The Supernatural and Superstition

[cladking]

This thread is frustrating for me as well. I believe people are naturally superstitious and highly prone to adopting beliefs which prevent them from proper understanding and observation. The study of consciousness using language as the tool is not likely going to lead to much new knowledge. I don't believe we have any choice at this time but to consider it a given or a black box problem and to to accept that it is widespread in nature. Since we exist inside this black box there are certainly some insights to be gained directly.

 

Nature is exceedingly complicated even if most of her aspects appear extremely simple to us. It is simple superstition to suggest nothing exists beyond our knowledge and this belief is, has been, and (apparently) will remain the greatest weakness of mankind. It's ironic that this superstition appears to have arisen from the ruins of babel.

[Gees]

Your questions IMO become significantly simpler when viewed through the lens of neuroscience instead of through the lens of philosophy.

 

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

 

This thread is frustrating for me as well. I believe people are naturally superstitious and highly prone to adopting beliefs which prevent them from proper understanding and observation. The study of consciousness using language as the tool is not likely going to lead to much new knowledge. I don't believe we have any choice at this time but to consider it a given or a black box problem and to to accept that it is widespread in nature. Since we exist inside this black box there are certainly some insights to be gained directly.

 

Nature is exceedingly complicated even if most of her aspects appear extremely simple to us. It is simple superstition to suggest nothing exists beyond our knowledge and this belief is, has been, and (apparently) will remain the greatest weakness of mankind. It's ironic that this superstition appears to have arisen from the ruins of babel.

 

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

[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.

 

It's hardly your fault that I find this thread so frustrating; it's largely my inability to agree with your statements though I recognize a great deal of truth in them. These statements I'm in far closer agreement with which was what I was hoping by posting at all. Indeed, I'm in agreement with all this except I'd tend to use different words and in my experience "emotions" tend to be a vector sum total reaction to events.

 

In my opinion people believe what they want to believe and then their actions become a vector sum of their beliefs, knowledge, and learning. As we age we tend to become our beliefs and our lives reflect those beliefs. It is critical that young people understand the importance of the beliefs they adopt.

 

The knowledge gained by modern science is extremely important and should be learned to the extent an individual is able to learn it. Factual knowledge, logic, math, and science must underlie peoples' thinking but it's important to stop far short of "believing in science". In extreme cases this belief will close your eyes to what's going on around you. If you don't see a few astounding things and investigate something everyday then you might have a far too narrow focus. You might be missing the big picture. By the same token if you see everything in terms of religion or astrology then you are missing the bigger picture.

 

I'm not suggesting that there's a right or wrong way to live but I believe our understanding of science has been divorced from reality and from nature. We distill natural processes in the lab to study them or to turn them into technology but we never seem to reintegrate the knowledge or to add it to the metaphysics (here defined as the means of learning about nature through modern science). People not only become divorced from nature but they can become two dimensional. It's no better to adopt purely religious beliefs; or any beliefs at all. We have barely scratched the surface of what there is to know so saying that anything at all is "supernatural" is highly superstitious. Who are we to write rules for nature and define the "supernatural". Some things are much more easily explained than others. The ancients appear to have believed people have hundreds of senses. Where are they now? How did they accomplish their great feats with superstition and surpernatural abilities.

 

Nothing jives and I pin much of the problem on language. Wearing my finger to the bone rarely results in people understanding my point. It appears that it's the divorce from nature caused by language which is the cause of superstition and the belief in the supernatural or the belief in the impossibility of the supernatural. We use language for most thought and the structural grammar of language for most of the rest. Language can be deconstructed so meaning is usually lost. Most of us can think clearly enough because we've had 4000 years to repair the flaws and we would never have to ask ourselves something like "what do mean by "metaphysics"?". We don't trip over our own words or phraseology... ...we trip over everyone else's and pick up strange beliefs.

[Gees]

It's hardly your fault that I find this thread so frustrating; it's largely my inability to agree with your statements though I recognize a great deal of truth in them.

 

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.

 

Indeed, I'm in agreement with all this except I'd tend to use different words and in my experience "emotions" tend to be a vector sum total reaction to events.

 

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.

 

In my opinion people believe what they want to believe and then their actions become a vector sum of their beliefs, knowledge, and learning.

 

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.

