I Am Soul

[articulett]

"I don't have any idea whether there's life after death or not... I also think it's the most important question. If you think of the big questions of existence, this is the biggie."

First of all, Moody has no scientific support for his conclusions. At one time I really wanted to believe he did. And he's right, it's is a big question... and it's why I am a skeptic and an atheist. When I was a kid I was told the story about how life is a test for your eternity and you have to believe a certain way and do certain things and not do other things to ensure a happy eternity. The problem was no one agreed on who the prophets were, who were the infallible leaders, what you were supposed to believe or do or take on faith. There was no test to tell a true prophet from a fake prophet or an objective truth from a parable. There was no method to make yourself believe or not believe or "love" or any of the stuff that was required. And, supposedly, ALL of our eternities were at stake. Now, if that isn't important and worthy of massive scientific study... then I don't know what is. But no scientists were doing anything to find out what was true so we could hone the knowledge-- either they imagined they'd stumbled upon it "the true religion", I guess... or they didn't believe in divine truths. If the smartest people around with the biggest interest in their own eternities and the collective eternity of others weren't amassing evidence, it had to be because there was none. Gods are illusions like the flat earth. They have to be. Souls too... that is the only reason why there is no evidence that makes sense. I think everyone who really thinks about this must come to this conclusion or continue to delude themselves into thinking that somehow they are magical and they can divine or know something that the smartest minds and entire compendium of human knowledge has not demonstrated as having a basis in reality.

If consciousness could exist outside the brain, there should be evidence. And because there is no evidence, my only conclusion is that people like Edge and Navigator are fooling themselves and reaching the conclusions they want from feelings and experiences that don't justify those conclusions.

A feeling of being out of your body or a seeming image of a tear on a photograph does cannot logically be extrapolated to mean that you actually left your body nor that anyone can --nor that dead people communicate with us. Just because science can't explain it in a way that you find satisfying, doesn't make your woo true! It sounds no more sane to me than Tom Cruise's rants. He's not really "wrong"... he just has a wild interpretation of the facts that is not warranted by anyone not similarly brainwashed. Your beliefs are not warranted by the facts in evidence it cannot convince anyone who has not been brainwashed to accept your basic premises (consciousness without a living brain). They work for you because you've been indoctrinated to see "signs" for the thing you want to be true.

If you don't care what we think... than why preach your beliefs here? We can't respect them anymore than you can respect Tom Cruise's glowy eyed mystical Scientology interview. We can't help but react towards you the way you react to that because you give us NO REASON not too. You sound equally convinced of your special "messages". But we have no reason to believe your messages are of greater truth than Tom Cruise's. You don't either and your blathering is just an attempt to convince yourself you do.

From this skeptics perspective you are all the gurus and prophets and priests of my childhood certain that they had stumbled up the one true truth... you all are. Until there is scientific evidence for divine truths or consciousness absent a living brain, then I am quite well served to assume you are all equally delusional. Why in the world do you imagine we should treat you with more respect than you treat a non believer... or Tom Cruise?

You seem to have a higher opinion of yourself and your "special knowledge" than is warranted by your communications.

 

[maatorc]

Has there ever been any solid evidence that OBEs are truly out of body? As in, a person reporting something happening that he had no way of knowing from where he was physically?

So called OBE's, psychic projection, remote viewing, and other synonyms to describe it, are in fact NOT out of the body because space and time are strictly material qualities of perception: Such experiences are based on psychic attunement and the individual consciousness does not 'go' anywhere.

 

[Wings]

"Believe those who are seeking truth, doubt those who find it." - Gide, Andre

 

[HghrSymmetry]

Can't help fools!

--Sanjuro Kawabatake

 

[articulett]

Well, being the humanist that I am, I will still try to help the fools. The problem is, they never realize they ARE the fools.

But check out this handy dandy critical thinking guide fool or not--
http://www.skepdic.com/essays/haskins.pdf
from
http://skepdic.com/refuge/ctlessons.html

(you, too, can get a clue.)

