mystical experiences real or delusion

[Burnt]

This topic gets brought up often enough so I figured why not start a thread on it. People often ask themselves and others whether or not a mystical experience is real or genuine or not. Whether the mystical experience was induced by drugs, physical extremes, spontaneously etc it doesn't matter. I'd like to cover them all.

When someone is very thirsty and walking through the desert and they see an image of a water which turns out to be not real we call that a mirage or a hallucination. When someone is what society now calls psychotic hears voices or talks to imaginary friends that are very real to the individual experiencing the situation yet we call that experience a delusion.

On the contrary in the past many such experiences were taken seriously in certain cases, buddha, jesus, moses, mohammad are all people who's mystical experiences were taken very seriously. Of course there was battles over whether a saints vision was genuine but that really was just society trying to make sense of these experiences and fit them in within its frame work. The same goes for cultures who were using psychoactive substances to aid in inducing trance or altered states, it was taken seriously.

So whats real and whats not? Why do those who use psychedelic substances regard there experience as more genuine then that of a psychotic? I tend to believe its simply because they like the experience and it often satisfies some deep subconsiouss desires for a creator a spirit etc. The experience on a psychedelic drug is different then that of someone in meditation or that of someone undergoing psychosis but really all 3 are essentially doing the same type of thing to the brain.

Lets bring up the brain. I'd like to make the point that most signals being sent between neurons are pretty much the same the only difference being their intensity and connections the neuron makes. Different neurons also have different shapes and different receptors and transmitters but the signals are basically the same. The only difference between a drug, brain damage induced psyhosis, meditation is that they happen to effect a different part of the brain in a different way. A 5-HT agonist will increase the intensity of signals in certain parts of the brain where the drug has distributed itself too. Many 5-HT agonists can have different effects based on what subtype of receptor they hit, how long they persist before being metabolized, how strongly they bind, where in the brain they end up all play a role in causing different effects. The same can be said for certain types of psychosis paranoid schizophrenics seem to have a different brain profile then lets say someone with bipolar or perhaps other types of schizophrenia. When someone is in deep mediation certain parts of the brain get activated and start to project out imagines from the subconsciouss or imagination. The only difference seems to be what part of the brain is being effect and in what manner. But so far its all seems to be going on in the brain.

So if we are to accept that the experience of losing perception of ones body, traveling through some tunnel and emerging in a palace of white light after smoking something like DMT as real why do we reject the experience of a psychotic or the mirage in the desert? Now I think the experience of losing connection to the body can be explained in neurochemical reductionist terms because the part of the brain doing the interpreting isn't communicating with the part of the brain taking in signals from the outside world. This is testable!

Of course we always can bring up the question well what is consciousness and what is reality but those are tougher questions and if we need to define them then we can try but what I would most like to discuss is if all mystical experiences and altered states can be reduced to a simple disruption of neurochemical events then we must seriously consider how legit are they? I understand the psychological value of these substances but I don't want to focus on that end but more on the actual so called spiritual experience. Why is it spiritual? Why is it not just a disruption of the brains functioning?

[Pope Albacore]

Interesting. Wow, this thread can go so many ways its perplexing. SWIM says that he was taught early on to question everything, especially authority and/or higher powers. He says he can see where a disruption in brain pattern would make more sense in explaining the "mystical" experiences that people derive from drugs, ritual, and meditation.

That being as it may, SWIM could in a way play the devil's advocate and question why were human beings given the ability to manipulate these brain patterns to experience such things? Did a higher power grant them the ability to merge with the cosmos through meditation? Could the same higher power have put certain chemicals on the planet for them to discover? Does this same higher power drive them subconsciously to ritual and other forms of gnosis?

SWIM says that he was also taught that what is perceived as magic to one person is science to another and the same goes for good and evil. SWIM believes that objectivity is key in our short time here in our fleshy prisons, as being close-minded will only show a lack of intelligence and tolerance. SWIM wants to feel something more "spiritual" and more "vast", he does not want to believe that all this is for not. Until that day, he will keep his eyes to the stars and mind open for perception.

-Pope Albacore

[Burnt]

That being as it may, SWIM could in a way play the devil's advocate and question why were human beings given the ability to manipulate these brain patterns to experience such things? Did a higher power grant them the ability to merge with the cosmos through meditation? Could the same higher power have put certain chemicals on the planet for them to discover? Does this same higher power drive them subconsciously to ritual and other forms of gnosis?

Well I think it all has to do with evolution and how the brain works. Our brain is not perfect our bodies are not perfect nothing is perfect on this planet at this scale. It can easily be looked at that is has nothing to do with being 'given' the power to experience this and rather that its just the brain working in some other fashion because its subject to cirucmstances we are not capable of preventing because we have not had an evolutionary need to do so. Take a look at the MAOI system we have in our body to defend ourselves from small amines digging their way into our brains, a clear example of evolution counteracting the presence of certain compounds in the diet! This other way of the brain working may not be so useful for survival in the past (in some ways it can have advantage T. mckenna offers some interesting ideas about mushrooms and early man something like that could theoretically have gone on). Maybe it is useful now in our time of crisis but regardless I think its too human centric to look at it this way. So lets look at it from the plant/fungi's point of view because we need to get away from the human centric way of thinking to see a bigger picture.