 

We have barely scratched the surface of what there is to know so saying that anything at all is "supernatural" is highly superstitious. Who are we to write rules for nature and define the "supernatural".

 

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.

 

The ancients appear to have believed people have hundreds of senses. Where are they now? How did they accomplish their great feats with superstition and surpernatural abilities.

 

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.

 

Nothing jives and I pin much of the problem on language.

 

I don't agree with you here. But I am getting tired, so I will look at this tomorrow.

 

G

[cladking]

 

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 believe the ancients were far less superstitious than we modern people (I can show this but it puts people off). Frankly, I suspect they were much more sensitive to stimuli than we are and the concept that there were hundreds of senses were just a compilation of reports from numerous individuals. Since they tended to be less superstitious it's likely that at least some of these senses actually exist. This is a pretty perilous area to talk about if you want to be taken seriously (which I do) but there really appear to be some things that we are missing. For instance both secondary maxillary molars seems to be highly sensitive to water pressure and will provide a sense of drowning. Hands are sensitive to infrared radiation if it's strong. There are several others at least but I probably won't list them. I seriously doubt that the "supernatural" exists however nature is so complex that perhaps nothing at all can really be excluded. No, I'm not about to go out looking for ghosts or UFO's but there's no reason to believe that such things are totally impossible. These are things that are probably best suited to study when nature is much better understood or by someone other than myself.

 

One thing about nature is that communication is extremely important. Communication can be exquisitely subtle. The cause of ideas to arise in the mind are often inexplicable. Usually when I investigate what appears to be transmission of thoughts I can find a simpler (more natural) explanation but investigations don't always turn up any sort of answer at all. Who knows? Until someone can consistently show results or invent a replicable experiment we're just left with questions and doubts.

[Gees]

I believe the ancients were far less superstitious than we modern people (I can show this but it puts people off). Frankly, I suspect they were much more sensitive to stimuli than we are and the concept that there were hundreds of senses were just a compilation of reports from numerous individuals. Since they tended to be less superstitious it's likely that at least some of these senses actually exist.

 

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.

 

No, I'm not about to go out looking for ghosts or UFO's but there's no reason to believe that such things are totally impossible.

 

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.

 

I'm not suggesting that there's a right or wrong way to live but I believe our understanding of science has been divorced from reality and from nature. People not only become divorced from nature but they can become two dimensional.

 

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]

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.

 

I don't believe that Philosophy's shooting itself in the foot (if it can even be shown there is a foot in the shoe) is the cause of the modern breaking down of society. This was caused by the intellectualization of Freud's dalience with his sister in law in 1899 eventually resulting in Token and Taboo which was misunderstood to posit a "subconscious" mind. This belief has proven exceedingly pernicious in its ability to undermine peoples' understanding of right and wrong, natural and unnatural. Since we no longer hold ourselves or others responsible for their actions (much less the results) then all behaviors become equal. Children can't know right from wrong and schools have stopped trying to teach them and in the process find they can't teach anything else either. Children aren't held accountable and don't learn as the school boards get big raises instead of being run out of town on a rail.

 

The failure of philosophy has made ideas like a subconscious possible. But where the rubber meets the road as society it is the acceptance and confusion of Freud's ideas that has led to the rootlessness and lack of philosophical underpinning in society.

 

We need far more emphasis on metaphysics and more individuals working on applied science (more work goes into inventing science fiction than applied science), and yes we need some sort of viable philosophy or at least the widespread ability to distinguish philosophy from claptrap.

[BrightQuark]

If we ever captured a Unicorn, I guess we'd have to rethink sicence, or at least a part of the fossil record!.

 

What sometimes interests me, is why do unicorms exist at all, even in the imagination, it's not the unicorn, specifically, but anything like it, and if it exists in the imagination, does it in some sense exist.

 

I think that this division between the abstract and the real is very complicated, and in some sense, that everything that has been thought of, does in fact exist, but obviously we distinguish. If we were to go back several hundred years, and enter the mind of somebody from the 15th century, to them, a great deal out there that we disccount as superstition would be very real to them, we'd discount it as backward and even comical, but I wonder how much of every day reality, or what we call reality as we see it today, will be subject to a similar viewpoint, hundreds of years from now. In many ways, we're always trapped inside our own age.

 

I suppose we'd say, none of it, since the scientific revolution, circa 1543 or so, we'd probalby argue that everything will be traceable back to our shift in thinking, and that will remain unbroken.

