Where is thought?

[ButterflyWoman]

A telephone exchange is the seat of the phone network, but it doesn't explain the information being passed across the networjk, day in, day out, 24/7, 365 per year. You can analyse the hardware till the cows come home & you will still have no reasonable concept of what the information universe is about.

The internet is a similar metaphor. Cyberspace exists. I'm participating in this conversation in cybersapce. I met my husband on the net, and we were on opposite sides of the planet and yet we became friends and fell in love, all in cyberspace (and later via the telephone, which, as noted, is a similar virtual space). Things that happen in cyberspace may be entirely inconsequential, but they may have tremendous impact on the non-virtual world.

And what is the internet? Well, it's a whole bunch of computers running the appropriate protocols and software to exchange packets of information, but that doesn't say anything about what cyberspace is...

I believe that the mind (as opposed to the brain or the gut or any other part of you that has a lot of neurons) exists in a similar virtual space. It is accessed via the brain and other neurons, the same way that you access the phone network via your handset or you access the net via your computer, but the mind exists in a way that can't be defined by the sum of its parts, and, I think, it exists apart from the brain that accesses it. When your brain dies, your mind, your consciousness, continues (at least, that's what I believe).

I've heard the argument that consciousness can be snuffed out at will via injury and anesthetic, and while the former may damage the apparatus with which we access the mind, and the latter may well completely disconnect your brain from your mind for a while, neither of those things can be demonstrated to do anything at all to the mind. It's the brain that is being affected, in my personal opinion.

I came to think about that thing with the anesthetic after I had surgery last month. Prior to going into the operating theatre I was meditating and practicing the deepest relaxation I could muster and visualising a positive outcome (which I did have), and then I went into the operating theatre and was getting adjusted on the table and all that and then I went out pretty much without warning (some anesthesiologists will tell you when they start to administer the drugs; this one didn't say a word, just flipped off my switch!). When I came out of the anesthetic I was moaning and saying "Ow ow ow ow ow" over and over, without even realising I was doing so...

When I recovered from the pain enough to start thinking philosophical thoughts again, I was pondering where my "consciousness" went. After a lot of thought and meditation I came to the conclusion that it didn't "go" anywhere. Just my brain stepped out for a little while.

It's a bit like when my broadband goes out, I think....

[White Wolf]

It funny you guys keep using technology metaphors, because I have this theory (doesn't everyone? ) that one of the main functions of the physical body is that of a hugely complex antenae to send a receive gods will onto a plane capable of descrete calculation. That we are god's logic center, so speak.

It kinda makes some sense. Time appears to only exist in our dimension, from what little I've read. Time is require for calculation. You can define a mathematical equation, and it exsists in completeness, but it useless until you use it to calculate something. Calculation is descrete, it requires steps, steps require a concept of before and after, before and after are only relevant with a concept of time.

What happens if god decides to stop thinking himself? Do we go bye bye?

[Korpo]

WhiteWolf,

calculation needs not the passage of time, only discrete steps of cause and effect. Unless you prove that there is a smallest discrete unit of time that is not the same.

All you perceive could have been you that created it, not vice versa. Why should we be God's logic circuits? Why should not be anything that exists our creation instead of the other way round?

Okay, not really convincing or probable, but from our current knowledge very possible. Your own existence is the only given to you. That makes too much logical thought a crutch, because thinking logically requires exactness, but all you have is inexact tools and an incomplete set of axioms to begin with.

Oliver

[CFTraveler]

Off topic: Why all the hostility to science I keep sensing here? It seem like everywhere I turn on this forum, theres an almost tanglible contempt for science and empirical reasoning. Not that there's no attempt at understanding phenomenon in scientific terms, but they all somehow stop short of thorough investigation and verification. If ideas are unchallenged, then the path to deeper knowledge is blocked and it becomes dogma.

