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Goodbye Jesus

Reductionism And Materialism Are Not Scientific Givens


Open_Minded

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I'm really busy today and will jump into this discussion as time permits. But in the meantime, here comes the Red-Letter Moderator voice:

 

This is the Colosseum where discussions are to be conducted civilly, as per the posted Forum Rules. Swearing at each other is not allowed. I would ask that any participant make every effort at polite discourse in here, no matter how wrong they may think the others points of view are.

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However those who argue that reductionism is incomplete are in a definite minority, oftentimes a beleaguered minority.

It may be a "beleaguered minority" among scientists, but the general population remains neck deep in magical thinking. The current "paradigm shift" so longed for seems to have made no progress since the idea was popularized more than 40 years ago with the "Dawning of the Age of Aquarius." Still, many see the shift just over the horizon, ready to blossom as soon as those with reality blinders go away.

 

Criticizing reductionism seems an attempt to infuse life with some higher purpose, or mystical, supernatural aspect. It is a standard approach or those who are anti-science, though others may sincerely do so without that agenda.

 

I wonder how many decades of study it will take to finally confirm or debunk paranormal/supernatural claims to everyone's satisfaction.

 

The GLOBAL CONSCIOUSNESS PROJECT hopes to show the existence of an interconnected global consciousness and has been ongoing for several years, despite being DEBUNKED by various people. Several studies have been conducted over the years regarding the effects of prayer, with inconclusive results. In some cases the people prayed for actually did somewhat worse than the control group PRAYER STUDIES.

 

I also wonder why it is that all the exciting new discoveries that "prove" magical, mystical, supernatural phenomena break the big news on George Noory's show or "The Journal of Booga Booga" or "Homeopathic Crystal Power News" or "Alternative Lizard Healing Monthly" rather than a legitimate scientific publication. I wonder why the results of those breakthrough experiments can't be replicated by anyone else, or at least accomplished in front of an impartial panel of qualified professionals.

 

Many people (probably most) happily entertain the notion that there is a realm or dimension that truly exists but is impervious to examination by the mere mortal mind. They argue about the specifics of that "transcendental" area, since they only have their vague notions to go by and everybody makes up something different. This dimension may be comprised of angels, demons, gods, spirits, souls, or a universal consciousness. It's a realm where quantum physics finally proves the ancient mystics were right all along. It's a place where we live forever. Why people came up with this idea in the first place is one of the true mysteries of life for me. The idea that something greater exists beyond our grasp and understanding is an alluring idea, but there is no evidence. Feeling that it's true doesn't make it so. Dreams or hallucinations are not evidence. Personal experience is not evidence (example - alien abduction or demonic experience during sleep paralysis). Results that can be replicated by other researchers are evidence - but it never seems to happen when confirmation bias is lacking. The spirits don't appear if an unbeliever is present. God heals only if it is His will. Apparently incorrect psychic predictions and premonitions were misinterpreted by human error. Sometimes the Tarot gets the timeline out of order. You must believe and have faith so God can reward you. Prayer changes things. Sometimes God says no.

 

But, we don't know what happens to consciousness once the "lights go out".

We don't? That's an odd statement. You're either conscious or not. What's the mystery? Do you imagine an unconscious mind is still conscious somewhere else? If so, why? Would you propose that a burned out light bulb still glows in some other dimension?

 

Would somebody please take Randi's million dollars? I'd like to believe the improbable too!

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BTW, in the mean time until time permits, I did find this quote that I read this morning from the study report to be of interest to me:

Skeptics of prayer are plentiful, of course, and skepticism should be encouraged in any area of science. However, skepticism can shade into a type of dogmatic materialism that excludes intercessory prayer in principle,
as when Newton's colleagues condemned universal gravity as occult nonsense without weighing the evidence
(Mills, 1996). Both true believers and committed disbelievers in intercessory prayer might heed the view of mathematical physicist and philosopher Alfred North Whitehead, who co-authored Principia Mathematica with Bertrand Russell (Whitehead, 1948):

 

The Universe is vast. Nothing is more curious than the self-satisfied dogmatism with which mankind
at each period of its history cherishes the delusion of the finality of its existing modes of knowledge
. Sceptics and believers are all alike. At this moment scientists and sceptics are the leading dogmatists. Advance in detail is admitted: fundamental novelty is barred. This dogmatic common sense is the death of philosophical adventure. The Universe is vast.