 

Of course, they'll always be cranks!

Edited June 28, 2013 by BrightQuark

[cladking]

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.

 

I wonder if some people are so willfull that they can set things in motion before death and others are so sensitive that they percieve the mechanism for it. They percieve it as "ghosts".

 

 

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.

 

Any alien with the technology to visit earth would have the ability to remain hidden and avoid leaving evidence. Lack of solid evidence for aliens might mean they've never visited (long distance space travel is impossible at least so far) or it might mean that they don't want to be known. There is various evidence of aliens in history but none of it is convincing and there are those who would fake it to confound the issue.

 

I think "consciousness" is misunderstood. Consciousness is simply an organism's perception of its existence. All multi-celled animals have consciousness and even single celled animals and plants can distinguish some things like air and water. It's an exceedingly low level of consciousness but they are not inert like a stone or a cloud. It is human conceit that holds human cities as evidence of intelligence and termite cities as mere happenstance or the result of trial and error. A beaver transforms its enviroment for its own purposes and for its offspring.

 

 

Ancient people did know about germs and the like but the source of this knowledge and the means by which it was discovered was lost. People are too put off by how I've rediscovered many of these things but and the implications of this to support it, but suffice to say that they observed the cloud of droplettes expelled in a sneeze and noted that people who inhaled in this cloud became sick. Today we are so superstitious that we actually hold a hankerchief in front of our noses and disperse this cloud over an even greater space increasing the spread of contagion. Ancient man knew to blow their sneezes toward the ground so they'd quickly be harmless. When the means of acquiring and transmitting knowledge imploded religion, superstition, and dark ages ensued. We are so divorced from nature that most children don't even know that humans are animals! Many people can't accept the idea that animals are conscious and people don't understand that it isn't intelligence that distinguishes humans from animals but it is language. It is language and its advancements which have driven all human progress since even before the failure of the ancient language. It was writing that drove progress 5000 years ago and the printing press that ushered in the modern age. It was the telephone and radio that drove the changes of the 20th century and now the internet will change it again. Computer language will lead indirectly to machine intelligence. Humans haven't made these inventions and discoveries, individuals have. And each of these individuals stood on the shoulders of those who came before by means of complex language. None of this means humans are more "intelligent" or "conscious" than other species with which we have come to compete for control of resources and sapace. We are simply more successful due primarily to language which resulted from some chance mutation.

 

We picked up some strange beliefs because we lost sight of nature and the nature of science and religion, etc, etc. We overestimate our knowledge and tend to underestimate the complexity of nature. If we lose sight of the fundamental definitions of science then we lose sight of the results of science which also allows us to mistake the comfort from technology as a sign of intelligence and omniscience. Meanwhile philosophy has fragmented and spends its time in circular arguments and semantics largely because even philosophical arguments can be deconstructed. So long as words aren't defined and their meanings are modified by surrounding words it becomes impossible to construct arguments that apply to everyone all the time. Philosophy and nature need to be almost synonyms. I believe they once were.

 

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.

 

Religion is an attempt to preserve the ancient metaphysics. The Bible was an attempt to preserve the most ancient writings which were crumbling. By the time the Bible was written very few understood the situation. The Bible is largely literally true but confounded by the confusion of language, misinterpretation, and mistranslation. There's a great deal of information in the Bible but much of it will never be able to be extracted.

 

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?

 

I don't know. I don't think so. Certainly there is some overlap between senses and sensations and anyone who believes he has hundreds of senses must not be using the term exactly as we are. But remember there are other "senses" in nature as well as abilities for which we don't know the mechanism. Some people rarely if ever get lost and will tell you that they "follow their nose". Some people seem to have an uncanny ability to "smell" garage sales or antique shops. There are blind people who can navigate by echo location. If someone is counting hundreds of senses then in all probability some things such as this must be getting included.

[Moontanman]

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.

So only humans have consciousness?

 

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?

 

Please show some support for these assertions I have underlined.

 

 

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.

Circular thinking? ONLY KNOWN THINGS CAN BE REAL? Who suggested that? I suggested that in the face of lack of empirical the default position is what ever you are asserting does not exist. many things once thought to be supernatural have fallen into reality because they had observable effects and those effects can be tested empirically.