 

[breathe]

BTW,

Originally Posted by Tricky
The "accused" are quite often self-deluded and don't really know at all. The opposite of "true" isn't "a lie". The opposite of "true" is "false". Even if you believe, with all your heart, in something that is false, that does not make it true.
Originally Posted by Foster Zygote
No. Even if the convict had come to believe that he had committed the crime, the truth would still be that he had not.
Please point out the misinterpretation and the assumption made in the above statements.

the truth to whom?
whose truth? yours?

obviously, that is my point

also

Dental Floss Tycoon: The question was asked: "Why do males and females behave differently?" The answer was given that their brains are subtly different in structure due to genetic variations. This had nothing to do with your previous non sequitur mention of genetics. You did not introduce the subject.

Oh I see......this just raises even more questions........ What part of the brain is responsible for producing different behavious between the sexes ?

 

[Wings]

the truth to whom?
whose truth? yours?

The truth as in the factual way that events occur or don't occur. Perception does not affect what actually occurred. Our opinions on what occurred does not affect what actually did occur.

If I kill a man, and then come to believe I really didn't kill the man later on, it does not change the fact that I DID kill the man. That is the truth - truth being what actually happened.

 

[breathe]

what actually happened is that an innocent man was found guilty

and yes, yes, yes i know....to my disbelief... I am reading the earlier posts on brain differences now

 

[Navigator]

Sometimes I look out at the world and think "God, what a ****ing mess! Global warming, cities out of control, polution, gang warfare, etc, etc." And it seems to me like it's all caused by identification. The idea arises in me, if only you could switch it off for a few seconds a day and let people realise - this is not who you are.

Mostly group identification – Religious, Cultural and Political.
It may not be a matter of switching off from consciousness, so much as switching off from aligning your personal energy with any particular group identity.
“This is not who you are’?
Would follow with an expression of “this is who you are!”?
Would it not be more sensible to simply redefine ‘who you are’ for ‘yourself’ and forget what the groups think you are?
Remembering that regardless whether your self identity is with a group or as an individual, ‘who you are” will always be a source of conflict for others (likely groups).
Better then perhaps to maintain your sense of individuality and nurture that into something which contributes to the clean up rather than the mess.

AS some contend, you will be switched off forever soon enough. Why not use your time as an individual to do what you can to help clean up the mess?

 

[Navigator]

You tell me. Those who have never had vision do no dream visually. Yet those who have lost their vision often still dream visually. I have a friend who was paralyzed from the waist down from injuries sustained in a fall down an elevator shaft in a parking garage. She still walks in her dreams.

On the other hand, I have never been able to make a step of more than a meter, but I have literally bounced a hundred or more meters with each step, while walking in my dreams.
Come to think of it, I have never been a woman, but I have been in my dreams.
On top of this, an OBE is far more intricate and lucid than a dream.

If you are really having an out of body experience then how is it that your "soul" is able to have sensory experiences like those of your body? How is it that your disembodied consciousness is able to see without eyes and a visual cortex? How does it hear without ears? How does it feel the wind without skin?

Great questions.

I cannot say for sure of course, but can say this much. In going through objects such as ceiling and roof for the first time, I could see. cobwebs in the rafters, the wave of the corrugated roofing material, the stars in the sky, the roof of the building, the power pole across the street…

In going through that roof I could also feel – although the feeling was unlike anything I have felt when inside a human instrument.
In moving through the objects I could also hear a sound as I passed through them.

Immediately I returned to the body, I got up and went outside.

The very next night, I again left the body and floated up through ceiling and roof. Because I did not particularly enjoy the sensation of going through the roof or the visual aspect I thought to close my eyes and indeed, the visual aspect was shut out.
It was if I had actual eyes to close.
Once through the roof, I opened the eyes again.
I still felt and heard the same thing as the night before, going through the roof.
When I was above the building, I made the thought to move across the road and look back at the building.
However, it was as if I could see in both directions at once. Forward and behind.
Quiet disorientating
I also noticed that it was foggy, in stark contrast to the night before.
When I returned to the body, I got up and looked out the window and it was indeed foggy.
The fog stayed until well into the next morning.
Now: If this experience (I ask myself) was a projection of the brain, and I really hadn’t actually left the body at all, HOW did the brain know that it was foggy outside?
How does the brain know what it is like to see in both directions at one time?