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I actually think it IS possible to assert conclusively that the brain is the storehouse of the mind. I think that if one believes that the brain is some sort of "receiver", they haven't thought the whole thing through. I used to not have a good answer to this, but now I have a couple. First the argumentative: What if there is some sort of external source of our true nature? Why would you assume that even a perfectly functioning brain displays even a trace of this "true self"? It's been shown that parts of the brain control things like empathy, judgment, and even fairness-- an electrical signal sent by electrodes to that part of the brain that deals with fairness actually disables it, making the person unable to choose NOT to cheat someone out of even a small amount of profit. That said, one's external "true self" can be altered by healthy brain chemistry. Your true self could be a tyrant, bent on universal domination, but the physical form they currently inhabit or interact with, prevents them from acting according to their nature.

 

That argument aside, people seem not to know that energy cannot be stored outside of a physical medium. At least, I've never heard of such a thing happening. If it's not in a physical medium, it's in transit, and it's reconfiguring itself constantly. It's also changing states as well (electrical, radio, light, radiation, etc.). So the idea that the consciousness can exist independently of a brain (and a physical body) would seem to be defeated by that fact. Of course, my science could be wonky on this issue, but it makes sense to me. If I am inaccurate on that, please tell me.

That was maybe a wrong analogy to use, but I couldn't think of another one. I believe it would be more like probabilities in a sea of consciousness. Our brains are constantly receiving input and we decide which input to relate to. If there is something wrong with the brain, the information isn't so easily received from the field. I don't think anyone could say that the brain functions in a vacuum.

 

I'm not doing too well, so I'll bring in David Bohm for, hopefully, a better explanation.

 

Bohm believes that life and consciousness are enfolded deep in the generative order and are therefore present in varying degrees of unfoldment in all matter, including supposedly "inanimate" matter such as electrons or plasmas. He suggests that there is a "protointelligence" in matter, so that new evolutionary developments do not emerge in a random fashion but creatively as relatively integrated wholes from implicate levels of reality. The mystical connotations of Bohm's ideas are underlined by his remark that the implicate domain "could equally well be called Idealism, Spirit, Consciousness. The separation of the two -- matter and spirit -- is an abstraction. The ground is always one." (Quoted in Michael Talbot, The Holographic Universe, HarperCollins, New York, 1991, p. 271.)
David Bohm and the Implicate Order by David Pratt

 

So, one doesn't function without the other.

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Criticizing reductionism seems an attempt to infuse life with some higher purpose, or mystical, supernatural aspect. It is a standard approach or those who are anti-science, though others may sincerely do so without that agenda.

I think it’s important to emphasize your exception Chris. I know skeptical, rigorous thinkers (philosophers and scientists) who seriously doubt that reductionism will resolve the mysteries of life and mind. And lest anyone say that life or mind are not mysteries, then I would simply ask... What are you doing here at ex-C? I think if you understand life and mind then you need to be elsewhere, busy trying to explain to them to the rest of us.

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I have to admit that I also agree with the good doctor. Destroy the brain and destroy the mind. This is not to say that brain is equal to mind. But I think there can be little doubt that the brain is the organ of thought.

I'm maintaining a view of neither dualism, nor monism, but more like a symbiotic monism.

 

(Oh, I just saw NBBTB posting the same idea.)

 

I think the problem is to see the mind as a thing. It's not. It's a process. It's alive in the sense that it never stops, unless for a temporary hibernation. It moves. It reacts. It changes. On top of the mechanics. But then the mechanics also change, and even change according to the mind, adjusting and adapting. The two become one, because they are one. Just two different viewpoints of the same.

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I have to admit that I also agree with the good doctor. Destroy the brain and destroy the mind. This is not to say that brain is equal to mind. But I think there can be little doubt that the brain is the organ of thought.

I'm maintaining a view of neither dualism, nor monism, but more like a symbiotic monism.

 

(Oh, I just saw NBBTB posting the same idea.)

 

I think the problem is to see the mind as a thing. It's not. It's a process. It's alive in the sense that it never stops, unless for a temporary hibernation. It moves. It reacts. It changes. On top of the mechanics. But then the mechanics also change, and even change according to the mind, adjusting and adapting. The two become one, because they are one. Just two different viewpoints of the same.