You may be sensing a hostility to science, not because of the pitfalls of science itself (I for one am grateful for the freedom of thought science has brought to our world) but for the way science is portayed in today's world, IMO. For example, there are many things that are looked at by scientists, but when they look at things that could be controversial (that is, not conforming to the expected results) then the studies are sometimes portrayed (by the media that delivers the scientific news) in misleading terms, often slanted by the beliefs of the ones doing the reporting.
To be more clear, there was a study that was done on the benefits of praying and it's effects of patients' longevity that were suffering of terminal illness. (This is by memory, so please bear with me) the study showed that people that were prayed for lived longer, but eventually all died anyway. It was reported two ways: The skeptical community decided that prayer didn't work because the patients eventually died, and the mainstream media portrayed it that way (the skeptical community then went on to make fun of people that prayed for the sick)- But if you went to the reports from the religious organizations that support prayer for healing, the report was portrayed as proving that prayer worked because the people that were prayed for lived longer.
Same data, different conclusions.
This is not so bad, but there have been other studies done by scientists eager to find out 'the truth', in which they have studied OBE effects. Many of them have come to the conclusion that 'they don't know', but when you read the news about it in the media, they will slant them to say that it showed OBEs are not 'real'.
There was another OBE study that was begun with the premise that it had to be some pathology- they were out (and said so on the study) that they were out to find out 'what was wrong with the patients'- When they caused autoscopy (which is not the same as OBE) they said they caused OBEs. And if you read the very last part of the study, they admitted that they knew that OBE was not the same autoscopy, and in the future they would do more studies.
So if you didn't dissect the whole study, you would have sworn that they could cause OBE in the lab by probing people's temporal lobes. Ps. these were all epileptic patients, so right off the bat they started with the premise that epilepsy was the cause of OBEs.....
I guess the point that I'm trying to make is that the 'scientific establishment' is what people should be hostile to, not scientists themselves- most scientists I ever met were trying to do real, conscientious studies into what they were trying to discover or cure or whatever- but when it comes to dealing with the established network, that's where the trouble starts.
Ask Rayson when (and if) he comes back about his scientist friend who was pressured to change lab results to get funding for her boss's facility.
This is the kind of thing that happens, and the scientists get blamed.

On another note (and this is turning into some sort of dissertation) you will also notice a hostility towards organized religion, christianity in particular (unfair to me, there are lots of other religions that are suppressive out there nowadays)- I believe this is in response to years of living under oppressive conditions due to the nature of specific churches or temples, yet the baby gets thrown out with the bathwater there too, (IMO).

I have been noticing this anti-scientific trend since the late 80's, and I believe it has to do with the politization (sp) of science, with debates over ecology, global warming, and the militarization of NASA in the US- the joy of discovery have taken a back seat to economics, politics and power.

Oh well- I for one am glad to have a scientist here (and a quantum physicist to boot) IMO there are a lot of things that are also misrepresented in that field and am glad to have someone who knows what they're talking about.

[journyman161]

Personally I think a little more of the principles of science would be quite valuable in the pursuit of the astral. While I have disdain for some of the things science does, the principles & methods can be very useful.

We are in the realm of matter & energy - we're here for a reason & as beings we appear to have moved through a variety of states, culminating (so far) with the material mastership of the physical realm. Prior to this we can be seen to have gone through a variety of magical, mystical & religious views of the universe; science has at least transcended those, or offered the chance to do so if we are willing to follow the path.

Real Science is adaptable to any situation, including the spiritual, & can be used to sort fact from fantasy. Fake science can be used to prove anything. Bad science is all around us & is being used to shape our lives. eg. there is NO evidence that 2nd hand smoke causes anything except asthma in very young children - certainly none that suggests adults get cancer or any other illness from it. Yet 2nd hand smoke is being used to shut smokers out of buildings & public places all across the world.

There IS statistical evidence that smoking 1st hand causes or is linked to increased rates of cancer & other illness, but the 2nd hand smoke link is simply political manipulation.