 

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.

No, this is a false assertion, now you are just spinning tales out of horse feathers, please explain how any of this has anything to do with the SUPERNATURAL...

 

[Gees]

I don't believe that Philosophy's shooting itself in the foot (if it can even be shown there is a foot in the shoe) is the cause of the modern breaking down of society. This was caused by the intellectualization of Freud's dalience with his sister in law in 1899 eventually resulting in Token and Taboo which was misunderstood to posit a "subconscious" mind. This belief has proven exceedingly pernicious in its ability to undermine peoples' understanding of right and wrong, natural and unnatural.

 

The failure of philosophy has made ideas like a subconscious possible. But where the rubber meets the road as society it is the acceptance and confusion of Freud's ideas that has led to the rootlessness and lack of philosophical underpinning in society.

 

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

[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.

 

 

I have seen claims that the subconscious had been previously proposed. Obviously there are events in the mind/ brain that are beneath or outside of consciousness and these certainly would have been noted previously but I'm aware of no previous proposal that there was a coherent sub-mind or coherent parts of the mind.

[Gees]

If we ever captured a Unicorn, I guess we'd have to rethink sicence, or at least a part of the fossil record!.

 

What sometimes interests me, is why do unicorms exist at all, even in the imagination, it's not the unicorn, specifically, but anything like it, and if it exists in the imagination, does it in some sense exist.

 

I think that this division between the abstract and the real is very complicated, and in some sense, that everything that has been thought of, does in fact exist, but obviously we distinguish. If we were to go back several hundred years, and enter the mind of somebody from the 15th century, to them, a great deal out there that we disccount as superstition would be very real to them, we'd discount it as backward and even comical, but I wonder how much of every day reality, or what we call reality as we see it today, will be subject to a similar viewpoint, hundreds of years from now. In many ways, we're always trapped inside our own age.

 

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

 

So only humans have consciousness?

 

You also see the flaw in this thinking. It doesn't make sense, does it? We did not get consciousness from Aliens. (chuckle)

 

Please show some support for these assertions I have underlined.

 

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.

 

Circular thinking? ONLY KNOWN THINGS CAN BE REAL? Who suggested that? I suggested that in the face of lack of empirical the default position is what ever you are asserting does not exist. many things once thought to be supernatural have fallen into reality because they had observable effects and those effects can be tested empirically.

 

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.

 

No, this is a false assertion, now you are just spinning tales out of horse feathers, please explain how any of this has anything to do with the SUPERNATURAL...

 

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

[Moontanman]

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

 

 

So... "you don't understand" means it's supernatural? And i asked for a citation, not a idea of where I should go to verify your assertions, if it says what you claim in the bible then cite chapter and verse, i assure you I am quite capable of looking things up in the bible, but you made the assertion i asked you to show it to me. I say prove it, I am unaware of any passage in the places you suggested that say anything about that.

[Gees]

I have seen claims that the subconscious had been previously proposed. Obviously there are events in the mind/ brain that are beneath or outside of consciousness and these certainly would have been noted previously but I'm aware of no previous proposal that there was a coherent sub-mind or coherent parts of the mind.

 

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/

 

5. Neuroses and The Structure of the Mind

 

Freud’s account of the unconscious, and the psychoanalytic therapy associated with it, is best illustrated by his famous tripartite model of the structure of the mind or personality (although, as we have seen, he did not formulate this until 1923). This model has many points of similarity with the account of the mind offered by Plato over 2,000 years earlier.

 

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]

Gees,

 

I don't think we've advanced very far in terms of understanding consciousness.

 

Our most powerful computers aren't really "intelligent" in the way that many of us tend to understand human insight and intelligence.

 

It seems that SF has somehow popularised this idea of a computer that will - one day in the distant future perhaps - miraculously go "self-aware" at a previously derived or random point of complexity.

 

The problem for me, personally, with all this... is that it assumes that "consciousness" can be designed from the ground up, and perhaps it can, but everythng I've read and listened to, to date, suggests that this may not be the case.

 

We can't even define consciousness. .

 

Re the Science Forum... I think you're probably being too ambitious, attempting to muddle together disparate and often contradictory subjects, and then proceeding to ask a randomly selected bunch of people, the posters in here, to somehow tie it all up together!

 

That's unlikely to unlock the riddles of consciousness. We need to learn more about what "consciousness" actually is.