Sync! Oh, that's not the expression is it? Oh well, it works! :D

 

I wish I had other people's power of explanation. You make much more sense than I do!! :)

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Welcome back to the forums, OM! It's good to see you again! This was a fascinating article, but isn't this article just more evidence of the power of the placebo effect rather than proof of prayer or the soul and that prayer is just currently the most effective method of placebos? Like I've read other articles where they showed Christians who prayed or saw Christian imagery could feel less pain than if they didn't but it was possible for atheists to do the same thing and this had more to do with placebos than anything supernatural. Dawkins also covered placebos in his Enemies Of Reason documentary and he was talking about how placebos are more effective when you believe there's something magical behind them than when you know that they're just placebos, which is why alternative medicine like homoepathy can have better placebos than mainstream medical doctors because the people believe there's something to it and they don't know it's just a placebo. Also, as a Catholic friend of mine once pointed out, even if prayer was somehow proved to work, it wouldn't prove the existence of God or anything else. It would only prove that prayer works which is something everyone seems to forget in these debates.

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I know skeptical, rigorous thinkers (philosophers and scientists) who seriously doubt that reductionism will resolve the mysteries of life and mind.

Argument from authority? Please.

 

It seems to me there will likely always be mysteries and unknowns. Positing supernatural or paranormal answers that consistently remain unproven doesn't further the cause. My point is that claims of the "mystical" variety currently wrapped in scientific looking garb are no better than the musings of the ancient shamans. Thousands of years of inquiry and still no evidence, scientific or otherwise.

 

Are there intelligent, unseen forces at work shaping our reality? There's no way to know since we define them as unreachable by scientific inquiry. All we know is life is pretty much the same with or without those beliefs. If something such as the idea that prayer really works were true, it would be so obvious to everyone there would be no need for discussion. Is there a universal mind? If so, then mind reading should be fairly commonplace. If the collective conscious affected reality, there would be peace in the world and hunger wouldn't be rampant in so many areas. Large numbers of people have earnestly and consistently prayed, visualized and hoped for such things for hundreds of years.

 

I just get tired and frustrated with the endless rehash of experiments to prove this or that phenomenon. It's like some moron experimenting for decades to prove bowling balls are lighter than air. They're just not, so let's move on.

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I know skeptical, rigorous thinkers (philosophers and scientists) who seriously doubt that reductionism will resolve the mysteries of life and mind.

Argument from authority? Please.

I’m not arguing from authority Chris. Come on man. I was addressing your point that there are heavy weight thinkers who doubt the effectiveness of reductionist approaches to understanding life and mind. And these guys aren’t trying to infuse reality with some magical mystical “stuff”.

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And these guys aren’t trying to infuse reality with some magical mystery “stuff”.

I'm so glad I did note the exceptions! Sorry, I was just being a smart ass with the argument from authority thing. I know what you meant. Feel free to poke me back!

 

Scientists (real scientists) with that view don't use the spiritual terminology. So what is it if not metaphysical?

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Sync! Oh, that's not the expression is it? Oh well, it works! :D

Which one? "Sync" or "symbiotic monism"? :) I have heard a term for an alternative monism, but I can't remember exactly what it was. Not "bastard." Something else. Can't remember. Stupid memory! Perhaps "synthetic mind" would be better? It's synthesized by Nature. (Yes, I use Nature as a proper name at times.)

 

The reason why I kind of take this approach (or adopted this idea) is that for "mind" to exist in nature, the parts, components, power, potentiality, must exist in nature as well. Already at Big Bang, the potential for mind to eventually form (if given the right circumstances) existed. The same as all the energy, processes, and quantum physics needed to form stars, galaxies, gravity, etc. It was not inevitable that "mind" came to be, but it was probable. But yet, it is a "software" running on top on the components of nature, and has characteristics separating it from nature. Not saying that it is independent, but it is more than just nature. It's nature improved. (And this view I got from from reading agnostic/atheist scientists, so it's not my idea, even though I paraphrase the ideas into my own words.)

 

I wish I had other people's power of explanation. You make much more sense than I do!! :)

I think it makes sense to you because we already think alike. It might not make sense to someone else. Something I learned over the years: it's not always about saying the right thing, but rather saying it in the right time.

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Sync! Oh, that's not the expression is it? Oh well, it works! :D

Which one? "Sync" or "symbiotic monism"? :)

See, I'm even confusing when I joke!

 

No, I meant that the word people usually use is "psych". I just said sync instead trying to be funny. :blush:

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See, I'm even confusing when I joke!