Now all day I have been thinking about your questions to me and am beginning to think that it is possible that the brain is capable of not only creating consciousness but also becoming consciousness.
It surely has had enough time and space and intelligence to have worked out a way…maybe.
It is something to ponder upon, ‘tis all I can say (from my own experience.)

Why can those blinded by injury not use the same abilities that you claim to have to replace their lost sight and see without their eyes? This is a serious problem with your claim that needs to be addressed.

Hmmm…

It is possible, but unlikely. I have no agenda in this matter. In fact, I would very much like to discover that something so remarkable is supported by evidence. Who wouldn't want to believe that we can see beyond our body's location?

I actually got into it by thinking it might be possible and shouldn’t be discounted out of hand.
I won’t kid you though – it wasn’t exactly the most pleasant of undertakings. Completely rewarding though.

But if I believe something simply because I want it to be true then I am lying to myself.

I agree. I approached it with the attitude that I didn’t know for sure one way or the other, but allowed for the possibility.
I simple thought that IF it were possible then it might be achievable.

As a skeptic I have to apply scientific methodology to everything that I examine about the workings of the universe. Especially the things that I would like to be true.

I am pretty okay with the methodology I used. Okay, no real witnesses no wires no bells and whistles…My partner at the time did say to me not long before the event, that she had a dream where some people were telling her to tell me (using my name) to ‘bend at the knees’.

We had no idea what that was supposed to signify, but since we don’t demean dream experiences, we filed the info away.
That info actually allowed for me to disengage from my body but that’s another story (or a part of this one, but I am tired of typing….

If you can see with your soul then who needs eyes?

I love that quote. Maybe Helen Keller realized this.

Someone else might say, “If you can see with you eyes, who needs Soul?”

BTW, I take it that you have no evidence to support your statement about women and superstition.

Who mentioned superstition?
I gave you my answer to that one.

 

[HghrSymmetry]

Well, being the humanist that I am, I will still try to help the fools.

I do that as well. Even though 99+% of the time it is analogous to releasing my golden liquid against an F6.

The problem is, they never realize they ARE the fools.

99+% of the time...agreed. I'm a sap for that 1% that actually can pull the cephalic knob out of that organic tube.

But check out this handy dandy critical thinking guide fool or not--
http://www.skepdic.com/essays/haskins.pdf
from
http://skepdic.com/refuge/ctlessons.html

(you, too, can get a clue.)

 

[Wings]

Thanks for the reference, articulett. I'm reading the Haskins file right now. It's very well presented.

 

[Tricky]

the truth to whom?
whose truth? yours?

obviously, that is my point

also

And obviously you are missing the point. Truth does not belong to an individual. An individual can only have a belief or an opinion. Truth is an abstract that may be known partially (or not at all) by an individual but is not changed by perspective. Otherwise, you will get "truths" which are untrue.

On the other hand, I have never been able to make a step of more than a meter, but I have literally bounced a hundred or more meters with each step, while walking in my dreams.
Come to think of it, I have never been a woman, but I have been in my dreams.

The point is that you only do things in your brain of which you can conceive. You have seen things bounce. You have probably jumped on bouncy surfaces. You have seen things fly (I fly in my dreams all the time) but I'll bet you have not heard the songs of the Harmoniums of Titan in your dreams. Why is that? Because the concept wasn't in your brain before. Dreams come from your brain based on its experiences and imagination. Technically, a blind-since-birth could probably imagine he sees (based on all the things he's heard about it) but would his imagination of seeing be like really seeing, or would it be his brain repeating all the things he had heard about it?

You can now imagine the songs of the Harmoniums of Titan, since you have now heard about them.

On top of this, an OBE is far more intricate and lucid than a dream.

In my experience, they are not. The OBE's I've had are much more boring than my dreams, especially my lucid dreams. But who's to say that and OBE does not include dreams? Heck people daydream while awake, but not alert. Why not during OBEs? That's what mine seemed like.

