"This place is dangerous for trying to find truth"

[shawn]

Originally Posted by Tao_Equus
There is no higher self. When the electrical neurochemistry stops you stop. Science has proven this in now dozens of experiments. The only reason we have a belief in an afterlife is because we would like to believe it.

Not that it really matters to me one way or the other what you decide to believe, but the question that jumps at me here is why you like to believe that there is no more to life than what you see.

 

[earl]

I think the use of a word like 'uplifting' is very loaded given your overall argument. After all isn't this just some chemical process taking place in your brain? I'm inclined to ask if you feel 'uplifted' (just another emotion) then so what?

Also wouldn't it be more precise to say you accept certain types of evidence from certain sources - and this is data that you yourself mostly can't check. Of course it could be that in ten or twenty years time another group of scientists will come up with evidence that contradicts the evidence you now base your opinions on.

Your decision to take seriously only information that appears in scientific journals is just as emotional as the decision to accept a spiritual idea. Maybe the ground beneath your feet isn't so solid as you like to think it is.

Breeze, you might want to check out a thread I started some months back entitled "scientific fundamentalism," started simply because I'd noted that Tao does indeed stricty base his belief systems on what hard science can prove and he does indeed seem selective in the evidence he accepts for his worldview including disregarding some "scientific" evidence which contradicts it. earl

 

[Tao_Equus]

Namaste Tao,

Lastly firstly.... If your Athiesm only accepts evidence....do you have QED evidence that Spirit, Soul, G!D does not exist? If not shouldn't you be a little more open and be agnostic?

No. I have looked pretty intently at various paradigms and their claims and see clear evidence of why they have peddled in this belief meme. It is not because it has a single verifiable bit of proof and is tied firmly into social politics. Just because this meme has been around a long time and very many people are infected by it does not make it real. The nature of the infection is addictive, it ties in an individual at childhood and is culturally under constant re-inforcing in a 10001 everyday ways. It is so a part of the fabric of our societies that those who have resisted that infection only represent a small fraction of global population. I can and do give all the solid reasoning for my stated position. I do so over the breadth of my posts because there are so many pertinent angles to approach it. My atheism is based not on what an individual book has said but on a critical evaluation using the tools of many sciences in the many 1000's of study results I have processed. Individually you can discuss and obfusicate but as a body, they are a sledgehammer to the alabaster effigy of religion.

And you think Free will is an illusion? So you have no choice as to whether to go to the pub or not and I have no choice in this response?

No, the choices have already been made subconciously. Most of your behaviour is habitual.....ie...unconcious. No matter the veneer of awareness you can occassionaly call on.

Now Firstly lastly....this is an interesting one..that whole flight or fight thang? Isn't the latest and greatest concept that we are not unconcious but super conscious? That that whole experience of time slowing down when we are in an accident is actually because we have a reflex whereby when our head is in danger of getting smashed it tears apart 99% of our neuronet and only leaves in tact the highways we need to use to respond to the situation, ie eyes, ears, direct muscles, reflexes, hence time slows because everything is conentrated firing down those channels...and allows us to react to the stimulus at hand....also the reason the emergency people like to ask do you know your name, what day it is, who is the president, what year etc....to see how much of your neuronet is damaged or put back together....

The brain is constantly surveying through your senses for the threat of danger. When it spots one there is a firestorm of neural connections made. Because many of them are accessing a stored memory, searching for a solution to the problem at hand, you can get the illusion of your life flashing before you. But the brain does not get 'faster'...only busier. Meanwhile your reactions are all diverted to the hippocampus, the oldest/ most primitive part of our brain. And a part of the brain that has nothing to do with higher cognative function. In an emergency you are on autopilot.

I think the use of a word like 'uplifting' is very loaded given your overall argument. After all isn't this just some chemical process taking place in your brain? I'm inclined to ask if you feel 'uplifted' (just another emotion) then so what?

