One with the universe or what?

Abdul Alhazred

Philosopher
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I have from time to time asserted that "spirituality" is never defined in a way that means anything other than vague fuzzies.

I must now admit someone has come up with something that makes a real definition possible, complete with evidences.

Selective Brain Damage Modulates Human Spirituality, Research Reveals
Science Daily

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Damage to posterior parietal areas induced unusually fast changes of a stable personality dimension related to transcendental self-referential awareness.

...
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Spirituality == A defect in the ability to distinguish oneself from the universe. It can be caused by an injury to the brain.

Hey. It's science. (cue the dancing test tube)
 
Abdul Alhazred said:
I have from time to time asserted that "spirituality" is never defined in a way that means anything other than vague fuzzies.

I must now admit someone has come up with something that makes a real definition possible, complete with evidences.

Selective Brain Damage Modulates Human Spirituality, Research Reveals
Science Daily



Spirituality == A defect in the ability to distinguish oneself from the universe. It can be caused by an injury to the brain.

Hey. It's science. (cue the dancing test tube)
Click to expand...

Not to say that I have brain damage or anything, but I don't distinguish myself from the universe. If you make a set called "universe" in that set there will be a subset called "people" and I'm in that subset. So are you (unless your a droid, then you belong to the "droid" subset, still in the universe set). So, we're already one with the universe. In fact, everything that we know of is one with the universe. Everything is indistinguishable from the universe because everything is already a part of the universe. It's like saying the leaf should be one with the plant. It already is. I think that we're already at the maximum level of "oneness" one can have with the universe.
 
Abdul Alhazred said:
But do you feel one with the universe, mister smarty-pants subset? :cool:
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To the point of "every man's death diminishes me", of the fruit-cake hippie mindset?
Nope.
I can think of any number of men who need to be dead right now.
 
So if I were to become "At One With the Universe", I would have to become cold, vacuous, indifferent to life, and receding from the Earth at a relativistic velocity.

No thanks.
 
Spirituality == A defect in the ability to distinguish oneself from the universe. It can be caused by an injury to the brain.

Hey. It's science. (cue the dancing test tube)
Click to expand...

If brain damage affects it only means 1 thing: Part of it is affected by that brain.

I've talked to people who described how they could taste colors with their tongue after eating psilocybin mushrooms, but that does not mean colors do or do not have taste.

I'm an artificial intelligence (AI) researcher, and I know some about brains and psychology, and what you described and the sense distortion caused by such mushrooms makes sense to me why it would happen in a general way. I don't know exactly how any of it works, but I mean in general such distortions of various ideas are expected when chemicals or ways of thinking change quickly.

What you think of as vague or implied evidence against spirituality, I'm taking as evidence you don't know much about how brains work and/or would prefer that it be fake.
 
KingMerv00 said:
I had an experience like that in a dream once. The sensation is impossible to describe. Sure it was probably temporal lobe epilepsy but it was still pretty cool.
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We have a winner.
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I' ain't one with nuthin.
There's at least two of us.

Maybe I don't know much about no artificial intelligence, but I knows natural stupid when I sees it.
 
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KingMerv00 said:
I had an experience like that in a dream once. The sensation is impossible to describe. Sure it was probably temporal lobe epilepsy but it was still pretty cool.
Click to expand...

Man, I've had weird dreams (one time I felt like mint-green sine waves from cellos were crushing my hands), and I've been stoned out of my mind, and I've yet to feel like one with the universe. Maybe if I just keep on dreaming...
 
I wonder if anyone will have brain surgery to feel at one with everything. Maybe a way could be found to temporarily induce this effect, with drugs or electrical stimulation. If someone had deep and chronic depression that wasn't cured by other therapies, would this help?
 
What did the Buddist Monk say to the hotdog vender?




Make me one with everything. ;)
 
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Scott Haley said:
I wonder if anyone will have brain surgery to feel at one with everything. Maybe a way could be found to temporarily induce this effect, with drugs or electrical stimulation. If someone had deep and chronic depression that wasn't cured by other therapies, would this help?
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You do not need brain surgery to be unable to separate yourself from the rest of the universe - a left hemisphere stroke will do it. View Jill Bolte Taylor's stroke of insight video on the TED Talks site.
Jill Bolte Taylor got a research opportunity few brain scientists would wish for: She had a massive stroke, and watched as her brain functions -- motion, speech, self-awareness -- shut down one by one. An astonishing story.
Click to expand...
 
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