I cannot say for sure of course, but can say this much. In going through objects such as ceiling and roof for the first time, I could see. cobwebs in the rafters, the wave of the corrugated roofing material, the stars in the sky, the roof of the building, the power pole across the street…

In going through that roof I could also feel – although the feeling was unlike anything I have felt when inside a human instrument.
In moving through the objects I could also hear a sound as I passed through them.

Immediately I returned to the body, I got up and went outside.

I've had many of those things and similar things happen in my plain-old dreams. The brain is incredibly creative.

But all those images are things you have seen before. If you could do something like tell us the serial number of your water heater (or something else you haven't looked at closely) in your attic that you saw as you passed through the roof, that would be impressive. Do you even remember passing through the ceiling and being in the attic, or did you go straight to the roof?

Everything you have described sounds exactly like a dream to me.

 

[Nick227]

Would it not be more sensible to simply redefine ‘who you are’ for ‘yourself’ and forget what the groups think you are?
Remembering that regardless whether your self identity is with a group or as an individual, ‘who you are” will always be a source of conflict for others (likely groups).
Better then perhaps to maintain your sense of individuality and nurture that into something which contributes to the clean up rather than the mess.

AS some contend, you will be switched off forever soon enough. Why not use your time as an individual to do what you can to help clean up the mess?

Yes, I largely agree. What irks me is the way our culture has developed to not further the process that identification begins.

By identifying with certain thoughts, it seems to me to be the intention of the psyche is to create the possibility for a rise in self-awareness. For example, through unravelling just WHY for the seventh time we went out with the same type of woman and it ended in disaster like somewhere we knew it would when there were actually plenty of other choices - in following the pattern of identification we learn something about ourselves. This to me is the motivation behind identification. There's the chance self-awareness can rise.

But the culture we live in seems for the most part to only support diverting our attention from what it is that really troubles us, rarely pushing us to look more deeply at our behaviour. In the face of rising feelings it prefers that we just space out in front of the telly, get lost in our heads endlessly rationalising, or consume a variety of drugs, licit or otherwise.

This is what bugs me. Our planet is now severely overloaded with nonsensical diversions that exist only to superficially and temporarily ameliorate the symptoms of identification. Consumerism runs riot, things have built-in redundancy and then clag up the eco-system. None of it happens for any good reason. It could be much different.

Nick

 

[Navigator]

The point is that you only do things in your brain of which you can conceive.

If the brain is the creator, its sense of self. then ‘the point is that the brain only conceives what it is able to conceive’ would seem more appropriate.

The brain is incredibly creative.

Yes – it possibly created what it refers to as the universe. Nope, the universe created the brain, - even without knowledge or foresight.
And now the brain wonders why its creator is void of intelligence.
Then the brain thinks for itself – and decides that it is incredibly creative and explores just how creative it is.

Do you even remember passing through the ceiling and being in the attic, or did you go straight to the roof?

The point at which I entered the ceiling there was only about 3 foot gap between that and the roof.
I recall it all. I recall too why I started to think seriously about the possibility of being able to leave the body. But that’s another story.

Yes, I largely agree. What irks me is the way our culture has developed to not further the process that identification begins.

By identifying with certain thoughts, it seems to me to be the intention of the psyche is to create the possibility for a rise in self-awareness. For example, through unravelling just WHY for the seventh time we went out with the same type of woman and it ended in disaster like somewhere we knew it would when there were actually plenty of other choices - in following the pattern of identification we learn something about ourselves. This to me is the motivation behind identification. There's the chance self-awareness can rise.

But the culture we live in seems for the most part to only support diverting our attention from what it is that really troubles us, rarely pushing us to look more deeply at our behaviour. In the face of rising feelings it prefers that we just space out in front of the telly, get lost in our heads endlessly rationalising, or consume a variety of drugs, licit or otherwise.

This is what bugs me. Our planet is now severely overloaded with nonsensical diversions that exist only to superficially and temporarily ameliorate the symptoms of identification. Consumerism runs riot, things have built-in redundancy and then clag up the eco-system. None of it happens for any good reason. It could be much different.

