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MH2
climber
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How about looking at particular and unusual mental phenomena and see what those who have experienced them have to say.
A good way to go. Do you have more to add?
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
-A community of hairless apes
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re: self, experience
Daniel Kahneman, who Ed mentioned a few pages back and who Pinker blurbed is the greatest psychologist of the age, is also at TED:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgRlrBl-7Yg
Sam Harris also has a piece on him:
http://www.samharris.org/blog/
The distinction that Kahneman makes between (a) the "experiencing self" and happiness and (b) the "remembering self" and decision-making, storytelling and also life satisfaction seems to me quite insightful.
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WBraun
climber
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Daniel Kahneman, he's a just reflective intellectual gymnastics mental speculator only .....
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cintune
climber
Midvale School for the Gifted
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It learns to recognise objects by extracting unique features from the images captured by the pair of cameras and storing them in its database, with help from a human assistant who prompts Qbo with questions, such as "What is this?", and provides object names. "Myself" is stored as a special object along with some quirky lines of dialogue that help give Qbo a personality. http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/onepercent/2011/12/qbo-robot-sees-itself-in-the-m.html
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 1, 2011 - 09:11am PT
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J.Gill mentions the separation of I Consciousness from itīs host. I have mentioned several times that eyes open meditations will often lead people to experience awareness as being non local, as non specific, which, I believe, is the separation of awareness from itīs host.
I think this has to do with enmeshment of a sort, which gets broken during boundary experiences, near death and death, some surgical procedures, and many so called psychic fandangos. Our reactions to these experiences can be powerful and alarming, IME.
JL
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WBraun
climber
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unsupported versions of reality
There's no such thing.
Reality is always supported by science otherwise it's not reality ......
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MikeL
climber
SANTA CLARA, CA
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Ed said: "I think what science does is much more nuanced and gentle than your depiction..."
Not unlike what science does parsimoniously and abstractly, I have pulled out the critical variables, arranged them into a sequence, deduced causality, and come up with a model that is predictive. I appreciate that you don't like that I've stripped out nuance, gentleness, and spirit--but that concern is not unlike my general complaint with science, Ed. The life of both has been taken out. What we have left is a disembodied set of facts that mean little without context.
I like the I.I. Rabi comment lots.
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Kahneman the greatest living psychologist of our time? Please. Read his research studies (don't just google or wikipedia him). As long as you believe in rational decision making, then Kahneman is your guy. If you hold the door open for other forms of decision making, then he won't be. (It must be a complete mystery for you to think that mankind survived and prospered successfully for 2 million years without rationality.)
Rationality is a sign that the mental abilities of man have been applied too far. There is hardly any room for value, meaning, and context in being. Everything that isn't rational is irrational.
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People attack science when science goes too far and swallows up the universe lock, stock, and barrel. When science claims to be able to explain everything--and when things cannot exist without scientific proof--then time has come to attack science for reaching beyond its grasp and putting it back in its place.
Science has become a modern-day myth of yesterday. You say you didn't like religion for claiming to explain everything? Wake up!
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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When science claims to be able to explain everything--and when things cannot exist without scientific proof--then time has come to attack science for reaching beyond its grasp and putting it back in its place.
what is "putting it back in its place" mean? sounds like you actually know what works and what does not work, which is strange.
also, science will be used to address all these issues, because we don't know a priori what will or will not work, unless you do, in which case, you should enlighten us.
"science" doesn't know what it can explain, but certainly science is a powerful way to study a question, whatever the question is... unless you know that it is pointless to try to answer a question using a scientific approach, which I'd be interested in hearing.
the "nuance" I refer to is your defensiveness regarding the "overstepping" of science, but if it seems to overstep, it is because of its successes, where other approaches have have failed to provide much more than reassuring homilies based on some sort of faith... you might interpret science as doing the same, but at least you yourself can go and test the science...
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jstan
climber
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Ed quoted:
To what extent do all brains work alike during natural conditions? We explored this question by letting five subjects freely view half an hour of a popular movie while undergoing functional brain imaging. Applying an unbiased analysis in which spatiotemporal activity patterns in one brain were used to "model" activity in another brain, we found a striking level of voxel-by-voxel synchronization between individuals, not only in primary and secondary visual and auditory areas but also in association cortices.
At this time there are observers with data who say 140,000 years ago the presently extant specie, Homo Sapiens went through a bottleneck wherein only some 600 individuals were alive. I have also seen statements that all females can be traced through DNA to one woman at about this same time. Normally I would be surprised by the similarities referred to above. Too bad we have no living Neanderthals(Homo Erectus) who could repeat the experiment described above.
Five is a very small number of subjects. The possibility that Homo Erectus and Homo Sapiens may have successfully interbred at some time leads me to wonder if this finding will hold up in a much larger study.
A most interesting study.
Edit:
When science claims to be able to explain everything--and when things cannot exist without scientific proof--then time has come to attack science for reaching beyond its grasp and putting it back in its place.