 

No, I meant that the word people usually use is "psych". I just said sync instead trying to be funny. :blush:

:HaHa:

 

I know how terrible it is when I have to explain a joke.

 

Don't you get it?! It was a chicken, vacuum cleaner, and a trampoline. What do you mean "it doesn't make sense"? :vent:

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Sync! Oh, that's not the expression is it? Oh well, it works! :D

Which one? "Sync" or "symbiotic monism"? :) I have heard a term for an alternative monism, but I can't remember exactly what it was. Not "bastard." Something else. Can't remember. Stupid memory! Perhaps "synthetic mind" would be better? It's synthesized by Nature. (Yes, I use Nature as a proper name at times.)

 

The reason why I kind of take this approach (or adopted this idea) is that for "mind" to exist in nature, the parts, components, power, potentiality, must exist in nature as well. Already at Big Bang, the potential for mind to eventually form (if given the right circumstances) existed. The same as all the energy, processes, and quantum physics needed to form stars, galaxies, gravity, etc. It was not inevitable that "mind" came to be, but it was probable. But yet, it is a "software" running on top on the components of nature, and has characteristics separating it from nature. Not saying that it is independent, but it is more than just nature. It's nature improved. (And this view I got from from reading agnostic/atheist scientists, so it's not my idea, even though I paraphrase the ideas into my own words.)

 

hehehe...Hans said bastard. :D

 

I believe that too. We are the big bang or whatever occurred. I also think there is this "software" you mention. A gentle, persausive whisper in the cosmos...

 

I think it makes sense to you because we already think alike. It might not make sense to someone else. Something I learned over the years: it's not always about saying the right thing, but rather saying it in the right time.

NOW, you tell me it's about timing...sheesh! :wink:

 

 

:D

 

(I hope the "wink" is an appropriate emoticon...I only see an X on this version of IE)

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And these guys aren’t trying to infuse reality with some magical mystery “stuff”.

I'm so glad I did note the exceptions! Sorry, I was just being a smart ass with the argument from authority thing. I know what you meant. Feel free to poke me back!

Please don’t be a smart ass Chris. Please? I don’t want to poke you back. I think this could be an informative and lively discussion all around if we can avoid clamping our minds down.

 

Scientists (real scientists) with that view don't use the spiritual terminology. So what is it if not metaphysical?

I think this is accurate. These (serious) scientists do not couch their language in spiritual or metaphysical language.

 

The thing with reductionism is that it’s always looking inward and downward. But we do have an alternative. We can look upwards and outwards. When we ask why a person believes the things they do, we could examine her brain, but we could also examine her society. When we ask why an organ does what it does, we could examine its cells, but we could also examine its function in the unity which is the organism.

 

Just throwing some ideas out there. :shrug:

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Personal experience is not evidence (example - alien abduction or demonic experience during sleep paralysis). Results that can be replicated by other researchers are evidence.
At what point did you see an assertion (within this thread) that personal experience holds sway over scientific methodology?

 

In fact, I stated earlier….

 

Hello Legion ... thanks for the input and the link to Society for Scientific Exploration Like your friend said.. "It is a valid field of research and theory". I do know mainstream science raises their eyebrows over this type of research.... but if the research is being done to high scientific standards, they can raise their eyebrows all they want. At some point the research will speak for itself.

 

And in regards to the original post…. If you had read the entire NPR news story you would have seen the following….

 

Three dozen double blind, randomized studies by such institutions as the University of Washington and the University of Edinburgh have reported similar results.

 

I don’t expect personal experience to be the determiner here… reading through my posts it should be obvious that what excites me is that these studies are being done under high scientific standards…. unlike a lot of the earlier studies of prayer and paranormal activities.

 

We don't? That's an odd statement. You're either conscious or not. What's the mystery?
No… no human being has any objective way of understanding what happens to consciousness after the physical body dies. It’s not an odd statement at all. Do you have some scientific study that I am unaware of… a study that has been able to travel beyond death’s door, come back again and explain what it found (or did not find)????

 

And now onto a quote NotBlinded brought into the conversation…

 

I'm not doing too well, so I'll bring in David Bohm for, hopefully, a better explanation.

