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Wayno
Big Wall climber
Seattle, WA
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Modern science has no clue ......
...or maybe that is all they have, just a clue.
;)
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PSP also PP
Trad climber
Berkeley
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Thanks for posting that Jan. Better than just putting the articles address.
what I find fascinating is that the psycedelics appear to be able to cause a strong shift in view that has some lasting power. This shift in view allows us to change to see things differently and to act differently ( the whole free will thing). Basically aiding us in getting unstuck form habitual patterns of thinking and acting that previously couldn't be done because you typically can't see your own sh#t.
It has alot of parallels to why people do Zen and Vipassna style meditation.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado, Nepal & Okinawa
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..... shouldn't there also be a super-conscious? Or is it like a negative number in mathematics? They don't really exist but are useful in calculations.
The same as free will?
As far as an eternal universe, that's what the Hindus and Buddhists have said all along. The Big Bang fits the Abrahamic models.
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MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
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I like the quotes that Jan took from PSP’s NYT’s article on medical treatment and psychedelics. (It’s too damned long, though.)
Perhaps the most important thing that was said in the article about both psychedelics and mystical [sic] experiences was how those experiences reframed the perceivers of themselves in the universe. Both experiences open people up to things that just don’t seem possible. Why? Because both come to recognize just how much the mind is filtering. In other words, both experiences are forms of de-programming at fundamental levels.
“. . . Huxley concluded from his psychedelic experience that the conscious mind is less a window on reality than a furious editor of it. The mind is a “reducing valve,” he wrote, eliminating far more reality than it admits to our conscious awareness, lest we be overwhelmed. “What comes out at the other end is a measly trickle of the kind of consciousness which will help us to stay alive.”
This is perhaps one of the most significant difference among the camps here on this thread. We see the same manifestations, but the gravity we give to them present radical shifts in understanding, meaning, import. We frame the same data but in different ways. To look at a loved one wither away in the final phases of a terminal illness can get framed in significantly different ways. One group cannot convince its framing to the other group.
Is death a natural, understood, and even welcomed occurrence, or is it something to be feared and managed? Are the things that we see in front of us important, or are most things really not very serious, concrete, or all that meaningful after all? There are many ways to answer these questions. I’d say that what matters is not that there is one answer—but an infinite number of answers that can be arrived at comfortably, even reasonably. More than one answer. Many answers—and we are constructing or making all of them up.
There is tremendous amount of empirical research in every social science that makes that very point. Nothing is solid. We’re making almost everything up. And yet, how many researchers and teachers show it to students and colleagues through their daily behaviors and practices? Almost none. We proclaim these things academically, and then we go on with our regular lives with all the seriousness and concreteness of a military expedition.
Science is a game. Fine. So is culture. Fine. So is religion. Fine. So is economics. Fine. Let’s play. Just Play.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado, Nepal & Okinawa
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Other than our differences on whether the brain produces everything seen in psychedelics or sees things in the univeerse that were always there but were filtered out until the drugs lifts the veil, the other significant difference of interpretation that I'm interested in, is whether the states experienced in both are a reversion to a more primitive function of the brain or represent an ongoing more advanced evolutionary change.
Or maybe being able to revert to an unfiltered preverbal brain state on occasion is the advance?
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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. . . the other significant difference of interpretation that I'm interested in, is whether the states experienced in both are a reversion to a more primitive function of the brain or represent an ongoing more advanced evolutionary change
My first experience in the Art of Dreaming was astounding and revelatory. Upon entering the state my first thought was Now I understand the origin of religions. That was over forty years ago and the memory remains strong.
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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"POE TREE!"
Originally screamed by a old drunk black guy into the street outside a poetry slam in the early 60s.
Poetry describes experience like paint describes dogs playing poker.
A poetry how to:
1) Take a word.
2) Do something to it.
3) Repeat.
4) Decide when its done somehow.
5) Or not.
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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What's all this about the subconscious/conscious connection being a one way street? In what physiological universe would that make any sense at all?
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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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There is one thing that (almost) all of the spiritists have in common: They assume that humans are unique.