"So what"!...... well who's the existentialist now!?! Yeh it has no big ramifications for any of the big truths. It only my own personal little indulgence of the senses I have. My brain chemistry has an asthetic sense of pleasure for reasons that are fully explained by my place as a free ranging social animal that is capable of great adaptability. Every facet of my behaviour can be seen in other social animals. Even in the development of language memes.

Also wouldn't it be more precise to say you accept certain types of evidence from certain sources - and this is data that you yourself mostly can't check. Of course it could be that in ten or twenty years time another group of scientists will come up with evidence that contradicts the evidence you now base your opinions on.

I have been looking at science for over 30 years now and I have seen theories rise and fall. But as I stated above it is not an individual study that supports my thinking but a body of evidence that constantly grows and as a whole paints a compelling picture. Yet for all it is compelling it is known to me that it is not a finished work and this is figured into my thinking too.

Your decision to take seriously only information that appears in scientific journals is just as emotional as the decision to accept a spiritual idea. .

No it is not. I was lucky to escape early indoctrination and became interested in science because it did things I could see were real. It was not an emotional choice but one based on what I could observe working.

lol So you are saying that this team in Germany can think six seconds faster than each of us alone? Tell me what device or technology do they use to achieve such speeds in thinking processes?

An MMRI scanner.

CPU manufacturers Intel and AMD develop, design and produce a faster CPU every two to three years. If someone can find a way to speed up our thinking processes that would be a revolution in business and commerce. Imagine that. A faster human brain every two or three years. Imagine the possibilities of a world driven by faster thinking and thought processes.

You need to re-approach what I said. You misunderstand what is going on. It is not about speed. It is about the choice you will inevitably make.

Also Tao,



Could you provide some links or references to show how and when science has 'proven' there is no higher self. Personally I think the 'higher self' idea is pretty dubious but I'm also pretty sure science has never directly addressed this question. The usual argument is that there is no positive scientific evidence for an 'afterlife' therefore there isn't one. Another dubious argument.

You will find plenty on Scepetic.com But again it is not a single study I base my thinking on but the body. And its not nearly as dubious as there being some schizophrenic empath/psychopath in the sky whos watching and judging me.

Not that it really matters to me one way or the other what you decide to believe, but the question that jumps at me here is why you like to believe that there is no more to life than what you see.

Because that what the body of the evidence screams at 120 decibels.

 

[wil]

And its not nearly as dubious as there being some schizophrenic empath/psychopath in the sky whos watching and judging me.

For the life of me I cannot understand why Atheist are literal dogmatic fundamentalists.

Hello Tao, is anyone in there?? I don't believe in any old man in the sky keeping records. Yo Tao, I don't believe that mythology either, I'd say neither do most of us believers here.

And to be clear again, you have no scientific evidence that a soul, an afterlife, or G!d does not exist....yet you who demands evidence believes it doesn't exist.

 

[Tao_Equus]

For the life of me I cannot understand why Atheist are literal dogmatic fundamentalists.

Hello Tao, is anyone in there?? I don't believe in any old man in the sky keeping records. Yo Tao, I don't believe that mythology either, I'd say neither do most of us believers here.

And to be clear again, you have no scientific evidence that a soul, an afterlife, or G!d does not exist....yet you who demands evidence believes it doesn't exist.

I was responding to a ridiculous idea with one of a similar nature. Can you grok that?
Maybe not but that is why I have to balance my judgement based on what I can know with at least some modicum of plausibilty. If there is some creator then it means nothing to it what I am, say or do in my life nor you in yours. It is irrelevant. So to all intent and purpose it does not exist.

 

[Dream]

Woa, woah. I thought the subject was switching to the 5th dimension when the total gestalt idea came up. Has that disappeared? I wanted to comment that I don't see how that is the same thing as an afterlife in the Egyptian or Christian sense.

Even if we're connected by a 5th dimension, it is better for us while we are alive. On the positive side if we are connected through a 5th, then when we are dead others are alive. Their connection to us improves them as well. Ok, I get it, though that is changing the subject from an actual afterlife. You are just talking about the entirety of humanity with all of its individual facets scattered over time.