 

Bohm believes that life and consciousness are enfolded deep in the generative order and are therefore present in varying degrees of unfoldment in all matter, including supposedly "inanimate" matter such as electrons or plasmas. He suggests that there is a "protointelligence" in matter, so that new evolutionary developments do not emerge in a random fashion but creatively as relatively integrated wholes from implicate levels of reality. The mystical connotations of Bohm's ideas are underlined by his remark that the implicate domain "could equally well be called Idealism, Spirit, Consciousness. The separation of the two -- matter and spirit -- is an abstraction. The ground is always one." (Quoted in Michael Talbot, The Holographic Universe, HarperCollins, New York, 1991, p. 271.)

David Bohm is hardly a quack. There are legitimate scientists who posit that consciousness is an intricate part of the universe itself. Their position this is no less legitimate than the position that there is a multi-verse. Both positions are grounded in mathematical models and neither position is easily tested.

 

There are many who take mult-verse seriously and many who debunk it. The proof is in the pudding.

 

When it can be proven that a multi-verse exists – consistently – over and over and over again in experiment after experiment – then the theory of multi-verse will no longer be a debatable point.

 

The same holds true for studies of distant healing. The study outlined in the NPR news story was done under rigorous scientific methods. As Legion’s friend pointed out…

 

"Thanks for the reference. It is a valid field of research and theory, but very problematic within the mainstream science venues. The Society for Scientific Exploration deals in all sorts of so called 'anomalous' phenomena, i.e., what used to be called 'paranormal.' They try to maintain high stgandards. Take a look at http://www.scientificexploration.org/ There are online talks you can watch on the effect of prayer or 'distent intention' on plant growth, healing, etc."

 

Why is it so hard to give the same credibility to the research of distant healing as one would give to the research of a multi-verse. Quite frankly it is no less outlandish to posit a non-local consciousness than it is to posit a multi-verse of all possible universes. Both positions are mind-blowing in their own right.

 

Hello Neon – good to “see” you again :grin:

 

This was a fascinating article, but isn't this article just more evidence of the power of the placebo effect rather than proof of prayer or the soul and that prayer is just currently the most effective method of placebos?
How does the power of placebo explain the following?

 

"Notice how here … see, there's a change in the blood volume," says Radin, pointing to a screen charting Teena's measurements. "A sudden change like that is sometimes associated with an orienting response. If you suddenly hear somebody whispering in your ear, and there's nobody around, you have this sense of what? What was that? That's more or less what we're seeing in the physiology."

 

An hour later, Radin displays Teena's graph, which shows a flat line during the times her husband was not staring at her image, but when her husband began to stare at her, she stopped relaxing and became "aroused" within about two seconds.

The wife was in a separate room, she had no idea when her husband was sending an intention, and yet within two seconds of his beginning to stare at her she became “aroused”. How can that be explained by the placebo effect?

 

One last thing … I don’t consider any of this “paranormal”. In fact I think it’s quite normal. I think it’s so normal that humans have been experiencing it, studying it and arguing about it since the dawn of humanity. We put our own personal twist on things, turn it into philosophy, religion, whatever and have wars over it. But, the reality is that this kind of experience has been consistently part of the overall human experience.

 

Just because some people experience these things more profoundly than others does not make them crazy. Anymore than a person who is able to experience music, the sciences, math more profoundly than others is considered crazy. Who are any of us to discount phenomenon so regularly reported throughout human history and across all human cultures, simply because we do not personally share in the experience?

 

What is so wrong with scientifically testing the experience???? How does it hurt anyone? Quite frankly when it can be shown that our loving, compassionate intentions for another helps them, then that is a good thing. It confirms what we humans have known all along – that there is power in love….

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What if there is some sort of external source of our true nature? Why would you assume that even a perfectly functioning brain displays even a trace of this "true self"? It's been shown that parts of the brain control things like empathy, judgment, and even fairness-- an electrical signal sent by electrodes to that part of the brain that deals with fairness actually disables it, making the person unable to choose NOT to cheat someone out of even a small amount of profit. That said, one's external "true self" can be altered by healthy brain chemistry. Your true self could be a tyrant, bent on universal domination, but the physical form they currently inhabit or interact with, prevents them from acting according to their nature.

What if that true self was not "your" true self, is not you or me in our developed personalities, but Self? One Self? From that we either manifest its true nature, or something goes awry.

 

As with any individual biological organism, there will always be pathologies. But we identify them as pathologies. Why? Because we know what the healthy functioning model looks like? Perhaps this is true of the Soul as well? The true Self is not you or me, but ALL?

 

Your tyrant, or sociopath, or what have you then is a pathology within the organism, not indicative of the emerging form. This pattern of emergence will bring new pathologies at each level. But the point is that the ill individual does not represent the true nature of spirit, in that it is not what is seen in a healthy manifestation.

