Ok, so you are fine with becoming worm food, a point of view which opens up channels of communication that are generally not available to those interested in OBEs and which would stifle any further discussion.
I haven't found that to be the case myself. I get the impression they are not concerned with the fate of the cadaver.
I have problems with those claiming OBE type tales as personal experience. In particular, when someone tells me that he has a 1943 Duesenberg Model Z in his garage, I know that factually, from historical evidence on two counts, that he is either mistaken or lying, since there is no such thing as a model Z, and Duesenberg Automobile & Motors Company, Inc. of Des Moines, Iowa was defunct in 1940.
How does one distinguish, in principle, among the deluded and factual accounts of out of body experiences? What type of information is available to one who reads such accounts for telling the liar from the truth teller? How does one decide that the tale has not been invented as a fiction to attract admiration or attention.
Generally I simply accept it as data. Short of my being able to get into their memories and experience them for myself, I don't see any alternative. I don't approach it as information which could be true or false but just as information.
How does one know that what people say they experience in lab experiments is the truth, or that they are accurately describing their experience without embellishment?
It seems that this is something of a 'problem' when dealing with each other as human beings. We don't have the ability to read each others minds.
One can only really focus on one's own life experience and be as honest with that as one can. That is how I have learned to approach it anyway.
How is this type of experience different from those experiencing abduction by UFOs or miraculous healings?
I have not experienced either of those things so can't say.
Not so fast. A lot is known about our environment and the universe, though not necessarily by "us" as laymen. We know that certain claims are impossible within the realm of our current knowledge of physical laws. As others have said, science does not offer us 100% in the best of scenarios, but it is sufficient to predict quite a lot with astonishing accuracy. We also know how the limits on any device intent on influencing our surroundings, i.e. reality work:
Sure, but as much as we know, we know very little compared with what we are still discovering, and what is still to be discovered.
Yes, I wonder why. Could it be that many of these people are clueless about the simplest scientific principles of physics?
There could be many reasons. Scientific principles of physics don't seem to apply to their experiences.
This is where I get lost. I must admit that I have no idea what that means.
Yes. You would have more idea if you have experienced it for yourself.
How can one's own experiences be evidence for something beyond one's own experiences?
If one has experiences then those experiences are not beyond one's experiences.
If one has experienced being free from the body, then they know what that feels like.
If anyone has not experienced this, then I am confident they could never imagine exactly what it is like.
Let's hear what these experiences of yours are, and what kind of data were provided. What is the nature of sensory devices which are better than those of the human body? Aren't you human?
What is human?
I did share one a few posts back - not in detail, but the data I got was that consciousness retains emotion, thought, sight, hearing and can move through things which a body cannot. Sight was far more acute. Fear is still present. The sense of self is the same. The feeling of liberation from the body was exceptional.
In another, I experienced seeing an entity which was not human. It was humanoid though.
The next night the same entity (this time invisible - so I am assuming) took hold of my wrists and pulled me straight upright and crossed my arms over my chest in the same manner that he had held his arms over his chest the previous night. Then he let me go. I felt myself floating and this was the first time I experiencied OOB.
On both occasions interesting unusual data.
Years later I told my dad about that experience and he was amazed. He replied that the same thing had happened to him and that it had been physically painful and the next day there were red marks around his wrists.
I don't really think much harm is done generally by engaging in personal beliefs that stray from reality, such as many silly superstitions, providing they are not imposed on hapless non believers such as children or the gullible elderly, but the idea of a soul and the after life in which an eternity of punishment can be inflicted or one of continual bliss attained, has proven to be one of the most dangerous ideas that humans have yet managed to conceive.
I wouldn't even entertain my children with Santa Clause. Dangerous or otherwise, such things are designed to control and gather $$.
Are you talking of drug experiences here? I am fairly familiar with a few drugs, but I have always understood that my thought processes were being manipulated chemically.
No not drugs. I have always been fearful of drugs because of being out of control...controlled by the drug.
I know people who take drugs for the purpose of alternate experiences, and I don't judge them for experimenting etc. Its just not for me.
Can you explain how an amorphous or ghostlike entity can feel?
I hadn't really thought about it until the other day. Consciousness may have physical attributes since everything in the physical universe is physical. Not everything is visible, but everything is physical.