Plants and fungi need to defend themselves they can't run away from predators. So plants and fungi make secondary metabolites to deter/attract organisms to either interact with them or stay the fuck away from them. All natural psychedelic drugs basically fall into this category. Now of course the plant has no way of predicting whether a substance will work or what it will do to a human animal insect fungi bacteria so it just makes a bunch of chemicals and the ones that work tend to be retained. So these chemicals DMT mescaline various other alkaloids happen to interact with human brains. Its really just an evolutionary phenomenon that these compounds are out there. I would not be surprised if these compounds have anti fungal or insecticidal properties, not to mention dettering herbivores from grazing. Its a very simple explanation but it makes a lot of sense in evolutionary terms. We now happen to like some of these chemicals because they give us very nice feelings so we do them we build cultures around them we worship them. The whole time the plant is giggling because it made a compound that deters other animals and now the humans worship it and try to keep the plants that produce it going and breed better ones etc. Not that the plant is thinking all that but still its kind of worked out that way.

So we don't need to view that as we were given the ability to experience these phenomenon but its easy to view it in evolutionary terms. Again showing how there is no need to look at this as a spiritual experience or anything as needing a spirit.

Now I would also like to add that I am not closed to the notion that we could actually be contacting other dimensional beings or speaking with the dead or merging with god. Its possible. But it sounds more like science fiction. We like that because its cool as fuck to think about. BUT! Its just as likely if not more likely that its just the brain playing games with you and so far most of what neuroscience is showing us is that, that is whats going on.

SWIM says that he was also taught that what is perceived as magic to one person is science to another and the same goes for good and evil. SWIM believes that objectivity is key in our short time here in our fleshy prisons, as being close-minded will only show a lack of intelligence and tolerance. SWIM wants to feel something more "spiritual" and more "vast", he does not want to believe that all this is for not. Until that day, he will keep his eyes to the stars and mind open for perception.

To me its science not magic. I see no reason to invoke magic at this point. I really honestly don't. So far as otherworldy and amazing as these experiences are they still cannot be used as proof of god or spirits. Also that being said I do not think its all for not either. The psychedelic experience is an amazing psychological tool so are all these altered states they are very useful for humans and we should utilize them. However what might be for not is that we are still just a bunch of little beings running reproducing without souls and dieing without living on and the psychedelic experience has not yet been able to counteract that possibility. That possibility is what scares people and why people have often gotten quite angry at me for bringing this up its the ultimate fear that we will die and nothing of our consciousness with remain.

[podge]

Originally Posted by Burnt

This topic gets brought up often enough so I figured why not start a thread on it. People often ask themselves and others whether or not a mystical experience is real or genuine or not. Whether the mystical experience was induced by drugs, physical extremes, spontaneously etc it doesn't matter.

Good idea for a thread.

I think the main issue with concluding authenticity for mystical experiences is based around the subject of reality and how we each define it, if we accept that "reality" as we know it is produced simply by the matter of the brain then a mystical experience is still a genuine experience by definition because the experience its still reflected in the change of normal brain processes.

So the problem is how to judge how authentic the actual content of the experience is , and that is impossible to do as a the content of the subjective experience can only be experienced by individual so cannot truely be assessed by an external group in any clear way.

So as external beings we cant hope to evaluate how real or unreal anybody else's experience is. So what people usually do is try to approach question from there own personal belief system, ie Materialist - regards the experience "unreal" as they perceive "reality" to be the normal brain state. While a religous/spiritual person may believe there might be authenticity to a particular experience based on their own past experiences and perhaps based on the reputation and reliability of the person.

Originally Posted by Burnt

Why is it spiritual? Why is it not just a disruption of the brains functioning?

Catch 22 .... like i explained above it all comes down to the evaluater's personal beliefs so there cant be a "concensus" agreement for the meantime unfortunatley.

Originally Posted by Burnt

The experience on a psychedelic drug is different then that of someone in meditation or that of someone undergoing psychosis but really all 3 are essentially doing the same type of thing to the brain.

I can see what you mean here but id i dont think there's any conclusive agreement or proof that all 3 pretty much do the same things, yes sometimes there are commanalities but i think there are enough major distinctions to seperate them and catogarize them differently. And only some pschosisis report similarities to mystical experiences which i think is important to mention.

[Burnt]

I can see what you mean here but id i dont think there's any conclusive agreement or proof that all 3 pretty much do the same things, yes sometimes there are commanalities but i think there are enough major distinctions to seperate them and catogarize them differently. And only some pschosisis report similarities to mystical experiences which i think is important to mention. 22-10-2008 17:11

I do not mean that they are the same experiences I just mean they are related in that they are all a result of brain function much like our normal waking everyday reality. These experiences are different then our normal everyday waking reality so its just different parts of the brain at work here but it still can all just be going on in the brain.

I think the main issue with concluding authenticity for mystical experiences is based around the subject of reality and how we each define it, if we accept that "reality" as we know it is produced simply by the matter of the brain then a mystical experience is still a genuine experience by definition because the experience its still reflected in the change of normal brain processes.

So the problem is how to judge how authentic the actual content of the experience is , and that is impossible to do as a the content of the subjective experience can only be experienced by individual so cannot truely be assessed by an external group in any clear way.

So as external beings we cant hope to evaluate how real or unreal anybody else's experience is. So what people usually do is try to approach question from there own personal belief system, ie Materialist - regards the experience "unreal" as they perceive "reality" to be the normal brain state. While a religous/spiritual person may believe there might be authenticity to a particular experience based on their own past experiences and perhaps based on the reputation and reliability of the person.