Maybe there is safety (the illusion of) in repeating patterns which result in similar outcomes.
While reading your post, I was drawn to focus upon the idea that life is pretty much a scary event, especially for an individual.
There is safety in numbers, and identity/attachment to entities such as Countries, jobs, schools, and families…mothers…
The habit of distraction is important because we are individual, and being an individual in this seemingly infinite matrix is horrific.

Within a group we have a form of solidarity and extended identity (which helps us to maintain some sort of static placement) and can contribute our resource of personal energy to that group. This enables us to have a sense of purpose which is very hard to achieve as a single identity.
This is because we are entrained from the earliest stage in our lives to enjoy and even depend upon distractions.

These distractions though…the culture which seems to only support diverting our attentions from the troubles and not pushing us to look at our behaviors…why does this culture do this, and is it the responsibility of this culture to push us out from the comfort zone of distraction?

Our need to be mothered and told what to do has placed us into a network of distraction from which we cannot leave unless that very distraction pushes us to do so.

This is why it is important for the individual – without ‘mother’s’ permission – to get about the business of pushing oneself out of that nest of distractions.

Consistently examining our conscious thought.

 

[Foster Zygote]

I love that quote. Maybe Helen Keller realized this.

Someone else might say, “If you can see with you eyes, who needs Soul?”

So you do not have an answer for that question. This seems to me to be a major problem with your hypothesis.

Who mentioned superstition?

Is "woo" not a synonym for "superstition"?

I gave you my answer to that one.

I asked:

What evidence suggests that superstition is a predominantly female insistence.

You responded:

Aside from your Tom Cruise syndrome, you seem to have made some observation between the man thing and the wooman thing...

Um...do you thing maybe men and woomen have different types of brains?

Do you think there might be a propensity for one group to believe in things like fairies and magic and flying broomsticks and prince charming and unicorns’ and happy families while the other group believes in things like trucks and buildings and spaceships and guns and ships and adventures?

When did I mention Tom Cruise?

Your following two sentences are not answers at all.

 

[Nick227]

Our need to be mothered and told what to do has placed us into a network of distraction from which we cannot leave unless that very distraction pushes us to do so.

This is why it is important for the individual – without ‘mother’s’ permission – to get about the business of pushing oneself out of that nest of distractions.

Consistently examining our conscious thought.

My take on it is that, as far as I can see, the intention behind the experience of identification is to create the possibility of rising self-awareness. If not, we would always make rational choices in key decisions. The intention is to bring up feelings and allow the individual to experience more of who they really are.

If this is so then it simply makes sense to me to create a culture that supports the rise in awareness, not one that seeks to push all the feelings back down again, merrily enslaving vast swathes of the population in the process.

Nick

 

[Navigator]

My take on it is that, as far as I can see, the intention behind the experience of identification is to create the possibility of rising self-awareness. If not, we would always make rational choices in key decisions. The intention is to bring up feelings and allow the individual to experience more of who they really are.

If this is so then it simply makes sense to me to create a culture that supports the rise in awareness, not one that seeks to push all the feelings back down again, merrily enslaving vast swathes of the population in the process.

Nick

Feelings are part of the whole process, I agree.

Groups have their functions.

There is little point in judging the progress of humanity and being woeful of the result.
We are young as a specie, and there is much 'good' news that isn't as popular as the distracting 'bad' news.

 

[Navigator]

So you do not have an answer for that question. This seems to me to be a major problem with your hypothesis.


Is "woo" not a synonym for "superstition"?

I asked:

You responded:

When did I mention Tom Cruise?

Your following two sentences are not answers at all.

What was that question?

I don't know what 'woo' is but I think it is a derogatory expression of contempt for people who believe in things which there is no proof to support such belief.

Superstition is like 'knock on wood' 'good luck' 'don't walk under ladders' and the like.
Nothing much to get upset about.

The woo = predominantly a woman thing comment harkens back to something Articulate said about men being the predominant front for such woo things.
You might need to look back through the posts.

 

[maatorc]

Is "woo" not a synonym for "superstition"?
......

'Woo' is a synonym for pseudo-skeptical self-denial.