Another is the whole global warming issue - there is plenty of evidence it is happening - there is very little actual evidence at all that humans are anything other than a very minor part of a 'rebalancing' of the Earth after a period of unusual coldness. Yet human global warming is being used to jack energy prices, to raise costs & to change the way we live.

These things might need to be done, but why are we being made to do them based on lies? Politics, not science.

But good, science, the enquiry into causes & events based on the quest for knowledge, can transfigure what we know & how we see ourselves & the universes around us.

To me, one of the problems faced by the alternative world is the identification of sceince as all being bad & the rejection of the principles that have brought us to where we are? Why aren't we peons owned by the hereditary ruler of an empire? Science. How come we can spend our leisure pursuing such things as astral travel? Or even have leisure time at all? Science.

Why do we have the knowledge about attuning the two sides of the mind? Science. Yes gurus have been achieving it via hard work over decades, but they didn't know just what it was they were achieving. Science looked & found the rhythms & how they can be influenced & suddenly the average person can attune their mind with Binaural beats in months instead of lifetimes.

What humans do with it is typically human, but please don't mistake the machinations of people with a reason to alter your Point of View as being science - it isn't. Manipulation is always political, even if it isn't being done by politicians.

[White Wolf]

On the other scientists have been cowardly and conservative about their approaches. They judge on terms of externally observable behaviour because that is easier. The inner workings of the mind will be very hard to track that way, but that's the consensus.

If you ask me what science has done in the last years to give my life a meaning it's that easy: not much. ... The really important questions in your life are probably...
* What is my life purpose? Is there one?...

While I'm not sure you meant this the way it came out, but I have to take great exception to this.

Here are a few little known or uncredited generalizations about scientists:
1. Many continue going to school long after others have started the routines of life. Many forgo building a family, building a house, or visting with friends and accrue large sums of debt in pursuit of education. Those sacrifices don't end when they gratuate either.
2. Clearing you mind of mental work is a very hard things to do. It is very difficult to shut your mind off after you finish working for the day, and when you do, you usualy find exhaustion waiting to overtake you.
3. Researchs often work long hours, at home, on "vacation", and at work. Odd hours are routine. 9 to 5 seems like a distant bliss by comarison.

A good scientist has to use a very close line of reasoning to achieve good results. The path to error is great, and failure is an everpresent possibility. This is not something that comes easy, it requires discipline and focus.

One must come up with new ideas, and find ways to make them fail. Constant critisism, only a small portion which the public sees, is an everpresent companion.

Tell me a coward that would do this to themselves?

No, scientists make great sacrifices in persuit of one of the greatest and eternal gifts one can give to the community: knowledge.

As for what science has done for you? Well, it powers your home and car, allows for enough food to be availible to be on your table, helps cure you when you are ill, and makes cloths to go on your back.

And who says you can't have both science and spirituality? There are questions that only spirituality can answer, and other which science does a better job. The great thing is the wonder that knowledge provides us and the ever expanding awareness that it encompasses. Who knows, maybe someday science will begin to answer those questions you listed too. The skys the limit as far as I can see.

The reason why western societies have become less happy is a largely unbridal capitalistic market, and the corruption government from its purpose. That's really general, but the complexities are beyond me to divulge. I won't really go into that one, but I do say you have a bit of a point there.

My whole point behind this was to higlight that just because it is not science, does not mean you can't apply some scientific methods to imrpove understanding of how something works. Instead of taking your experiences at face value, next time try understanding how works, setup an experiment yourself, make a theory to explain it, check it, report your results here and see if other can do it too. That way we all move past the purely subjective experience and find some hidden principles that govern its behavior.

Some questions you might ask?

How long does it take for you to meditate until OBE?
What was your heartrate during the time during OBE?
How long can you stay gone before having to come back from an OBE before you don't remember the experience?
What was the temperature of the room before and after your started drawing energy?
What was your body temperature during meditation?

Its always the simple questions lead to other questions, which eventually leads to some sort of understanding about your experience which you didn't know subjectively.