The time has not come "when science claims to explain everything."
Science is just a process. A series of actions one can use in studying a question.
Only people make claims. When someone claims to be able to explain everything, they are not doing science.
In the scientific realm one does not assert something "does not exist." That is proving a negative. Scientifically one can say there is no data that some well defined thing does exist. That is a statement coming from observed data.
When the body of data is very large and persuasive one can say, "based upon this large body of data I will not assume this thing exists while I am trying to answer questions".
These distinctions are not "nuances". Nuance is not a term properly applied to matters of immense significance.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
-A community of hairless apes
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So, after all these posts and time spent around the climbers fire, it seems to me-
(a) only 3-4 posters at most are comfortable with the idea (let alone reality) of humans being fully mechanistic creatures 100.0% causally determined;
(b) only half this number (one or two) would see it (that is, this causal deterministic idea) as viable "building material" to be included in a new kind of belief discipline - one based on science education, geared for the 21st century and focused on life strategies in the interest of best practices.
One or two is slim pickings.
It is my view that causal determination (or causal determinism, if you prefer) is the lead obstacle (apart from general science illiteracy of course) to a majority of the public accepting the Scientific Story as a foundational footing for a new model (or models) in the practice of living.
Insofar as this is true, it looks like ancient theology and its doctrines (or, in different terms, The Greatest Story Ever Told) will remain the foundation for our beliefs at least relating to "ultimate concerns" in the practice of living for some time to come. At least at the (non-individual) social level.
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WBraun
climber
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When someone claims to be able to explain everything, they are not doing science.
You don't know that either.
Mankind only has a limited knowledge of what "Science" really is .....
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jogill
climber
Colorado
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A little over thirty years ago a close friend, who smoked a little pot and drank his share of tequilla, encouraged me to read Carlos Castaneda. At first I was not inclined to, since there was a drug aura about his books and I never took drugs, but my friend assured me there was much more. Indeed there was. I found the character Don Juan Matus - rather real or fictional - fascinating, and I decided out of curiosity to attempt his Art of Dreaming protocol.
After a few attempts over several evenings,lying quietly in bed, I succeeded in reaching the state Castaneda described. I felt suddenly fully awake, and set up quickly in bed. Then I stood up and glanced down at my still body, shocked at the sight. I felt all the things one normally feels, the rug under my feet, the solidity and veneered texture of a chest of drawers beside the bed, etc. The atmosphere in the semi-dark room was a little hazy, however, even though I could make out all the furnishings.
Realizing I was experiencing an astounding shift in reality, I decided to make the most of the opportunity and do something bizarre: walk through the closed wooden door of the bedroom onto the landing above our stairs. I walked slowly towards the door, feeling the texture of the rug beneath my feet, then passed through the door, like moving through a thin film of mist. It's odd that the door didn't present the feel of a physical obstacle, like the solidity of the furniture in the room, but I suppose I willed it not to.
I descended the stairs, one step at a time, feeling all the muscular contact one would ordinarily feel between body and environment. The cool, slightly rough surface of the close wall as I touched it, the slight noise of weight upon the wooden steps, over 80 years old, etc. This reality was even more "real" than ordinary experience. I felt light, unencumbered by the 180 pounds I usually coped with, and entirely in control of my immediate fate.
In the kitchen, all was dark save the glowing bluish light from the pilot on the stove. I then decided to walk down the stairs from the kitchen to the basement, and started moving quickly from step to step. Suddenly I was back in the bed, truly awake now, and so shocked by the episode I couldn't sleep the remainder of the night. [Comment: reading later about astral projections, I discovered that moving down too quickly terminates the experience!]
The very first thing that came to mind when I began my adventure was "now I understand the true origins of religion!" - and how pathetic my Southern Baptist childhood had prepared me for a life-altering epiphany. I've said before, there is no philosophical discourse or argument that will fundamentally change one's life. I remember reading this from the works of an early Zen master when I informally studied eastern religions in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
Over the following several years I had a number of these episodes, some bordering on the quirkiness of ordinary dreams, and others in some sort of vivid alter-reality. Several times I "awoke" in a desert environment and found the various cacti and other plants amazingly attractive in their three-dimensional and colorful appearance. I would move from place to place around a single plant, examining it closely and feeling an excitement and aliveness that exceeded even my earlier real-life climbing experiences.
One interesting facet of these "trips" was the following: at times I would come across written material, newspapers, books, etc. I would hold them and examine them carefully, but could not for the "life" of me read the words! That part of my brain wasn't taking the same journey other parts were.
I'm sure this is an experience with lots of literature available - lucid dreaming, astral projections, etc. - but for me it was the sudden transcendental epiphany that there was indeed something else beyond ordinary existence and that reality was somehow relative. Personally, I doubt we experience anything like consciousness after death - but I could be wrong . . .
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MH2
climber
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Thanks.
I take it as you describe it.
But for levity's sake, the inability to read is to prevent people from using the technique to pick winning lottery numbers, etc.