 

[Saltmeister]

An MMRI scanner.

You need to re-approach what I said. You misunderstand what is going on. It is not about speed. It is about the choice you will inevitably make.

You said nothing about an MMRI scanner. I could only guess.

I imagined a bunch of scientists in front of an audience interacting with subjects to show how they could predict with their "method" what the subject was going to do. Unaided human speculation of the behaviour of other humans.

I see how an MMRI scanner can predict human decisions. You just identify patterns of activity and predict their corresponding thoughts and behaviours based on past research and observations.

With regards to the existence of a soul, what an MMRI does not tell you is how those thoughts actually form. You've got no conclusive and absolute proof that these thought patterns don't come from influences external to the universe as we know it, based on physics and chemistry. Unless you tracked every single electrical signal and chemical interaction, you can't be sure that these thought patterns arise only from physics and chemistry. The brain could actually be a portal to another plane of existence.

Tao, I simply demand more evidence.

But if there's a reason why you don't have a reason to believe in souls, it's because you've never seen a high-school drop-out fall into a trance (like he's possessed) and suddenly talk like a professor and speak of things he could not possibly know. That would certainly give you a reason to believe in the supernatural and of other planes of existence.

There is no conclusive or absolute proof either way.

If we ever do find a kid like that, we'll hook him up to an MMRI and determine once and for all if this phenomenon is completely natural.

 

[Dream]

Uh, catching up. I'd say that brain damage at least limits the capabilities of any higher self. In that case, what should be the expectation of a dead brain? If the higher self matters so much, then it should go the other way. Brain damage should inhibit motor functions but not moral decisions; but it does. Example: Drinking suppresses both physical and spiritual functions (like self control). A higher self is a cool concept.

 

[the breeze]

Tao,

No it is not. I was lucky to escape early indoctrination and became interested in science because it did things I could see were real. It was not an emotional choice but one based on what I could observe working.

You see this is the real lie, the idea that you can somehow escape every process that you attribute to everyone else. You and Dick Dawkins have an objective view but everyone else is emotional, subjective, deluded etc. Dawkin's view of the meme that you quote is a completely speculative theory with no basis in science and yet you (and he) endorse it without question or criticism. Why? It serves your emotional purpose. Both you and Dawkins are emotionally driven individuals and this is the source of your views - or maybe you and he are the only truly objective beings in the history of humanity.

You need to re-approach what I said. You misunderstand what is going on. It is not about speed. It is about the choice you will inevitably make.

The experiments, I believe, show that unconscious decisions precede conscious actions. Fine, but all your conclusions about what this means are completely speculative and not at all based on evidence. Again it's what you want to conclude and nothing more.

I have been looking at science for over 30 years now and I have seen theories rise and fall. But as I stated above it is not an individual study that supports my thinking but a body of evidence that constantly grows and as a whole paints a compelling picture. Yet for all it is compelling it is known to me that it is not a finished work and this is figured into my thinking too.

Ah yes, again, you think but you don't feel - you have no fear, no needs, no desire, you are able to separate your ideas from your emotions. But we lesser beings cannot do this.

You will find plenty on Scepetic.com

I've visited this website a number of times. Perhaps you could direct me to the article that shows science has proven the higher self doesn't exist.

 

[wil]

As to scientists being able to know your decision 6 seconds before we do I say hogwash. Why?? What scientific validation have I? How about a boxing match? Or a car race, or car accident, or ping pong or tennis. Your decisions to move left right, strike, block, counter, turn, twist etc. are all made sometimes in less than a second, so how could someone know 6 seconds prior?

As to the various scriptures as you are aware I see them as man's less than admirable attempt to define the undefinable. My weak attempt is that I see G!d (including but not limited to) in everything and connected to everything, the principle that is what holds us all together. The unified theory of sorts, although I've learned to not like any science analogies as they all are eventually tossed out by the next science. But I don't have a creator in mind, but do have a principle that surely does affect my life on a regular basis, the same as gravity and cell phones and the internet affect my life....I don't understand completely the workings of any of them, but can utilize their benefits and not taking advantage of the knowledge of how to utilze these things could easily put one on a disadvantage....say walking off the edge of a roof....

lol dream, a little knife twisting there eh?