 

It doesn't really matter whether people believe in the paranormal or not, because clearly they're not very interested in it around here, or even qualified to answer your questions... if that's a better way of putting it?

Edited June 29, 2013 by BrightQuark

[Gees]

I wonder if some people are so willfull that they can set things in motion before death and others are so sensitive that they percieve the mechanism for it. They percieve it as "ghosts".

 

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.

 

It is human conceit that holds human cities as evidence of intelligence and termite cities as mere happenstance or the result of trial and error. A beaver transforms its enviroment for its own purposes and for its offspring.

 

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.

 

Many people can't accept the idea that animals are conscious and people don't understand that it isn't intelligence that distinguishes humans from animals but it is language. It is language and its advancements which have driven all human progress since even before the failure of the ancient language. It was writing that drove progress 5000 years ago and the printing press that ushered in the modern age. It was the telephone and radio that drove the changes of the 20th century and now the internet will change it again. Computer language will lead indirectly to machine intelligence.

 

Well, I agree with most of this, but other species also have language. We just don't know what they are saying.

 

Religion is an attempt to preserve the ancient metaphysics. The Bible was an attempt to preserve the most ancient writings which were crumbling. By the time the Bible was written very few understood the situation. The Bible is largely literally true but confounded by the confusion of language, misinterpretation, and mistranslation. There's a great deal of information in the Bible but much of it will never be able to be extracted.

 

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.

 

I don't know. I don't think so. Certainly there is some overlap between senses and sensations and anyone who believes he has hundreds of senses must not be using the term exactly as we are. But remember there are other "senses" in nature as well as abilities for which we don't know the mechanism. Some people rarely if ever get lost and will tell you that they "follow their nose". Some people seem to have an uncanny ability to "smell" garage sales or antique shops. There are blind people who can navigate by echo location. If someone is counting hundreds of senses then in all probability some things such as this must be getting included.

 

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

[cladking]

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.

 

 

There are several things I intend to respond to but these are more immediate (and more fun).

 

Perhaps you're right that anyone counting 317 senses must even be including things like a sense of humor. I tend to think of things directed more outward and away from human concerns like a "sense of time" or the ability estimate distances and spatial capacities. But, yes, the ability to "know" when a friend needs help or how to tell a joke right may also be included. The ability to do magic is a wondrous thing in itself because you have to be able to direct the audience's attention much like a comedian. I doubt most magicians even know how they do it and it's mostly learned behavior.

 

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.

 

 

If my understanding of ancient people is correct (it is by the by) they were very very down to earth. They were very much a part of nature and their language was the metaphysics of their understanding. Because of this they were very much "all on the same page". There was little variation in beliefs and a very great deal of introspection of the mental and physical body. They were a part of nature. People simply drifted to the tasks most suited to them. Each viewed the big picture which was humanity and was extremely productive. Even the skeletal remains of Egyptian nobles frequently have the telltale signs of hard work proving either the ability to advance or that hard work was a societal norm, probably both.

 

 

 

Human language is far more complex than animal languages. Of course there is evidence of fairly complicated language from elephants, to whales, to crows but it seems improbable that any can express so wide an array of concepts as human language. Here's a pretty interesting one;

 

http://www.treehugger.com/natural-sciences/researcher-decodes-praire-dog-language-discovers-theyve-been-calling-people-fat.html

 

Well, I agree with most of this, but other species also have language. We just don't know what they are saying.

 

I'd guess that all animal languages express metaphysics and this is why we don't understand them.

 

To date it seems easier to teach animals human languages than for us to learn their's.

Edited June 30, 2013 by cladking

[Gees]

Gees,

 

I don't think we've advanced very far in terms of understanding consciousness.

 

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.

 

Our most powerful computers aren't really "intelligent" in the way that many of us tend to understand human insight and intelligence.

It seems that SF has somehow popularised this idea of a computer that will - one day in the distant future perhaps - miraculously go "self-aware" at a previously derived or random point of complexity.

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)

 

The problem for me, personally, with all this... is that it assumes that "consciousness" can be designed from the ground up, and perhaps it can, but everything I've read and listened to, to date, suggests that this may not be the case.

 

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.

 

We can't even define consciousness. .

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.