At my day job, I found out that an additive was changing the temperature of my experiments, which lead to a deeper understanding the phenomenon I'm studying. It all from tracking fairly mundain data, and looking at it just the right way.

I'm just saying there's no harm in trying to be a little more thorough in your subjectivity. Who know maybe you learn something. And yes, I do think that more information is superior to less information.

[ButterflyWoman]

My husband is a scientist. Has a degree in computer science, but very nearly did a double degree in CS and physics. He's got numerous awards for his mathematics ability. He works at a university in the chemistry department (writing computer code, not doing chemistry; specifically, he works with nanotechnology).

I haven't got any issues with scientists. I don't have any issues with science. I find it to be an extremely useful way of looking at a lot of things, and it's sometimes preferable to other means of finding an answer. For example, I tend to look to medical science for medical issues. It's only when and if medical science is unable to help that I start looking at alternatives, although I do generally practice complementary things like meditation, positive visualisation, etc.

Where I have an issue is with some people who think science is the be all and end all of human experience, and try to apply scientific reasoning to everything, including ethics, morality, spirituality, and various other things that cannot and should not be included in the scientific method.

When science keeps itself to things scientific, I'm perfectly fine with it. When people start to use it to try to quantify or disprove or measure or otherwise discredit personal, subjective, spiritual matters, then I start to bristle.

I've said before that I haven't got that much faith in science, and it's true. This is because science is not something that requires faith, nor should it. Good science (as opposed to pseudoscience or bad science, and you know that's out there, too) is something that can be repeated and verified and measured. No faith required.

Spirituality, on the other hand, does require all sorts of faith. Faith that you're just just delusional or insane. Faith that you're doing something worthwhile with your energy. Faith that your subjective experiences means something (even if it's only to you).

Faith and science are two entirely opposing views of the world. So long as they remain so, it's fine.

I suspect that a lot of the people on this board have had encounters with people who worship reason and think science is the answer to everything and who are happy to tell you how delusional you are for believing in things that they can't measure in a laboratory. It does tend to leave a bad taste in one's mouth.

Certainly, not all scientists walk around with blinders on. I know of many who are genuine, serious scientists and who also have faith in and interest in things outside of science (philosophy, ethics, morality, spirituality of various kinds, etc.). My husband doesn't understand a lot of the stuff I talk about with regard to spirituality (he's one of the most non-intuitive people I've ever met ), but he does understand perfectly that many things are just outside the realm of science. We get along pretty well, despite his interest in bizarre things that make no sense, things like, say, quantum physics...

[Korpo]

As for what science has done for you? Well, it powers your home and car, allows for enough food to be availible to be on your table, helps cure you when you are ill, and makes cloths to go on your back.

If you credit these things magically to science you are wrong. Ever single piece of these things derive from the work people put into it, not science. People make these things happen, not science. Nothing is ever created without the work and creative power of even the seemingly least of us.

If you were to attribute anything the way you do to science, then you have to thank it for the pollution in the air, food, water, the nuclear bomb and a lot of other things, too. You could say Chernobyl or Seveso or Bopal was caused by science, too.

Science simply has not made people happier. That was my point. Do you think a car, TVs, prozac, central heating, the ability to take a flight to another continent have made people happier or spiritually more fulfilled? I don't think so.

Why do you think it is that a lot of people are unhappy having all these things, working the threadmill to obtain them, and impressing the Joneses and so on? And why do you think other people chose to go to a monastery and meditate their way to enlightenment facing a wall?

Because spirituality has answers to these questions that pertain to a deeper level of our being than science can be aware of. I agree with OlderWiser, there is a point beyond which the scientific method is missing the point entirely.

And I repeat my statement about cowardly attitudes, because you did miss the point. I'm not impressed by the hard work. A lot of jobs require hard work. An air traffic controller at an airport has to be more present than the thinker, for example.