 

[Tao_Equus]

Woa, woah. I thought the subject was switching to the 5th dimension when the total gestalt idea came up. Has that disappeared? I wanted to comment that I don't see how that is the same thing as an afterlife in the Egyptian or Christian sense.

Even if we're connected by a 5th dimension, it is better for us while we are alive. On the positive side if we are connected through a 5th, then when we are dead others are alive. Their connection to us improves them as well. Ok, I get it, though that is changing the subject from an actual afterlife. You are just talking about the entirety of humanity with all of its individual facets scattered over time.

The thing is Dream that any such speculation is just that. There is good science out there and attractive theories of a collectivism that transcends self and I have openly supported them in the past. Especially so with moderate versions of Gaia theory. I do not dismiss out of hand some sideways influence in so far unobservable planes of reality. But to use quantum strangeness as support for a higher self is as meaningless as saying the self you daily inhabit transcends death as the de facto person you are. Its wishful thinking. Gross anthrpocentrism. If you understand a quantum field you will no that it is a place of potential, not of existence. When the fundamental particles pass over into the quantised state they no longer have the identity they had but join an indeterminate soup of pure potential. It is like they have no identity yet the potential identity of anything. You can call that god if you like but to me it smacks of what, for want of a better way to describe it, is a transition mechanism or membrane (brane frontier). Not understanding the nature of sub-atomic scale matter when it gets small enough (or cold enough for atomic scale) to lose its identity is no good place to hunt for gods.
Darwin against his express wishes was buried in a church and alongside so many butchers and thieves that were not worthy of burial in a cess pit. Corporate religion is in a race to claim and subvert each new bit of thinking to its own agenda. It requires constant validation in the sea of change. It is an old, old story.


As for the rest of you... you are going to get my hangover rant tomorrow

 

[earl]

Netscape Search

Here's an interesting recent interview with the transpersonal psychiatrist, Stanislav Grof, who has spent his entire career on matters related to consciousness research. Even has some passing references to his views on survival of consciousness post-death Tao, not to mention his view on the issue of whether consciousness is reducible to simple neurochemical goings on. As to that hangover, well if the "spirits" move you. Even has a comment about scientific fundamentalism. earl

 

[the breeze]

Here's an interesting recent interview with the transpersonal psychiatrist, Stanislav Grof, who has spent his entire career on matters related to consciousness research. Even has some passing references to his views on survival of consciousness post-death Tao, not to mention his view on the issue of whether consciousness is reducible to simple neurochemical goings on. As to that hangover, well if the "spirits" move you. Even has a comment about scientific fundamentalism. earl

Yes, it's an interesting interview illustrating very well a few points relevant in this thread - you don't have to choose between science and spirituality, evidence does not speak for itself rather it is interpreted in line with a particular world view, there is scientific evidence for a distinction between brain activity and conciousness.

I would add that we don't need to rely on priests or scientists to interpret the world for us, in the end a critical examination of our life experience is the most important factor.

 

[Tao_Equus]

Well my rowanberry vermouth has been triple filtered and has left my head clear this morning. It made a wonderful cocktail martini with gin and lemonade.

Uh, catching up. I'd say that brain damage at least limits the capabilities of any higher self. In that case, what should be the expectation of a dead brain? If the higher self matters so much, then it should go the other way. Brain damage should inhibit motor functions but not moral decisions; but it does. Example: Drinking suppresses both physical and spiritual functions (like self control). A higher self is a cool concept.