Agree that yes its impossible for a group the understand the experience of another person. Kind of like its impossible for me to say that we both see the same blue. However lets say that our consciousness is purely a result of brain function and we have no soul (just for arguments sake). All reality is going on outside our brain and our brain takes in stimuli and makes a picture of the world based on that. Different peoples brains can make slightly different pictures etc. Same with different living organisms.

So therefore there is a reality out there and we each have a different way of making a picture of that reality. That reality is made up of various forms of energy and matter which is related and of course things we don't yet or have no detected but could still be out there like dark matter.

Alright now whats the point I am trying to make again......oh yea but ok lets say we see the water in the desert example. Now I don't think anyone can say that that water one sees is real. There is no pool of H20 in front of the individual hallucinating them. The same goes for the psychotic hearing voices there is no one really speaking to him. Same with a psychedelic trip you are still in your body you just lost awareness of it because of brain malfunction.

So all reality is not just whats going on in our brain but also whats going on outside our brain. We can only see so much of reality same with other organisms we can detect other parts of reality (various kinds of electromagnetic radiation etc) with various instruments and sensors our bodies don't have and those things are very much a part of our reality we just have no direct way of sensing them but they are still real. I am not going to claim that x rays aren't real because I can't see them. So now what I am going to claim may not be real is the various types of hallucinations I have already described. Because no one has measured any of this stuff doesn't mean its not there but look why assume that just because you saw some god demon thing while tripping that it was real. Just because you saw it at that moment doesn't mean it was real much like the water in the desert. There is nothing physically there. Dream also work like this your mind creates a picture of reality when your asleep but its not real its just your brain sorting through a bunch of data.

Now yes different people materialistic or spiritual may have different beliefs about stuff but what you believe makes no difference in the reality outside of your brain that goes on regardless of whether your brain is there or not. I feel again that it is too humancentric to view reality as needing or dependant on us.

Our brain tries to create as good of a picture of reality as it can for our survival thats what all brains are doing for all organisms. That brain is capable of malfunctioning as we have seen in so many cases with people with brain damage and people altered states. Yet the malfunctioning brain is capable of warping stimuli in such a way as to create images of something that does no exist. I think that made sense?

[podge]

Originally Posted by Burnt

I do not mean that they are the same experiences I just mean they are related in that they are all a result of brain function much like our normal waking everyday reality. These experiences are different then our normal everyday waking reality so its just different parts of the brain at work here but it still can all just be going on in the brain.

I get exactly what your saying, and your not wrong. I personally think for the sake our rigorous discussion its better to evaluate them seperatly but as a general point yes they can at times be bunched together.

Originally Posted by Burnt

However lets say that our consciousness is purely a result of brain function and we have no soul (just for arguments sake). All reality is going on outside our brain and our brain takes in stimuli and makes a picture of the world based on that. Different peoples brains can make slightly different pictures etc. Same with different living organisms.

Working from this as the premise.....

Originally Posted by Burnt

So therefore there is a reality out there and we each have a different way of making a picture of that reality. That reality is made up of various forms of energy and matter which is related and of course things we don't yet or have no detected but could still be out there like dark matter.

I agree , this does make sense based on the above point....

Originally Posted by Burnt

So all reality is not just whats going on in our brain but also whats going on outside our brain. We can only see so much of reality same with other organisms we can detect other parts of reality (various kinds of electromagnetic radiation etc) with various instruments and sensors our bodies don't have and those things are very much a part of our reality we just have no direct way of sensing them but they are still real.

Originally Posted by Burnt

I am not going to claim that x rays aren't real because I can't see them. So now what I am going to claim may not be real is the various types of hallucinations I have already described. Because no one has measured any of this stuff doesn't mean its not there but look why assume that just because you saw some god demon thing while tripping that it was real.

Id agree, a lot of people are too naive in evaluating their experiences.

Originally Posted by Burnt

Just because you saw it at that moment doesn't mean it was real much like the water in the desert. There is nothing physically there. Dream also work like this your mind creates a picture of reality when your asleep but its not real its just your brain sorting through a bunch of data.

Fair point, there is nothing physical there so why believe it ? This is why it comes down to personal beliefs i find, a materialist wont believe it because there is nothing physically there, i can understand this. Conversely another person might not consider the experience to have potential use/significance as they believe there may be more to reality than what we can see, like you mentioned scientifically speaking we know this to be true x rays, dark matter, dark energy ,ultra violet spectrum etc.

But yes id agree there is a difference in believing in x rays and believing in alternative realities,dimensions,forms of consciousness etc. But the two beliefs "materialist" and "non-materialist" seem to clash at one place initially..... materialists only believe what we think we know to be true, non materialists tend to be humbled by the implications of what we know, the implications being that we know very little about the overall "big picture" so ruling out anything we currently cant explain may be a very premature decision.

I would like to state this does lead to chaos when trying to find truth, some people will take my above point for non-materialists to the extreme and will simply believe anything because it hasnt been disproven. Which is madness.

And some materialists will contend outdated science is true even if the more recent science contradicts old beliefs as it hasnt been officially updated or because the full implications of the updated science arent fully understood yet. Which is also madness.

Obviously the two above descriptions are some of the more extreme cases but elements of both are seen almost everywhere. I think the best intellectual standpoint is a mix of skepticism and openness. Most people tend to have too much of one and not enough of the other.

Originally Posted by Burnt

Yet the malfunctioning brain is capable of warping stimuli in such a way as to create images of something that does no exist. I think that made sense?

True, but i think the point many people try to make is that during a mystical experience they may have peered into a different layer in the fabric of reality, not so much that what they saw physically exists in our 3 dimensional (arguably 4 dimensional including time.lol ) experience.