Very few scientists actually dare to think outside the paradigm, and this still is to me cowardly and overly conservative. This view is shared by many more creative thinkers that outgrew this limitation. Like it is often said: The new idea will win the minds over when the proponents of the old idea have died out.

Oliver

[journyman161]

If you credit these things magically to science you are wrong. Ever single piece of these things derive from the work people put into it, not science. People make these things happen, not science. Nothing is ever created without the work and creative power of even the seemingly least of us.

If you were to attribute anything the way you do to science, then you have to thank it for the pollution in the air, food, water, the nuclear bomb and a lot of other things, too. You could say Chernobyl or Seveso or Bopal was caused by science, too.

Science simply has not made people happier. That was my point. Do you think a car, TVs, prozac, central heating, the ability to take a flight to another continent have made people happier or spiritually more fulfilled? I don't think so.

Why do you think it is that a lot of people are unhappy having all these things, working the threadmill to obtain them, and impressing the Joneses and so on? And why do you think other people chose to go to a monastery and meditate their way to enlightenment facing a wall?

Because spirituality has answers to these questions that pertain to a deeper level of our being than science can be aware of. I agree with OlderWiser, there is a point beyond which the scientific method is missing the point entirely.

And I repeat my statement about cowardly attitudes, because you did miss the point. I'm not impressed by the hard work. A lot of jobs require hard work. An air traffic controller at an airport has to be more present than the thinker, for example.

Very few scientists actually dare to think outside the paradigm, and this still is to me cowardly and overly conservative. This view is shared by many more creative thinkers that outgrew this limitation. Like it is often said: The new idea will win the minds over when the proponents of the old idea have died out.

Oliver

The problem here is the confusion of Science with Technology. The Manhattan Project was enabled because of Science but it was a project wholly about Technology. Technology has both enabled the pursuit of happiness & brought abject misery. But it isn't Science. Science is the pursuit of Knowledge, seeking understanding of the cosmos around us. Technology is about the implementation of the Knowledge that Science has brought to light.

Science IS about thinking outside the paradigm & it has repeatedly stretched the boundaries of Knowledge. Science is in the process of bringing us a rational explanation of Consciousness & maybe even the structure of all the Cosmoi.

Yes there are humans doing the Science & so there are those who hang onto their ideas & concepts, but Science makes a habit of challenging all assumptions - religion & mysticism simply doesn't have the same track record - dogma is the curse of having 'faith' whereas Science, done properly, enables Knowledge.

Again, please don't confuse the worst of manipulation using pseudo-science with real science. That is the equivalent of evaluating all mysticism by asking GWB what Truth is.

[Korpo]

The interesting thing is that it needs belief that science can do all these things in order to start doing it that way.

There may be ways in which science might enable us to understand more about the cosmos. But IMO it is more probable that science as we know it, and that is commingled with technology, will always be blocked from finding the deeper reality of things which human beings possibly cannot fathom very much while still alive.

Thinking outside the paradigm is however not a trait of science, though. The real, existing scientific community on this planet thinks mostly within paradigms, not outside. The kind of idealised science that is often called upon does not exist, IMO. And it is heavily intermingled with technology, so it is very abstract to separate the two.

Given that science is one way to pursue a certain kind of knowledge (the one that can written down basically), does more knowledge of that kind really improve your life? Does what we know about quantum physics really improve my life? Probably not. When you transform it into technology, it might just help people do some things, and maybe people will be happy for some time with the results. But then you need to technology as mediator, and science still has not made you happy.

I think all the questions I posted above are to a degree unanswerable by science, but I also think the answers you come up with are vital for your life. Totally regardless of science. Science is totally orthogonal with spirituality, IMO. They are different dimensions of our experience.

You cannot live without some scientific understanding, true. But without any spiritual spark in you you are just a thinking machine.

It always depends on what questions you want answers to. IMO there are places and situations where the scientific paradigm of believing only what you can prove and validate in experiment denies us the joys that defines those experiences. I believe the scientific view of things is not all-encompassing, and there is a point beyond which it makes no sense.

Oliver