Two interesting points. First off brain damage to specific areas controlling different functions results in different pathologies. The relatively recent introduction of non-invasive techniques such as MMRI scanners has revealed many of our old assumptions about conciousness are now outdated. But we are still a long way from a difinitive map of and understanding of all brain function.What is clear from throwing the net wider is that conciousness is a developed tool that augments the older reactive subconcious brain. Virtually all higher cognative function takes place in the most recently evolved parts of our brain and it was the development of complex language that went hand in hand with that evolution. We need what we call conciousness to use language effectively. We need language because we are social animals that sought to exploit every niche we could. We share community tasks and this requires ever more complex language, forward and lateral thinking and a firm sense of 'self' within both social group and environment. Morality is a social imposition to control for harmful degrees of selfishness which paradoxically individually selfish too. As social animals we have the twin imperatives of personal self and group and without that group element morality has no relevance.

Tao,



You see this is the real lie, the idea that you can somehow escape every process that you attribute to everyone else. You and Dick Dawkins have an objective view but everyone else is emotional, subjective, deluded etc. Dawkin's view of the meme that you quote is a completely speculative theory with no basis in science and yet you (and he) endorse it without question or criticism. Why? It serves your emotional purpose. Both you and Dawkins are emotionally driven individuals and this is the source of your views - or maybe you and he are the only truly objective beings in the history of humanity.

I am not a Dawkinite. In life I cannot always escape our shared human weaknesses. But I can try to be objective when analysing the complex issues under discussion. You chagrin speaks to me that I do so with some success.

The experiments, I believe, show that unconscious decisions precede conscious actions. Fine, but all your conclusions about what this means are completely speculative and not at all based on evidence. Again it's what you want to conclude and nothing more.

I am just an uneducated fool who loves to read whats new and fit it into the jigsaw of pieces I accumulated through my life. I only try to make sense of the pieces. I do try to do so objectively and as you have yet to say a single thing that refutes my conclusions I am happy for the time being to run with that.

Ah yes, again, you think but you don't feel - you have no fear, no needs, no desire, you are able to separate your ideas from your emotions. But we lesser beings cannot do this.

What a ridiculous statement. I do not set myself atop some pedestal, I just write down the method and conclusion of my thinking. Do you want me to stop being me and be you instead? Well sorry I cannot do that. Again your hostility to this screams that you are desperately devoid of any valid counter thoughts.

I've visited this website a number of times. Perhaps you could direct me to the article that shows science has proven the higher self doesn't exist.

As I have now stated several times I draw from a wide body of information. It is out there if you are really interested. If you want to employ me as a researcher for you pm me and I will be happy to negotiate an hourly rate.

As to scientists being able to know your decision 6 seconds before we do I say hogwash. Why?? What scientific validation have I? How about a boxing match? Or a car race, or car accident, or ping pong or tennis. Your decisions to move left right, strike, block, counter, turn, twist etc. are all made sometimes in less than a second, so how could someone know 6 seconds prior?

If you read a little slower you would see that I said "up to 6 seconds". You can believe what you want Wil and we all know there will be no changing your esteemed opinions. All the motor skills you allude to have nothing to do with conciousness. Your knowledge of brain function needs schooling.

but do have a principle that surely does affect my life on a regular basis,

I know, it requires you to own weapons designed for the express intention of killing people. And on sundays you like to help in the indoctrination of children into a fictitious meme. I have principles too, they are not like yours.

 

[Saltmeister]

Tao, did you forget to reply to my post #127 or are you just still writing?

 

[Tao_Equus]

Tao, did you forget to reply to my post #127 or are you just still writing?

I'm so sorry Salty! I posted it on all the other dimensions presuming you had access to them, my mistake

Not just a witticism though... its also an illustration of the pointlessness in invoking exotic possibilities to explain what is already explained quite nicely in our 'standard' world. If you were to get stimuli externally to what we consider the normal methods of information transfer where is the proof? Every claim either turns out to be fraud, misinterpretation or flounders in ambiguity. No one has ever provided the proof. Personally I still think there is something in it but the field remains largely in the hands of crackpots and fraudsters selling largely unreadable books. When you apply it to things like global ecology there is a lot more scope for finding positive proof, but that is not happening yet.