And again, if someone believes there actually is different layers to the fabric of reality then these experiences may hold value. To someone who doesnt believe or is undecided then obviously skepticm or disbelief are the results.

I really do think its a catch 22 question which is resolved only in the context of personal beliefs.

[Burnt]

I see what your saying concerning the materialist view point and the non materialist view point. I would also like to add with what you were saying about materialistic science and that yes with what we now know (although its not complete) at the subatomic level and relativity the simple materialistic world view changes. If matter is just a kind of energy then everything is energy and if energy is the result of different "particles/waves" interacting in a never ending random chaotic dance then what is material ahah! Do we consider energy a material or is that entering into the non materialistic view? I ask because I do not know how you or some others view this. Even myself, I think I consider it still material even the fabric of space time, its a "thing". Maybe at this level the two views don't differ at all I dunno.

And again, if someone believes there actually is different layers to the fabric of reality then these experiences may hold value. To someone who doesnt believe or is undecided then obviously skepticm or disbelief are the results.

I think this kind of explanation is possible because reality is turning out to be a lot weirder then the old materialistic science was thinking. Basically the materialistic view in a Newtonian physics viewpoint is "god" made the laws the laws make everything do what its doing. Relativity and quantum mechanics messed that all up especially because they aren't agreeing with each other yet.

I really do think its a catch 22 question which is resolved only in the context of personal beliefs.

This reminds me of the story that got me into thinking about all this in the first place:

Person takes psychedelic drug. Person contacts dead relatives feels them communicates with them more then once. Person is sober. Person asks oneself was that real? If its real then wow death is not a problem in fact it seemed pretty cool. If its fake then wow the mind is very capable of coming up with some elaborate methods to comfort itself.

Person takes mescaline one day in a beautiful natural setting. Person wonders about above situation. In the psychedelic state the person reasons through some things and the only answer was "its what person believes".

Basically what you said. End story explain:

Now person can believe one way or the other but if we take the materialistic view point (accepting the modern science) there still could be this reality out there that sais whats true and real is whats true and real and there is nothing else OR that there is more. So far I still don't know the answer and neither does anyone else. But I do think the only way that these experiences could be real is if there are infact other layers of reality.

How do we find them? Well we can experience them or think we are experiencing them thats one way to even get to the stage where we can begin to answer these questions. The next step...?


Check this out in the news today basically exactly what we are puzzling about:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7684684.stm

[Expat98]

There was a famous experiment in 1955 in which Dr. Humphry Osmond, the British psychiatrist who coined the term "psychedelic", administered mescaline to Christopher Mayhew, a member of British parliament. Mayhew ingested 400mg of mescaline hydrochloride and recorded his experience on camera. The footage was originally supposed to be broadcast on BBC.

Mayhew himself maintains that it was a genuine mystical experience which "took place outside time" and wanted it to be shown on air. However, an "expert" committee of psychiatrists, philosophers, and theologians reviewed the footage and reached a unanimous verdict that Mayhew's experience was not a valid mystical experience. So it was never broadcast. (My own opinion is that the "experts" were full of shit.)

For more info and a link to the video, see this thread:

Mescaline Experiment with Dr. Humphry Osmond and Christopher Mayhew

[seeingred]

Swim thinks that SWIY made some interesting points. Our brains are very complex, it wouldn't be a simple matter of one instance of a man in a desert. Sometimes exhaustion brings about enlightenment, sometimes delusions. Swim thinks there is an actual different though between the spiritual trance and the spiritual hallucination vs. the psychological imbalance, and the hallucination caused by exhaustion or your brain telling you that you need something more.

[humdroid]

Delusion is a break-out of normal waking consciousness, not so accurately known as consensus reality.
Normal waking consciousness, may be a small part of reality, but the real meaning of reality is the much wider vastness of infinite possibility. This lies outside our small capsule of normal waking consciousness/consensus reality, named, so, just cos the majority of people have a common perception of this tiny capsule of the bigger reality.

[Euthanatos93420]

I'd agree that they are all delusions. Being a language freak though i'd liek to take a moment to explain the word delusion.

Break it down...nah! nuh-nah!

DE-LUCID

There ya go. Break down the rules that make everything coherent. If you are to understand why shit is the way it is then you have to go back over the long process we went through to get where we are to understand why we are.

The mistanding-under is just that delusions are as we have explained before....a friggin tool. You can break it down and make something new. Or you can just break it down and stay crazy like yours truly.

Start analyzing the words you use and a pattern of misunderstanding begins to emerge. Somebody out there has engineered your minds to not realize that your CREATIVE POTENTIAL (and thus GODLY [not god-LIE-K] potential) is INHERITED and INHERENT.

It's not that they don't want you to use it, it's that they don't want you to be AWARE of it. if you are aware then you have control of it. They would much rather have control of it because they are scared shitless self-loathing HUman's stuck in the CYCLE of AB-(normal?)-USE

They will abuse you if you do not educate youself about the language they have inundated you with. they will take your creative potential and make it their own.

"News Politicians and Power-Whores are standing in line to recieve your choice, you can bet your ass if you give it to them they will gladly take your voice."

-Bad Religion

"The [CON-Sequence] of refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your [IN-FEAR-EYOREs]"
-Plato...Broken down for your benefit by yours truly.

Reputation Comments on this post:

Interesting.

[humdroid]

Delusions are real to the deluded.

Delusions are experienced mostly by the most socially accepted of people (who are unaware they are deluded).