I don't doubt you can feel liberated from your body, but how do you know it is not just your own brain/mind creating this illusion?
Legs do the running. Brains are part of that process but don't do the running. What makes the choice to run? Consciousness makes the choice.
In the same way, consciousness must create the whole experience, yet that is not really possible when the experiences are something which have never been seen or imagined. The one doing the experiencing either creates the experience or
there is another aspect to consciousness which is unknown to the individual which creates that which is then experienced by the individual experiencing it.
Brains develop consciousness through a non conscious process. They don't say to themselves "Hmm I think I will create consciousness!"
What is your method for determining reality from fantasy?
Question everything real. Far easier said than done. I think of the physical universe as possibly being an amazingly complex simulation. Would that make it unreal? I don't think so. It is real.
If consciousness was not in the physical universe, what would exist to say the universe was real?
Is there something missing there? I'm not sure which "nail I hit on the head".
The one where you said "The notion of a soul surviving my death is honestly repugnant to me as an atheist."
It is repugnant to many atheists. It tends to create a block in their psyche which prevents them from wanting to explore rabbit holes. Scary stuff...the stuff of madness. I suspect it is much the same as me not wanting to take drugs which might place me in alternative situations to which I have no control. Sanity for many atheists is the sure solid ground of measurable, explainable reality. Feeling repugnance and feeling fearful are similar.
Look, evidence is evidence. No, conjuring up thoughts of god type concepts has nothing to do with why the notion of souls is not worth pursuing . Nonsense is nonsense, and we don't need to introduce god into it to make it more nonsensical, since it is already an idea that has no merit. Unless its proponents can come up with some modicum of rationale for their need in human existence, or for their existence as a force of nature, the soul is dead in the water.
God concepts have one thing in common. They are all conscious. They are self aware.
Some religions believe that all consciousness is essentially 'god'. Like water is water. Water can be damned, channeled, stored in containers, frozen, boiled, etc but it is still essentially the same thing regardless of how it behaves when it is contained.
Remove all the religious hype around such concepts and what remains is interesting for consciousness to examine.
When thinking upon the possibility of me, the individual consciousness surviving the death of the body, and having experienced on a few occasions what that is like, it seems quite natural to include study into such concepts re 'god' and strip away those religious aspects. If 'god' and 'consciousness' are the same thing, "what's the problem!" i say.
Another thing about that type of thinking is that I find myself seeing all aspects of consciousness as equal - the same thing in different guises.
Sure they have stories to tell, but so do politicians and telemarketers. Claims of actual evidence just evaporate like claims of miracles or dowsing when examined properly.
Should I be concerned then that I told you briefly about my own experiences. We both know the truth is you cannot know that what I say I experienced, I actually experienced. That I could be lying just to get attention etc.
the fact is that subjectivity rules in relation to consciousness individuate.
It doesn't matter what word is used. To invoke a physical entity that has no physical properties but can experience and communicate to a brain, or whatever...is just vacuous and worthless mental gymnastics.
And yet consciousness exists and does pretty much all that. Furthermore, I have experienced through ideomoter effect direct and consistent communication with the aspect of consciousness I refereed to in further back in this post. (highlited).
The communications (which happened over a long period of time and started simply and became more and more complex) where done using physical devices I created and technique I developed (with directive from the 'other' aspect of consciousness.) Long story short, I was in communication with an aspect of my own consciousness to which I was previously oblivious.
Do we all have this hidden aspect? If it worked for me, then it should work for anyone else - that is what I think.
Somehow conflating the two hilited groups sounds like a very stoned thought to me.
We all have our 'dark' side.
The belief that some supernatural forces can influence the natural world stymies me not only as a philosophy, but merely from first principles, by definition.
We all have walls which we have to pass over (or through). I used to think there was such a thing as the 'supernatural' (as it is commonly thought of and understood to be - ooky spooky) then I came to the realization that nothing in nature could be unnatural, and now I think more along the lines that it is 'super to nature - still natural but not that common - like OOBs - although these are more common than once thought to be, by all accounts.
For years I experienced the hypnogogic, I thought I was the only one. No one spoke about such things or they were consigned to occult etc...then the internet came along and wouldn't you know it! Far more common, and people are talking together about it.
Being human is very interesting. Being consciousness, even more so.