We really aren't, and if you want to understand humans, it is a good idea to study other forms of life, and other forms of intelligence. We can clearly see consciousness in thousands of species. They are self aware, yet clearly not as intelligent as humans. It isn't a matter of yes-no, it is a matter of degree.
It is difficult to argue that other species don't experience consciousness. Consciousness is simply self awareness. A huge number of species show self awareness.
An Octopus is fairly intelligent, and it isn't even a vertebrate. It is a mollusk. An octopus is in the same family as oysters, but their intelligence has been observed and well documented. Have any of you ever seen a film of an octopus figuring out how to unscrew the lid of a jar in order to get at food inside?
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=octopus+intelligence
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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There is one thing that (almost) all of the spiritists have in common: They assume that humans are unique .
But that's just it; they (humans) are unique. I'm not sure how that would be an assumption? I think it's more of a simple observation. It seems that in putting humanity in its place by pointing out it's not unique in relation to other creatures one diminishes the uniqueness of life itself, perhaps a remarkably "unique" occurrence in our vast universe.
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WBraun
climber
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Yep ^^^^
A monkey can't write a book and nor can yer dog.
No animal can.
No animal can manipulate the material elements like humans.
You so called scientists even make observations at all????
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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my conscious mind is just a receiver. It has no ability to do anything but observe.
Hmmm...
how does it do so if not through electrochemical action, and if the conscious mind can receive control via such means, why could it not send control in the same way. Are you saying that the conscious mind is not a production of neuronal activity?
Do we know that a neuron is in fact a transceiver sending a spark/message?
Or could it maybe be a receiver, responding to the spark? Something like a cell-tower receiving info through sound waves..
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Craig Fry
Trad climber
So Cal.
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They assume that humans are unique
Everything in our natural universe is unique
every rock is unique, every grain of sand
and every human and every other living thing, they are all unique in that none of them are the same in every detail..
I collect fine crystal specimens, every piece is different in too many ways to describe, and they are obviously less complex than any living thing.
Same with succulents, every one is unique in some way.
I can take a cutting from a plant and grow it in a different pot, now it is unique.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado, Nepal & Okinawa
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You're back! Welcome! Woo hoo!
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Craig Fry
Trad climber
So Cal.
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Secular Spiritual Atheist
Can you be a spiritual atheist??
The answer is YES
Sam Harris has laid it all out for us
The cornerstone of an empirically verifiable spiritual program is mindfulness, which Harris say is,
“simply a state of clear, nonjudgmental, and undistracted attention to the contents of consciousness, whether pleasant or unpleasant”
Mindfulness.
Awake.
Living in the moment.
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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whether pleasant or unpleasant”
isn't that a judgement call?
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Craig Fry
Trad climber
So Cal.
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It's the opposite of a judgment call
Can you live without judgment?
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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How can one live a moral life without judgement? Isn't a moral person required to measure and judge all aspects of their life in order to live correctly in reltionship to others?
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Bushman
Social climber
Elk Grove, California
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Humans;
Unique in all the animal kingdom.
We are animals after all.
We are the chief predator.
Capable of extreme acts of kindness and self sacrifice.
Capable of the most extreme acts of violence.
Capable of cannibalism.
Capable of genocide.
Capable of animal and human sacrifice.
Capable of planetary warfare.
Capable of disciplined athleticism and extreme adventure sports,
Capable of literature, poetry, music, and art.
Capable of advanced mathematics and physics,
Capable of agriculture and industry.
Capable of all manner of exploration, scientific discovery, computer technology, robotics, and medical science.
Capable of innovating inventions and devices to improve the quality of life.
Capable sustaining commerce, global economies, and systems of government.
Capable of manufacturing mythologies, religions, theocracies, monarchies, republics, revolution, democracies, and myriad social and political organizations.
Capable of empathy.
Capable of wrath, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy, and gluttony.
Capable of fealty, loyalty, devotion, and cathartic transcendence.
Capable criminal insanity,
Capable of the mass extinction of all life on earth.
Capable of change,
Capable of evolving,
Capable of making mistakes,
We are only animals, and only human, after all.
-bushman
02/09/2015
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