Delusions form the backbone of Western Social mores.

Western social mores are not mystical.

Mysticism dosen't really exist in the big scheme of things, because to a skeptic, so-called mysticism is science, which we haven't yet officially discovered, or it is, science, which we refuse to acklowledge.

[Burnt]

^^

Mysticism dosen't really exist in the big scheme of things, because to a skeptic, so-called mysticism is science, which we haven't yet officially discovered, or it is, science, which we refuse to acklowledge.

I think thats how I am sort of looking at this.

Break it down...nah! nuh-nah!

you lost me man haha. are you saying language can create delusions?

[psyche]

you lost me man haha. are you saying language can create delusions?

It certainly can. I'm not exactly sure what euthanatos was saying, either, but one of the biggest delusions is the difference between the thinker and the thought. You know, if you say you just thought of something, had a great insight, who were you at the moment of the thought? Exactly. The thought itself.

Delusions are real to the deluded.

If you think about the truth in a viewpoint that the only thing we are absolutely sure about is that we exist, our feelings are real, then it makes more sense. It requires a viewpoint that we are part of the world, and reality is ultimately subjective, so we can be wrong, but we always think we are right. At the moment of realizing we were wrong the person who believes in the false belief does not exist anymore.

Ofcourse one could argue that intelligent people doubt and question themselves. But that's another phenomena brought on by the birth of language. Do you think a dog ever doubts it's reason to exist? Don't think so. It knows the reason as the most sure thing in it's life. And it's a damn good thing it can't speak to tell us it, lol

[Euthanatos93420]

[QUOTE=psyche;488698]It certainly can. I'm not exactly sure what euthanatos was saying, either, but one of the biggest delusions is the difference between the thinker and the thought. You know, if you say you just thought of something, had a great insight, who were you at the moment of the thought? Exactly. The thought itself.

DING DING DING!!! It is not that language can create delusion, but rather that language is the delusion itself. It is a likeness or a metaphor to the truth but not the actual truth itself.

"The Tao that can be named is not the true Tao"
"Naming is the origin of all things"
- Lao Tzu, The Tao te Ching

"A spiritual Leader is like a finger pointing toward the moon, you can't see the moon if you're looking at the finger."
- An old Bhuddist metaphor

[Burnt]

While I think language is a superficial way of looking at the world using words to describe things is a fine way to get things done and convey ideas. We are talking about reality as if it is entirely subjective and while yes I think everyones reality takes on their own subjective viewpoints is there still not a concensus reality that we may or may not be entirely aware of?

[humdroid]

Originally Posted by Burnt

While I think language is a superficial way of looking at the world using words to describe things is a fine way to get things done and convey ideas. We are talking about reality as if it is entirely subjective and while yes I think everyones reality takes on their own subjective viewpoints is there still not a concensus reality that we may or may not be entirely aware of?

Y says, yes, but the consensus reality isn't real as such.
It is very whimsical and fickle, just like subjective reality.
Both are real, and both are not real, simultaneously paradoxical, Y knows, but there it goes.

[nate81]

Maybe the mystery is part of a mystical experience. Science is able to measure the effects of mystical experience and psychosis on the mind only recently, but that wasn't the start of humans doubting the realness of those experiences. Thing is, unless these things are proved TRUE, there will always be those who believe in them despite some scientist/atheist types quoting data to disprove them.

[Desertfox]

Through recreating the brain waves that occured during a mystical experience science may one day be able to approximately visualize these unseeable experiences. They would be digital representations but would allow for so much potential research.

[lostmente]

as a force, life depends of structure to continue. Reliable mechanisms of clear constructs allow us to continue a path. Detachment from a common reality is an experience most avid psychonauts and those who have had a psychotic disorder can be familar with. These may be visionary quests which lead one back to earth, or not. Unfortunately those who don't quite return tend not to have their voice recognized.

[Burnt]

Y says, yes, but the consensus reality isn't real as such.
It is very whimsical and fickle, just like subjective reality.
Both are real, and both are not real, simultaneously paradoxical, Y knows, but there it goes.

Ok I can see how its somewhat whimsical and fickle in a quantum mechanical sense because down there the world is chaotic but up here in our reality whats real is real and whats not is not. I think philosophical arguments about this are too flakey and don't really say anything useful.

Like look at a tree its there its made of atoms and molecules. Any organism capable of perceiving it perceives it in some sense. Its not not real. You can argue that at the quantum mechanical level that the particles making it up are not real until its observed but I don't think that holds water at this level of reality.

Through recreating the brain waves that occured during a mystical experience science may one day be able to approximately visualize these unseeable experiences. They would be digital representations but would allow for so much potential research.

They have been able to do this by applying magnetic fields to certain parts of the brain. Quite interesting stuff.

Thing is, unless these things are proved TRUE, there will always be those who believe in them despite some scientist/atheist types quoting data to disprove them.

Well the experience happens I won't argue against that. People do get feelings of being on with the universe and all that and I don't think anyone can argue against that. It may be determined that that feeling is totally a result of the brain losing its sense of self and boundries with the external world. But the things I am most wondering about is external information. For example if one meets and entity and that entity tells the individual something. Did that information come from deep within the persons mind or was it really coming from some external source in other dimensions or levels of reality?

[Synesthesiac]

Originally Posted by Burnt

Like look at a tree its there its made of atoms and molecules. Any organism capable of perceiving it perceives it in some sense. Its not not real. You can argue that at the quantum mechanical level that the particles making it up are not real until its observed but I don't think that holds water at this level of reality.

