP
Posted

Accepted. But my argument was about how belief played an important role. If disbelief by nearly all witnesses to an experiment plays a pert in manifesting the test outcome, then of course, the experiment will disprove a charlatan.

I agree with the fact that many things will not be proven but not because of charlatans.

Witness Luc Montagnier, who won a Nobel prize for his work in identifying the AIDS virus.

He found a way to send, in a radio signal, a homeopathic DNA strand, to another lab 300 kilometers away where the DNA strand reconstituted from simple gene components. Not a fool, not a charlatan.

Rather, a bit of a genius who thought he could work in such a controversial field because he had an iron clad reputation. But his work has been non-repeatable in most research labs around the world. It is easy to believe that he must be demented or confused, but

I know that disbelief by the consensus group prevented his proving his work, which always succeeded in his own lab and other connected labs.

I realize that this amounts to a major heretical claim by me, and I would never blame anyone for not believing me.

I do, however, wish to be respected as someone who just might be coming from knowledge. I don't think I appear foolish or unintelligent. I feel my intellect is adequate. I can back up what I say too, but never get the chance if it is preordained that I cannot breach the wall of disbelief that represents the very thing I'm talking about.

I keep saying it's a Catch-22.

I respect those I argue with too, since I myself was once in their (your) shoes. I know that only a very few of the population out there can even imagine what I'm talking about.

I say what I know to be true, and 90% of the time, I am attacked personally. Mocked and discounted without even being allowed to explain.

That make it a bit aggravating. But since I understand well why I am treated that way, I am not bothered too much. I need practice dealing with it. It helps me to write better, to explain better.

I have said so many times, this simple mantra: If one can imagine that reality is totally subjective, and also predetermined, and belief manifests reality (and disbelief does not), then it is possible that a representative of rank disbelief of, say, paranormal (so called) events, will not manifest any proof of those events.

That is it, in a nutshell. I could go on and explain how it all works, and make sense of what I just wrote.

I do use the quantum delayed choice as an example of what I'm saying, and when I do use that example, I don't usually add that subjective manifestation would always project the subconscious knowledge of each person, that is, the dynamic workings of consciousness itself, upon the objective world perceived.

In physics, this would mean that each of us would be projecting a physics that mirrored the inner dynamics of the mind.

In essence, our objective world would BE our subconscious itself. It would describe everything about the mind. It would be coded, as the subconscious is known to be. But it would be displayed "out there" to each, and modified as well where personal subjective symbology occurred.

This isn't easily described due to it's non0linear nature. you cannot "hook" a person's attention as you might normally do because its understanding requires a quantum leap in mental attention, a kind of juggling act that requires a more three-dimensional miode of perception.

Buddhist can think this way, world class chess player to an extent, and some who have had what is referred to as a 'Kundalini Awakening".

However, until I myself had that awakening experience, I was incapable of that mode of thought. I knew nothing of Buddhism at the time.

Did you know that Buddhists have unusual brain MRIs? Chess players too. And guess where chess originated. Northern India of all places.

But I'm not trying to prove anything about those bits of information. I just want to encourage people to imagine another paradigm. It requires a commitment of heavy thought, and a desire to know. Absolutely challenge me to prove this is all true. I can. I may be one of the few who you will ever meet who can explain it. Millions, I'm sure, have awakened to this knowledge, but are unable to elucidate it very well.

Once understood, it begins to prove itself right away. One begins to understand everything out there---- why "metaphysical things happen, how most conspiracies are only personal beliefs, why most everyone can't understand what's going on, and much more.

What hypnosis really is, and placeboes and miracles, Bigfoot, UFOs, virtually every last strange thing ever known. And more.

Nothing beyond perception is ultimately real in any empirical sense. It is useless to any true understanding of reality to look beyond your own mind, except to understand your subconscious knowledge through decoding your own objective symbology.

Posted (edited)

 

I say what I know to be true, and 90% of the time, I am attacked personally. Mocked and discounted without even being allowed to explain.

 

 

Attacks on ideas are not meant personally. There is a lot of stuff that you listed an each point could be addressed, but it would take a while. As it is a science site I think the protocol is to take each claim, like for example the discussion we had about prophetic dreaming, and address them one at a time. You explain your reasons for believing the way do, which is fine and right, but then others are entitled to pick apart the claims and ask questions and probe into any other possible explanations and ask for proof of any supporting claims made. It isn't personal. If there is no actual evidence provided for something that you believe, or that evidence is lacking, then you can surely expect challenges. As you can challenge anything anyone else has stated as a fact. They aren't mean't to insult you. If we miss something that you said that you think proves your point when asked for evidence, you can re-point us to the evidence with a short simple sentence.

 

No disrespect here - but any number of things from you last post #46 could be challenged, if asked for just one piece of evidence to support a particular claim then it needs to be backed up with a short sharp sentence and maybe a reference rather than an essay which bring in many other claims that in there own right need support with their own discussion.

 

 

Absolutely challenge me to prove this is all true. I can. I may be one of the few who you will ever meet who can explain it.

 

So with a statement like that one could respond by picking one of the claims from the list and asking for supporting evidence... without expecting you to be offended by the question or the request for evidence and then one should be free to critique that evidence if it is not clear or suspected to not be fully supported beyond word of mouth or opinion.

 

I won't do that here as the thread is about consciousness, but that I suppose is relevant to a lot of the discussions.

Edited by DrP
Posted

Is that genuine curiosity I am seeing? That is why I ask questions.

Yes, I can explain it. It isn't complicated enough to require links to be supplied. If you can't get it from me, you won't have any luck with information supplied by others.

Each time I have tried to explain this, something has happened. Also, it requires a commitment of involvement that I doubt you are willing to expend. Not just you, but most everyone here.

Most people believe that information can yield knowledge, but some innate knowledge requires something that isn't information. It requires realization, a thing that resonates or "rings" as true and can't be subjectively denied.

Anyone who is willing to learn this knowledge would be welcome to speak directly to me by PM. I would offer hours of involvement to that person, hours and days of my time.

But what I see are a lot of people who want quick snappy answers and easy links (God help them if I only spell out the source!).

You want to know it all in five minutes. Quick! Tell me about the nature of reality! Hurry, my cell phone is ringing!

Such is the nature of modern man. If it's not on a link, it doesn't exist.

Posted (edited)

I agree with the fact that many things will not be proven but not because of charlatans.

Witness Luc Montagnier, who won a Nobel prize for his work in identifying the AIDS virus.

He found a way to send, in a radio signal, a homeopathic DNA strand, to another lab 300 kilometers away where the DNA strand reconstituted from simple gene components. Not a fool, not a charlatan.

 

This Luc Montagnier, in the words of PZ Meyers:

 

There are a couple of other indicators that this is pathological science. They’re looking at a minuscule, variable result that is prone to be picking up all kinds of irrelevant signals, yet nowhere in the entire paper can I find the word “blind”. This is the kind of experiment that demands extreme rigor and care, yet the authors don’t even bother to describe the protocols used. That’s a warning sign.

...

They show off some very poor raw data and then rush off to dilute the experiment a trillion fold and claim to see the same signal. I found the first observation dubious, why are you showing me something even more unlikely?

...

Yet it’s an awful paper that I would have shredded in a sea of red ink if it had come to me. Who reviewed this, the author’s mother? Maybe someone even closer. Guess who the the chairman of the editorial board is: Luc Montagnier.

 

I have two other Nobel price winnners for you: Linus Pauling and Brian Josephson.

Edited by Eise
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