 

That argument aside, people seem not to know that energy cannot be stored outside of a physical medium. At least, I've never heard of such a thing happening. If it's not in a physical medium, it's in transit, and it's reconfiguring itself constantly. It's also changing states as well (electrical, radio, light, radiation, etc.). So the idea that the consciousness can exist independently of a brain (and a physical body) would seem to be defeated by that fact. Of course, my science could be wonky on this issue, but it makes sense to me. If I am inaccurate on that, please tell me.

Who would suggest that consciousness or 'spirit' is something to do with physics? I would suggest it would have nothing to do with what people call "energy" (which if I'm not mistaken is actually only a description of the released activity of something, and not an actual thing itself). So any of these things in the physical world that you described would not apply. Spirit would be something else beyond or outside physics, and therefore the word 'energy' applied to it would not be locked into the world of physics, but a description of 'release' or 'potential' from that particular 'realm'.

 

In short, what you say wouldn't contradict the concept of it.

 

 

 

Many, many natural phenomena are still not understood at all (gravity, anyone?). That doesn't make them "supernatural," it just means that the natural world is extremely complex and often mysterious.

I would agree with that, to the point that we don't limit 'natural' to physics alone. Consciousness or spirit would be a part of the natural world also, which I believe it would be.

 

The desire to attribute the unknown to "supernatural" causes appears to be built-in to humans. Sort of like the desire to see patterns where there are none (faces in ink blots, the Virgin Mary in a cheese sandwich). Historically, such explanations have eventually been relegated to the realm of folklore and superstition as scientific understanding of the universe continues to increase.

Of course our tendency to frame things like this are because they were part of how we evolved, and are evolving. It's like how we incorporate our lizard brain into our higher functioning brain with its neo-cortext, not eradicating it, but incorporating its functions into the higher evolved brain. What we learned developmentally as children in seeing the world symbolically (magic) we also bring the better parts of that forward into higher level functions. You could say its a desire to see things as magical, but it's really more us just being us through how we developed. Hopefully, our reasoning is high enough to take in the same input, but process it to a deeper level of understanding.

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I think this could be an informative and lively discussion all around if we can avoid clamping our minds down.

 

If I disagree am I "clamping my mind down?"

 

It could be informative if people would answer my questions. Lively? Maybe, if it doesn't go the way of all the similar previous discussions.

 

These (serious) scientists do not couch their language in spiritual or metaphysical language.

Because they wouldn't be taken seriously by their colleagues.

 

The thing with reductionism is that it’s always looking inward and downward. But we do have an alternative. We can look upwards and outwards.

That's really some loaded language! We can look down (negative, confining) or up (positive, freeing).

 

we could examine her brain, but we could also examine her society. When we ask why an organ does what it does, we could examine its cells, but we could also examine its function in the unity which the organism.

Of course there is an interdependence built into the system. Everything relies on or emerges from something else. That much is obvious. Now, what is it we may disagree on?

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hehehe...Hans said bastard. :D

:fdevil:

 

I haven't brought out the "asshat" word yet. Muahaha! I'll wait until things heat up a bit more. Muahaha(again)!

 

I believe that too. We are the big bang or whatever occurred. I also think there is this "software" you mention. A gentle, persausive whisper in the cosmos...

I also like to think of our consciousness as the Universe look back at itself. We are It experiencing itself. We are not the image of God. No, we are God's mind.

 

NOW, you tell me it's about timing...sheesh! :wink:

The quarks must have been in the right superpositions, I guess. :woohoo:

 

(I hope the "wink" is an appropriate emoticon...I only see an X on this version of IE)

Hmm.. It doesn't. I only get colon-"wink"-colon.

 

Here's a thought:

 

If all particles and quarks are entangled, and our minds are governed by particles and quarks, it wouldn't be a huge stretch to concede to some degree to O_M's view. At least we could admit to the possibility there is some level of interconnectedness.

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If I disagree am I "clamping my mind down?"

Not at all. But you can disagree without being a smart ass, can’t you?

 

...there is an interdependence built into the system. Everything relies on or emerges from something else.

Well I don’t believe that the universe has been “built”. But otherwise I agree with this and embrace it.