But you mistake there being distinct 'levels' of reality, they are all merely expressions of different levels of the one reality that makes us all. Each scale has different laws of physics and different appearances, but they are not separate, so you can not quantise it. There's the scale of our bodies, the scale of our cells, the scale of molecules, of our atoms, of our nuclei, of our quarks, so its tempting to think of these scales as not effecting the other scales, which is what science generally does for convenience of modelling, which propegates a disconnected and fragmented view of the universe. The problem with thinking like that is that you can divide the scales to infinity, for example inbetween the cellular scale and molecular scale you have the scale of proteins, virus's, acids, DNA, genetics, etc, etc. Its all just different levels of description of the one reality. All scales are intricately interconnected.

As John Hagelin says: "You can drag me across the floor by my arm. You can drag me across the floor by my atoms, or by my nuclei, or by my cells. It all has the same effect, I get dragged across the floor. These are simply different levels of the description of the one reality which is me."

When people say that quantum effects cant be applied to consciousness, I always ask them to prove that statement. They never can. I just ask whats the brain made of? Cells they say. What are they made of? Molecules. What are they made of of? Atoms. What laws dominate at the scale of atoms? Quantum physics and classical physics (and relativity). I can imagine how one might observe an impulse at a synapse, and keep breaking it down, into smaller and smaller action...until one is left with the influence of a sub-atomic particle. In fact I cant see any other way for our understanding of nerual networks and consciousness to progress apart from exploring these deeper and deeper levels. Just as Penrose and Hameroff have hypothesised with their theory of microtubules down to quantum effects. And many of the well proven properties of quantum physics could also have a much bigger effect on reality than people have previously given them credit for.

If your interested in this type of thing, I recommend this excerpt with Hameroff in from a good BBC documentary on NDE's and consciousness: The Day I Died. NDE + Consciousness Documentary Pt5 of 6

Till now the conecpt was that the brain was the producer of consciousness, but when you consider all the NDE cases when the patient should be clinically brain dead and producing no conscious experience, perhaps the brain is not a producer of consciousness, but rather a reciever of consciousness.

But the things I am most wondering about is external information. For example if one meets and entity and that entity tells the individual something. Did that information come from deep within the persons mind or was it really coming from some external source in other dimensions or levels of reality?

If I knew the answer to that there would be no fun in experimenting with altered states. And I'd be a very rich man swim certainly experiences things on certain entheogens that dont feel like they are aspects of his creation, but from an external source. So he would tend towards the latter. But how on earth this could ever be proved is beyond swim.

Cool thread btw, reminded me to upload an interview with Andrew Newberg on mystical states and reality.

[Synesthesiac]

This is clip is what you'll be looking for I think. At the end of the day, this question comes down to the nature of consciousness and how real things feel to us. There is no way to scientifically the test how real something is, the only way to measure 'realness' is by our own subjective experience and how real it intuitively feels.

Youtube Vid: Mystical experiences: Real or delusion?

Its a talk by Andrew Newberg about his research into mystical states st the University of Pennsylvania.

When people have a mystical experience, they nearly all claim that this disconnect with the material world felt more real than their everyday reality, and they say this even afterwards when they are not having the experience. In the case of NDE's, this may cause a major lifestyle change, and the person will typically become less materialistic and less interested in material possessions. This is quite different from altered states such as dreaming, where you may feel that its very real when you are in the dream and experiencing it, but when you wake up you are aware afterwards that that did not feel real, it didn't have the same consistency as normal reality. Which is in stark contrast to the mystical experience in which the person still thinks that the mystical experience was more real than their everyday reality even after it has happened. And sinse there is no way to test for *realness* apart from subjective accounts, we have to consider these opinions seriously. Thats pretty much what Newberg says. And I agree with him.

[Burnt]

But you mistake there being distinct 'levels' of reality, they are all merely expressions of different levels of the one reality that makes us all. Each scale has different laws of physics and different appearances, but they are not separate, so you can not quantise it. There's the scale of our bodies, the scale of our cells, the scale of molecules, of our atoms, of our nuclei, of our quarks, so its tempting to think of these scales as not effecting the other scales, which is what science generally does for convenience of modelling, which propegates a disconnected and fragmented view of the universe. The problem with thinking like that is that you can divide the scales to infinity, for example inbetween the cellular scale and molecular scale you have the scale of proteins, virus's, acids, DNA, genetics, etc, etc. Its all just different levels of description of the one reality. All scales are intricately interconnected.

While I agree each scale is connected because it is, I do not think the laws of physics change at each scale. If you look at a large scales and fast speeds general relativity is most accurate, if you look at medium (human scale) newtons laws are accurate enough, if you look at subatomic scale quantum mechanics is most accurate. I do not think that the "laws" change or whats going on really changes but simply the mathematics used to describe whats going on each level changes. Also until unification of general relativity and quantum mechanics this is a bit mysterious. The laws of physics may break down at incrediably high densities such as those at the very early stages of the universe but yea I don't know if thats applicable to what we are talking about.

When people say that quantum effects cant be applied to consciousness, I always ask them to prove that statement. They never can. I just ask whats the brain made of? Cells they say. What are they made of? Molecules. What are they made of of? Atoms. What laws dominate at the scale of atoms? Quantum physics and classical physics (and relativity). I can imagine how one might observe an impulse at a synapse, and keep breaking it down, into smaller and smaller action...until one is left with the influence of a sub-atomic particle. In fact I cant see any other way for our understanding of nerual networks and consciousness to progress apart from exploring these deeper and deeper levels. Just as Penrose and Hameroff have hypothesised with their theory of microtubules down to quantum effects. And many of the well proven properties of quantum physics could also have a much bigger effect on reality than people have previously given them credit for.