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MikeL
climber
SANTA CLARA, CA
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Ed,
I've written about this before. "Putting [science] back in its place" means just one place--not the whole place. "What I know" is that science has nothing to say about what's important, about values, about ethics, about beauty, about the human condition, about the good. However, science thinks that it can successfully deal with anything empirically, theoretically, and practically. "Success" is only prediction.
Most everyone on this thread thinks that science can explain anything . . . anything worthwhile, that is. If it can't, it's not worthwhile; it must be fringe; it must be religion; it must be fairy tales or myth; it must be weird or illegitimate or only personal or illusion or delusion or whatever derogatory term one can flippantly come up with. That goes too far. The attitude is disrespectful, arrogant, and hegemonic. It's Shakespearean and tragic.
Jstan: If you are an academic, you might be able to discern (like Jan reported) that academic efforts and publishing have increasingly moved towards quantitative empirical research and pushed out qualitative and non-western (non-American) research. The trends are clear; one can argue that empirical science is taking over qualitative and non-western thinking. Hundreds of postmodern academics from non-american academics and intellectuals have made that criticism.
You're a little naive about science. Science is much more than a process. . . it's become the right way to think, to view, to listen, to talk, to invest, to make decisions, to be. You're in an ivory tower. There are huge ethical, social, and cognitive effects that you're missing.
It's so much more than science claiming to explain everything . . . it's also telling even academics how they should think and be. (These are old complaints in academia.)
Ed is right, . . . science HAS been very successful, equally as an institution. It's like the blob that ate New York.
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Chester
Mountain climber
NY, New York
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how to read ones mind?.If a baby starts to cry several hours after drinking his last bottle, his mother knows precisely what he's feeling: He's hungry.how is that possible for a mom to read her kids mind
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 2, 2011 - 08:42am PT
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I am going to dig in to Johnīs post in a bit. I have to go to my daughterīs graduation ceremony from med school in an hour but for the moment, Craig wrote,
ĻI have mentioned several times that eyes open meditations will often lead people to experience awareness as being non local, as non specific, which, I believe, is the separation of awareness from itīs host.
Largo
Its called an illusion
You just think you are separated, because thats what you want to think
Actually, Craig, this has nothing to do with thinking, or postulation the experience as this or that, and most of all, the experience I am referring to does not involve an I traversing the tundra, rather the tundra coming alive in a dynamic way. So essentially you have every aspect of what I said pretty much turned around 180 degrees.
JL
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MH2
climber
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science thinks that it can
Houston, you have a problem.
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jstan
climber
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Science is much more than a process. . . it's become the right way to think, to view, to listen, to talk, to invest, to make decisions, to be. You're in an ivory tower. There are huge ethical, social, and cognitive effects that you're missing.
MikeL:
What you are describing here are the decisions people are making - not the process of science. You have a problem with the decisions that people are making.
You are bundling two entirely unrelated things together and considering them to be one.
You need to criticize what people are doing. Not science.
As for people off shore being unhappy with the dominance of our mode of thinking - just wait a bit. Our dominance is going away.
Saw a French movie, Paris Je T'aime some time ago. Had one scene showing two Americans waddling down the sidewalk. Their t shirts read
"We are the world."
I think the image below is how we were perceived in 1945.
It has taken 67 years.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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I know that people who are proponents of science come off as over enthusiastic... and that we would like, as humans, a small bit of mystery of the beauty of the world "untainted" by analysis and analytic talk...
...I posted the picture up thread as a challenge to the point of view that "science" doesn't intrude in some of those areas. It isn't on purpose, but it happens... and advertisements are a bit of "applied science" that has the purpose of getting our attention and laying the ground work for our future actions, when our purchase choices are all functionally equivalent, what do we choose.
The scene in that Petzl add, with a beautiful young woman as the model, laying nude by the lake, in the forest... and aside from the Petzl logo, her tan outlines the harness. One could view the artistic components of that image (it is flawed in many ways which we could address from a strictly art criticism) but as adds go, it works amazingly effectively in getting our attention. It did mine, though I forgot who the patron of that ad was... I found it in a Google Images search, though my just-now search failed to get it to appear.. it didn't take too much fiddling around.
My point here is that we can appreciate the image as art, and it is nearly that... but we could also complain that we are being manipulated by the image, whose display has very much an intent, and that intent is based on our behavior, and a prediction of the change of that behavior.
This connection isn't something speculative, huge resources are put into this same sorts of manipulations by commercial enterprise. So I find it disingenuous that you would deny the "science" of our behavior, our reaction, to these stimuli...
...I could understand you complaining about the motives of those who put those stimuli out there, but understanding our response, our behavior, that is science, and that science does address those "mysteries" you have claimed are beyond the reach of science.
Perhaps the ads work in a different way than I've represented, a way that cannot be understood by science. If you can show me that I'd be thankful. For now, I'd say that science is an effective way to address this issue, and many others like that...
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