 

I have to go run some errands. When I come back I fully expect that you guys will have unraveled deep mysteries. :woohoo::grin:

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What is so wrong with scientifically testing the experience???? How does it hurt anyone? Quite frankly when it can be shown that our loving, compassionate intentions for another helps them, then that is a good thing. It confirms what we humans have known all along – that there is power in love….

 

I agree that scientifically testing this - and any other - hypothesis or experience has value, not matter what the results of that testing may be. At the same time, it seems to me that you've leapt to a conclusion which is not in the data.

 

Rather than confirming that "there is power in love," what this test shows it that there is an element of connectedness which can develop between people over time. All of the test subjects were in romantic relationships - it's not like they just picked people off the street at random and had them think loving thoughts towards complete strangers. In fact, most studies of that kind show no effect at all.

 

So it's not merely that "love" in the abstract has been shown to have a measurable effect on physically separated human beings. Rather, what has been shown is some sort of physiological/emotional "entanglement" between people who love one another.

 

It seems to me that the word "entanglement" is particularly appropriate here, because it is similar to what happens with quantum entanglement. Two quanta, once entangled, will continue to be "in sync" over vast distances. Theoretically, this entanglement continues regardless of the distance between the entangled quanta. If both are spinning clockwise and are 50 million light-years apart, and an outside force reverses the spin of one, the spin of the other will simultaneously reverse. It's not even cause-and-effect, because the change is simultaneous.

 

So what seems to be the case is that human beings can become "entangled" over time. Perhaps this is evidence that at least part of the function of the mind is outside of the brain. Perhaps it is evidence of subtle changes the brain causes in as-yet-unmeasured dimensions or areas of influence. We don't know yet - we have only begun to encounter this phenomenon in a measurable way. It will be interesting to see what lies behind the curtain.

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As far as the Placebo effect being suggested, OM pointed out they were double blind tests, but I recalled this from the study itself addressing that question of Placebo Effect:

 

"The distant effects of intentionality suggested herein cannot easily be explained by placebo-type influences such as suggestion and expectation. These studies are generally double-blind in design. Moreover, most of the studies in this field examine the distant effects of intentionality not on other humans but on lower organisms (bacteria, yeast, fungi), cells (red blood cells or other types of tissue), plants (germinating seeds, growing seedlings), rats, and mice. These organisms are assumed to be immune to the effects of suggestion and expectation, and they presumably do not think positively (Dossey, 1993)."

 

The thing that fascinates me about this is the manner of rejection of these ideas, despite the use of control groups, double-blind studies and whatnot. My question is this? What if this is true? Would this suggest to some that the mythic-systems of gods and angels was right, and we must all kiss the Pope's ring? Could I suggest that maybe they had 'part' of it right? That part of a greater picture to existence than just the material world? So what if they couched it in mythical terms? None of what they were looking at would of necessity have to equal their human theologies, their less evolved modes of interpreting the world. Are we so threatened by religion that can't allow for any of it to have any merit, even though it is a less than evolved way of looking at it? Who are the literalists? Believers, or Unbelievers too who look at it as literally 'wrong' as grounds to reject it?

 

What is reductionism really, but taking the spiritual aspect of life and reducing it to the machine? Is that valid? Does anyone live consistently with that? This is what Existentialism was about, a response to Positivism. Of course the mythic worldview needs to give way to Reason. But does Reason then deny Spirit because it was associated with the mythic systems? Great many brilliant minds have recognized this, and this is not some 'fill in the gaps with metaphysical language' stuff.

 

 

BTW, it's nice to see such a lively, interesting discussion! We're already at 3 pages on the first day, and all of it is good. Welcome back OM! :thanks:

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...there is an interdependence built into the system. Everything relies on or emerges from something else.

 

Forget built. How about inherent.

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Here's a thought:

 

If all particles and quarks are entangled, and our minds are governed by particles and quarks, it wouldn't be a huge stretch to concede to some degree to O_M's view. At least we could admit to the possibility there is some level of interconnectedness.

I agree and Davka brings that up below also. (I guess that would be up from my post but below yours.)

 

I mentioned before about Abigale and Brittany, the conjoined twins resonding to the other person's itch or hand clapping or hair movement without being able to feel the other girl's side. One body, but different minds and nervous systems. I sit in amazement watching them and their doctor is also amazed.

 

If they were separated and this stopped, then there must be something else in the body that transmits an impulse from one side of the body to the other girl's brain even though it wouldn't involve the "feeling" sense. If it continued then it would be nonlocal, although, I see it as nonlocal now. :shrug:

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