If consciousness is looked at as the sum of brain activity (ie the sum of memories, current awareness and sensory input) then thats the answer. Consiousness is the sum of what we are percieving and what we remember percieving. No need to invoke any other explanation at this point. Thats why I disagree with the people who say that consciousness is the root of everything (unless it was proven otherwise). Thats why humans are more conscious then lets say a rat because we have bigger better brains. Thats why a rock is not conscious.

When people have a mystical experience, they nearly all claim that this disconnect with the material world felt more real than their everyday reality, and they say this even afterwards when they are not having the experience. In the case of NDE's, this may cause a major lifestyle change, and the person will typically become less materialistic and less interested in material possessions. This is quite different from altered states such as dreaming, where you may feel that its very real when you are in the dream and experiencing it, but when you wake up you are aware afterwards that that did not feel real, it didn't have the same consistency as normal reality. Which is in stark contrast to the mystical experience in which the person still thinks that the mystical experience was more real than their everyday reality even after it has happened. And sinse there is no way to test for *realness* apart from subjective accounts, we have to consider these opinions seriously. Thats pretty much what Newberg says. And I agree with him.

Just because something "feels real" does not mean it is. Psychotics can feel things are quite real as well but no one else sees any evidence for it. For example the invisible friend thing when a psychotic talks to someone they genuinly believe is in the room and they clearly are not this person is delusional. What they think is real is until further evidence is provided, not real.

This is clip is what you'll be looking for I think. At the end of the day, this question comes down to the nature of consciousness and how real things feel to us. There is no way to scientifically the test how real something is, the only way to measure 'realness' is by our own subjective experience and how real it intuitively feels.

Why is there no way to scientifically test how real something is? I think thats a cop out but I need to watch the video to see the guys explanation.

[Synesthesiac]

Originally Posted by Burnt

While I agree each scale is connected because it is, I do not think the laws of physics change at each scale.

hmm. I see what you mean, the laws themselves dont really change, but they effect each scale differently. I think this is just semantics really.

For example, a proton in the solar wind will be much more effected by the EM forces and magnetic fields of the surrounding planets and plasma than the planets themselves will. The solar wind does not orbit around the sun like the planets do, as the down at the scale of individual particles everything is effected completely differently to the much larger scale of planets.

So the laws stay the same, but they effect different scales completely differently, each scale responds in a completely unique way. This can lead to conceptually confusing issues, such as incorectly modelling galaxy formation as an EM interaction between two plasma filaments using the biot-savart force law on a very large scale without the need for gravity at all, which seems to give very accurate results at first and with realistic galactic magnetic field values (http://www.plasma-universe.com/index...laxy_formation) but when you consider the EM force needed at the scale of stars to sustain them in this orbit, the whole idea breaks down, as the charge needed on stars would be far too great. So it works on one scale brilliantly, but not others. Though there are way around explaining the deficiency... but thats not really relevant....

I'll try to respond to the rest when I've a bit more time. Enjoying this converstaion. We should have a philosophy section on this forum.

Synesthesiac added 21 Minutes and 9 Seconds later...

Found more time

Originally Posted by Burnt

Just because something "feels real" does not mean it is. Psychotics can feel things are quite real as well but no one else sees any evidence for it. For example the invisible friend thing when a psychotic talks to someone they genuinly believe is in the room and they clearly are not this person is delusional. What they think is real is until further evidence is provided, not real.

The trouble is that consciousness is the root of everything we know. You might say well thats ridiculous, things happen outside of our conscious awareness all the time, but how do we know that? We dont! You might say "The machine records the emission spectrum of an element, it records the data, plots in into a graph and gives a picture of what is really happening there, there it is on paper and recorded, no consiousness involved". But you forgot one vital part of the equation, someone has to consciously look at the data, and until they've done that, it isn't recorded at all.

Also, there is various evidence that the brain is not everything in producing conscious experience. Some people have been documented to have very little brain due to various conditions, but still have nearly all the abilities of normal people. This is hard to explain in the normal brain>consciousness paradigm, but should be far easier to explain in the consciousness>brain paradigm. The best documented cases of this were compiled by Nobel Prize committee member professor John Lorber.

http://www.rense.com/general63/brain.htm

Do You Really Need
To Have A Brain?
By Mitch Doolittle
3-25-5


The reason for my apparently absurd question is the remarkable research conducted at the University of Sheffield by neurology professor the late Dr. John Lorber. When Sheffield's campus doctor was treating one of the mathematics students for a minor ailment, he noticed that the student's head was a little larger than normal. The doctor referred the student to professor Lorber for further examination. The student in question was academically bright, had a reported IQ of 126 and was expected to graduate. When he was examined by CAT-scan, however, Lorber discovered that he had virtually no brain at all. Instead of two hemispheres filling the cranial cavity, some 4.5 centimetres deep, the student had less than 1 millimetre of cerebral tissue covering the top of his spinal column.