 

Re the Science Forum... I think you're probably being too ambitious, attempting to muddle together disparate and often contradictory subjects, and then proceeding to ask a randomly selected bunch of people, the posters in here, to somehow tie it all up together!

That would be ambitious. I just want people to think about it and question possibilities.

 

That's unlikely to unlock the riddles of consciousness. We need to learn more about what "consciousness" actually is.

Agreed. But a question that is not asked, will not be answered.

 

It doesn't really matter whether people believe in the paranormal or not, because clearly they're not very interested in it around here, or even qualified to answer your questions... if that's a better way of putting it?

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

Edited July 2, 2013 by Gees

[cladking]

 

 

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.

 

 

 

Excellent.

 

Water and light make rainbows; consciousness and light make ideas.

 

Mebbe you can create a whole new math.

[tar]

Gees,

 

Interesting stories, but "connections" that you talk about, are subjective things. You "imagine" a thing, it turns out to be true, and you therefore claim a connection of "supernatural" kind. You have not told us, of every other time you imagined something and it turned out not to be true.

 

Every once in a while, my "Deer alarm" goes off, before I see a deer. Many times I have seen a deer soon after my deer alarm goes off, and since weeks or months have gone by without my deer alarm going off, and I have memory of a number of occasions where my deer alarm went off and I soon saw a deer, I still think I have a deer alarm, and should honor it, when it goes off.

However, it is more a game or imaginary power, then an actual power. A couple of days ago, my deer alarm went off, and I told my wife, who was passenger in the car. No deer appeared. What would you suppose, that they were hiding in the bushes and failed to jump out? Or would you surmise that my deer alarm is something I made up, on the basis of a few "pigeon" type false rewards? I would guess the latter is more likely the case. I more often see a deer, without any prior inkling, than I see a deer with my alarm going off prior to the sighting. Any correlation between the alarm going off, and the actual sighting of a deer, probably has more to do with subconscious or unconsious clues I may have picked up, the time of day, the knowledge of the area surrounding the road, the habits of deer to be on the move around dusk, and so on. Perhaps even I smell the deer, or smell something a deer would run toward or away from. In anycase, it seems more reasonable to look for a "rational" explanation, than to imagine supernatural forces are at work. Bottom line...my deer alarm is not an indication that the supernatural is something outside my mind, waiting to be discovered, but a figment of my own imagination.

 

And Gees, I have a few bones to pick with you. One, humans do not have instincts. We have a whole assortment of common reflexive behaviors, but no complex, species-wide behaviors that are exibited by every member of the species. At least that is what I learned in 12th grade psychology. And my "ideas" of the ID, ego and Superego of Freud go more like this...the SuperEgo is the rules you go by, primarily societally or family or socially instilled, the Id is the basic "animal" drives and needs for food and sex and pleasure and safety and such, and the Ego is the arbiture, the go between, that makes the situation work. (or at least tries).

 

My wife and daughter were watching the "Mad Medium of Long Island" (I made up the name) last night. I have never watched the show. Already know it has to be garbage. They seem to believe it is real, as I asked my wife if she thought there was anything to it, and she suprisingly answered in the affirmative. I walked away saying "no, I meant, it doesn't have any scientific basis".

 

Within the domain of discourse "objectively" agreed upon to be "reality", the "supernatural" is out of bounds.

Its only "objective" existence is in human imagination.

 

Regards, TAR2

Edited July 3, 2013 by tar

[Gees]

Mebbe you can create a whole new math.

 

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.

 

[Moontanman]

Gees, this is the third time I've asked for some support for these assertions, you made the claim now you need to back it up. Simply stating something to be true is not enough, either show the specific scripture or withdraw the assertion...

 

Quote

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?

Please show some support for these assertions I have underlined.

Edited July 3, 2013 by Moontanman

[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.

 

 

 

 

Actually I find your ideas intruiging even where they aren't always convincing. It's quite apparent you've put a lot of thought into these things and I can't come along and dismiss them very readily. There's no reason to dismiss any idea that is founded in logic.