I used to believe that I could remember a past life. In that delusion I was a minor landowner in Greece who met his end in a peasants revolt. I had lots of proof's to validate this. I constructed a firm case for my belief. When I eventually gave it up I saw just how I came to believe the evidence and how I fitted it together to be coherent. Selective dissonance is a difficult thing to see when you are within its grip. But once you have met it head on you can recognise it quickly. I do not believe in souls because there is no reason and no proof to show they exist. My mind is utterly dependent on my body converting food into energy for the electrochemical web of neural connections that make me me. When my body stops producing that energy on death what mechanism is there for transferring all that complexity somewhere else? There is none. Brain death is brain death.

 

[Tao_Equus]

Netscape Search

Here's an interesting recent interview with the transpersonal psychiatrist, Stanislav Grof, who has spent his entire career on matters related to consciousness research. Even has some passing references to his views on survival of consciousness post-death Tao, not to mention his view on the issue of whether consciousness is reducible to simple neurochemical goings on. As to that hangover, well if the "spirits" move you. Even has a comment about scientific fundamentalism. earl

Grof devoted his studies to LSD and then to hyper-ventilation and oxygen starvation to produce altered states of conciousness. Now if you have ever had LSD, (I have), or used flooding/starving breathing techniques you would know that you are playing with your NORMAL brain chemistry. Any results you get are thus ABNORMAL. Using such techniques is not good science, its quackery....your staple fare here Earl

 

[nativeastral]

we might be of one mind on this but never of one brain have we discovered all the mechanisms? how recently was background radiation 'discovered' to throw light on other collected knowledge. what l'm saying is we don't have all the answers and probably never will however pessimistic that sounds.

the unconscious reaction was originally by LIbet [scroll down for the MRI updates and newer refutations] Benjamin Libet - a short delay.

a cute story whats expected .pdf

 

[citizenzen]

With regards to the existence of a soul, what an MMRI does not tell you is how those thoughts actually form. You've got no conclusive and absolute proof that these thought patterns don't come from influences external to the universe as we know it, based on physics and chemistry.

But if there's a reason why you don't have a reason to believe in souls, it's because you've never seen a high-school drop-out fall into a trance (like he's possessed) and suddenly talk like a professor and speak of things he could not possibly know. That would certainly give you a reason to believe in the supernatural and of other planes of existence.

Salty, your two examples clearly show an inequity in the level of required proof.

You require MRIs results that are "conclusive and absolute".

Yet, you simply conclude that possessed drop-outs "could not possibly know" something? How do you know what anybody knows or doesn't know? Your requirement for "conclusive and absolute" proof has transformed into accepting your feelings and assumptions.

The example also opens up the possibility that both you and the drop-out are wrong. If, for example, you claimed, "The drop-out went into a trance and began speaking in perfect French!" It's quite possible that they were just babbling and you, no expert in french, mistakenly believed they had knowledge and ability when in fact, they did not.

Too bad you both weren't hooked up to MRIs.

BTW - Thanks for adding you voice to the gun thread.

 

[earl]

Grof devoted his studies to LSD and then to hyper-ventilation and oxygen starvation to produce altered states of conciousness. Now if you have ever had LSD, (I have), or used flooding/starving breathing techniques you would know that you are playing with your NORMAL brain chemistry. Any results you get are thus ABNORMAL. Using such techniques is not good science, its quackery....your staple fare here Earl

Well, Tao, I believe the term he would tend to use would be "altered state" as opposed to "abnormal" state. Though, I'd suspect the brain is functioning differently when such states occur. At the same time, the experiences one has in altered states may or may not reflect a verdical reality, but, obviously, one cannot blythly dismiss such "unusual" experiences as being suggestive of actual realities simply because there would be associated neurochemical changes relating to such states as there are specific neurochemical patterns associated with any brain state. But, then you predictably would as that is your standard fare. By the way Tao, is your DNA solely responsible for your predictable responses? earl