The student was suffering from hydrocephalus, the condition in which the cerebrospinal fluid, instead of circulating around the brain and entering the bloodstream, becomes dammed up inside. Normally, the condition is fatal in the first months of childhood. Even where an individual survives he or she is usually seriously handicapped. Somehow, though, the Sheffield student had lived a perfectly normal life and went on to gain an honours degree in mathematics. This case is by no means as rare as it seems. In 1970, a New Yorker died at the age of 35. He had left school with no academic achievements, but had worked at manual jobs such as building janitor, and was a popular figure in his neighbourhood. Tenants of the building where he worked described him as passing the days performing his routine chores, such as tending the boiler, and reading the tabloid newspapers. When an autopsy was performed to determine the cause of his premature death he, too, was found to have practically no brain at all.

Professor Lorber has identified several hundred people who have very small cerebral hemispheres but who appear to be normal intelligent individuals. Some of them he describes as having 'no detectable brain', yet they have scored up to 120 on IQ tests. No-one knows how people with 'no detectable brain' are able to function at all, let alone to graduate in mathematics, but there are a couple theories. One idea is that there is such a high level of redundancy of function in the normal brain that what little remains is able to learn to deputise for the missing hemispheres. Another, similar, suggestion is the old idea that we only use a small percentage of our brains anyway-perhaps as little as 10 per cent. The trouble with these ideas is that more recent research seems to contradict them. The functions of the brain have been mapped comprehensively and although there is some redundancy there is also a high degree of specialisation-the motor area and the visual cortex being highly specific for instance. Similarly, the idea that we 'only use 10 per cent of our brain' is a misunderstanding dating from research in the 1930s in which the functions of large areas of the cortex could not be determined and were dubbed 'silent', when in fact they are linked with important functions like speech and abstract thinking.

The other interesting thing about Lorber's findings is that they remind us of the mystery of memory. At first it was thought that memory would have some physical substrate in the brain, like the memory chips in a PC. But extensive investigation of the brain has turned up the surprising fact that memory is not located in any one area or in a specific substrate. As one eminent neurologist put it, 'memory is everywhere in the brain and nowhere.' But if the brain is not a mechanism for classifying and storing experiences and analysing them to enable us to live our lives then what on earth is the brain for? And where is the seat of human intelligence? Where is the mind? One of the few biologists to propose a radically novel approach to these questions is Dr Rupert Sheldrake. In his book A New Science of Life Sheldrake rejected the idea that the brain is a warehouse for memories and suggested it is more like a radio receiver for tuning into the past. Memory is not a recording process in which a medium is altered to store records, but a journey that the mind makes into the past via the process of morphic resonance. Such a 'radio' receiver would require far fewer and less complex structures than a warehouse capable of storing and retrieving a lifetime of data. But, of course, such a crazy idea couldn't possibly be true, could it?

http://www.flatrock.org.nz/topics/sc..._necessary.htm

Is the Brain Really Necessary?

Aristotle taught that the brain exists merely to cool the blood and is not involved in the process of thinking.
This is true only of certain persons.

- Will Cuppy

This was the question asked by British neurologist John Lorber when he addressed a conference of pædiatricians in 1980. Such a frivolous sounding question was sparked by case studies Lorber had been involved in since the mid-60s. The case studies involve victims of an ailment known as hydrocephalus, more commonly known as water on the brain. The condition results from an abnormal build up of cerebrospinal fluid and can cause severe retardation and death if not treated.
Two young children with hydrocephalus referred to Lorber presented with normal mental development for their age. In both children, there was no evidence of a cerebral cortex. One of the children died at age 3 months, the second at 12 months. He was still following a normal development profile with the exception of the apparent lack of cerebral tissue shown by repeated medical testing. An account of the children was published in Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology.

Later, a colleague at Sheffield University became aware of a young man with a larger than normal head. He was referred to Lorber even though it had not caused him any difficulty. Although the boy had an IQ of 126 and had a first class honours degree in mathematics, he had "virtually no brain". A noninvasive measurement of radio density known as CAT scan showed the boy's skull was lined with a thin layer of brain cells to a millimeter in thickness. The rest of his skull was filled with cerebrospinal fluid. The young man continues a normal life with the exception of his knowledge that he has no brain.

Although anecdotal accounts may be found in medical literature, Lorber is the first to provide a systematic study of such cases. He has documented over 600 scans of people with hydrocephalus and has broken them into four groups:

those with nearly normal brains
those with 50-70% of the cranium filled with cerebrospinal fluid
those with 70-90% of the cranium filled with cerebrospinal fluid
and the most severe group with 95% of the cranial cavity filled with cerebrospinal fluid.

Of the last group, which comprised less than 10% of the study, half were profoundly retarded. The remaining half had IQs greater than 100. Skeptics have claimed that it was an error of interpretation of the scans themselves. Lorber himself admits that reading a CAT scan can be tricky. He also has said that he would not make such a claim without evidence. In answer to attacks that he has not precisely quantified the amount of brain tissue missing, he added, "I can't say whether the mathematics student has a brain weighing 50 grams or 150 grams, but it is clear that it is nowhere near the normal 1.5 kilograms."

Many neurologists feel that this is a tribute to the brain's redundancy and its ability to reassign functions. Others, however, are not so sure. Patrick Wall, professor of anatomy at University College, London states "To talk of redundancy is a cop-out to get around something you don't understand."

Norman Geschwind, a neurologist at Boston's Beth Israel Hospital agrees: "Certainly the brain has a remarkable capacity for reassigning functions following trauma, but you can usually pick up some kind of deficit with the right tests, even after apparently full recovery."

References

Anthony Smith The Mind New York Viking Press, 1984, page 230
Roger Lewin "Is Your Brain Really Necessary?"Science 210 December 1980, page 1232

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good post