 

I do disagree that Plato's division of the soul is in any way similar to Freud's or at least common interpretation of Freud. Plato was seeking to divide the mind theoretically and examine its parts where the common understanding of Freud's work is that there exist three warped caricatures of an individual beneath his consciousness which comprise him. This belief has led to a world where people aren't responsible for their outcomes or even their actions. In some strange perverted way though they are responsible for their beliefs and all beliefs are equally valid. So we had tens of millions of murders for convenience in the 20th century which started just about the same time that Freud published.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plato's_tripartite_theory_of_soul

 

If there were actually such a thing as a subconscious we would still need to deny its existence. But, of course, one can't show it doesn't really exist any more than one can prove God doesn't exist. We experience both. We are a product of our time and place so people believe in a subconscious that drives and excuses their behavior and the behavior of those around them. We promote those who ruin companies and even hail them as "turn around specialists". We vote for politicians even though they have failed utterly in the past. Where beliefs should be irrelevant and outcomes the only thing of importance instead we are judged by intentions rather than what we do. So long as we are PC it doesn't matter what mayhem surrounds us.

 

I like your water analogies and suspect they could be extended. I've seen similar phenomena in accelerations and believe it to be primarily coincidence but quite possibly it is related to something fundamental or structural since we are primarily water and there even seems to be a microbe at the root of the brain if not consciousness itself. Both ancient and modern languages have a tendency to flow like water and grammar imposes the same sort of restrictions as water finds in a container. Perhaps it's little beyond a linguistic coincidence but it's still extremely interesting. I'm sure I don't know why what you've observed exists.

 

As a pragmatist i have a strong tendency to take consciousness as a given, perhaps the only given and see little reason not to assume it's widespread through nature. Supposing that termites invented cities through trial and error or that man made pyramids through trial and error is, to me, as absurd as supposing we invented our ability to go to the moon by trial and error. All advancement requires thought whether one is a man or a mouse. No advancement is possible until theory is established.

One, humans do not have instincts. We have a whole assortment of common reflexive behaviors, but no complex, species-wide behaviors that are exibited by every member of the species. At least that is what I learned in 12th grade psychology.

 

They told me the same thing but it's not true. Indeed, most of what we were taught is either untrue or only partially true.

 

We all have instincts but most of them have little value in day to day life. Even where they would be useful most individuals will wholly suppress them and proceed with learning and knowledge instead. Many individuals, especially women, can go almost a lifetime without exhibiting any instinctual behavior. Most humans spend most of their time in human situations where instincts would be inappropriate or less adaptive to their situations. We suppress them through upbringing and through learning, but they still exist.

[Gees]

Gees,

 

Interesting stories, but "connections" that you talk about, are subjective things.

 

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.

 

You "imagine" a thing, it turns out to be true, and you therefore claim a connection of "supernatural" kind. You have not told us, of every other time you imagined something and it turned out not to be true.

 

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.

 

However, it is more a game or imaginary power, then an actual power.

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.

 

Any correlation between the alarm going off, and the actual sighting of a deer, probably has more to do with subconscious or unconsious clues I may have picked up, the time of day, the knowledge of the area surrounding the road, the habits of deer to be on the move around dusk, and so on. Perhaps even I smell the deer, or smell something a deer would run toward or away from. In anycase, it seems more reasonable to look for a "rational" explanation, than to imagine supernatural forces are at work. Bottom line...my deer alarm is not an indication that the supernatural is something outside my mind, waiting to be discovered, but a figment of my own imagination.

 

I agree that this is probably the correct explanation for this event.

 

And Gees, I have a few bones to pick with you. One, humans do not have instincts. We have a whole assortment of common reflexive behaviors, but no complex, species-wide behaviors that are exibited by every member of the species. At least that is what I learned in 12th grade psychology.

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.

 

And my "ideas" of the ID, ego and Superego of Freud go more like this...the SuperEgo is the rules you go by, primarily societally or family or socially instilled, the Id is the basic "animal" drives and needs for food and sex and pleasure and safety and such, and the Ego is the arbiture, the go between, that makes the situation work. (or at least tries).

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.

 

My wife and daughter were watching the "Mad Medium of Long Island" (I made up the name) last night. I have never watched the show. Already know it has to be garbage. They seem to believe it is real, as I asked my wife if she thought there was anything to it, and she suprisingly answered in the affirmative. I walked away saying "no, I meant, it doesn't have any scientific basis".

 

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.

 

Within the domain of discourse "objectively" agreed upon to be "reality", the "supernatural" is out of bounds. Its only "objective" existence is in human imagination.

 

Nice assertion. Can you prove it?

 

G