I Am Soul

[articulett]

BTW, twice I had what I thought was an OBE... but that is when I believed in OBE's. I know think it was a lucid dream or a misperception. I don't believe my consciousness actually left my body though it seemed real at the time. But objective reality is true whether we believe it or not. If a consciousness can leave a body we should be able to test to see this. We would have to test to distinguish this from a delusion of someone leaving their body. We know people can be deluded... we don't know that consciousness can exist absent a material body. We can "believe" it... but if an experience only happens to people who "believe" it can happen... then it's probably not anything that non believers need to take seriously.

It's just a recipe for failure. You can tell the person whose cancer doesn't go away that they just didn't pray hard enough or they didn't have enough faith or think enough positive thoughts or whatever.... but that doesn't mean any of that stuff truly helps. When people don't have these faith miracles happen for them, they come to think that something is wrong with them--and not wrong with the faith. I think that is problematic on a lot of levels. It's the very core of what Sylvia Browne is doing to people.

I don't want to believe things that aren't true. I'd rather remain ignorant than to believe a lie.

 

[breathe]

Tricky said

Real truth doesn't depend on interpretation. It is objective, demonstrable and verifiable. As such, there are few "real truths" in this world, but many "near truths" that are so very well evidenced that they are almost certain. Gravity for one. That things fall down is hardly an "interpretation".

This is true and that aside, we are discussing intangibles..... if you like..... and as such it is clear from this thread that communication can move in a myriad of ways.

moving right along now.........

I drew an analogy based on the point of delusion raised by other members here, and naturally, of course, my point was overlooked in favour of subject matter that best suits those other members identities.

Since then, I have learnt that, for me, the two identities I put together are really different ..., so again there is potential for discussion to evolve.

To add to my query of the so called deluded....it is now also apparent that suspicion has come to the table here too.... *NB that it was mentioned that 'I am' seemingly........... which might quell the new hypothesis about women being more superstitious...but I can't be certain of gender biases

Further, I mention genetics and I am ignored..

only to find that others are discussing it.......as if it were not previously mentioned at all

Overall, people communicate in different ways ......I don't see any reason for fear or the need to occlude at all .....especially not an alliance...

 

[Nick227]

Helloooooo, there are other people here who are.

Well, I figure souls may exist, but that to say "I am Soul" is nonsensical. I figure that identification with the body, thoughts and emotions is fair enough, after all that probably occurs as a result of a natural process.

However, to become aware of an immortal aspect of selfhood, a soul, I would think that of necessity one would already be aware that personal selfhood is actually an illusion created by lack of self-awareness. Ergo the statement "I am Soul" would be a non-sequitur.

Thus, to me personally, the only way I can see that you could develop the perspective "I am Soul" would be if you were suddenly for a period thrust into a state of deeper awareness and then back out again. In processing the experience you might well imagine you "were" the soul.

About 200ug of LSD would probably do the trick

Nick

 

[Nick227]

Nick can you differentiate what you are saying from what Ramachandran is saying... or from what navigator is saying. It sounds like you are agreeing with Ramachandran while using words to infer a soul of the type navigator is talking about.

Ramachandran is working at understanding the experience of limited selfhood from a neurological perspective. As a honest scientist he is admitting that, thus far, he's only been able to scratch the surface.

"Soul" has little to do with limited selfhood, imo. There may well exist souls. It may even be that souls exist because people believe in them. However, we are no more soul, than we are flesh and blood. As flesh and blood there is likely a brain process that creates the experience of having a personal identity. However, this process may be overcome by developing increased self-awareness. If one could become sufficiently self-aware to experience a soul, personally I figure they would already have to be aware that personal identity is a transitory experience.

As to churches... they exist... people build them for subjective reasons or beliefs... but they objectively build them and it's objective to say they build them because of what they believe. It doesn't make what they believe objective. You seem to be using words to infer something but not really say anything. What exactly is your point?

Some guy said that subjectivity didn't affect reality. I'm pointing out that it does so all the time. Actually, if you really look at the creative process, on a thought - action level, you will find that most of reality is created by subjective process.

Do you think that consciousness is dependent upon a material living brain or not. If not, can you propose any evidence which would lead to this conclusion?

I don't use the c word. I don't know what it's supposed to mean. Consciousness is a concept. I see things. I do know that there's no objective way to know whether the world is "out there" or within you.

Nick

 

[Paulhoff]

Well, I figure souls may exist, but that to say "I am Soul" is nonsensical. I figure that identification with the body, thoughts and emotions is fair enough, after all that probably occurs as a result of a natural process.

Well the idea of souls (and so-called gods) started when humans didn't have a clue "and many still don't" about the workings of the brain and the body. They had no idea of cells etc. Well, we have way more then a clue now, and have studied what happens to people with strokes and other damage to the brain. The OBE has been explained, and found out to part of the brain that if stimulated gives a people that experience.

Paul

 

[Foster Zygote]

I'm still curious to know what evidence suggests that superstition is a predominantly female insistence.

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?

Not to be picky, but I was requesting evidence. Have you any?

BTW, it would be helpful if you would use the quote function consistently.

 

[Foster Zygote]

What I have experienced is hypothetically impossible for you to experience.
You cannot leave your body because you do not have a soul.

You're kidding, right?

I am not afraid of death or an end to my life. I am – because of my experience – allowing for the possibility that once my body has expired, I will continue.

I am not afraid of death or an end to my life, although I intend to prolong it as long as possible, within reason. I am - because of my experience - highly skeptical of, and not depending on, the possibility that once my body has expired I will continue as a consciousness. Why should I dread the oblivion that awaits me any more than the oblivion from which I came?

What was experience was actually more real than being in the body is. While the brain might be able to make a mockup of what it experiences in reality, it has what proven ability to make the real more real?

What do I mean by more real?

Like the feel of the wind with clothes on and then the feel of the wind without clothes on.

Same wind….different experience.

I'm sorry, I don't follow you. I've heard people describe the "more real" experience after eating mushrooms or dropping acid.

And what about the feel of wind with clothes on and the feel of wind while inside my house? Same wind... different experience. It sounds very poetic, but what does it really mean?

 

[Foster Zygote]

Further, I mention genetics and I am ignored.

Your mention of genetics was a non sequitur. It had nothing to do with the point that was being made.

only to find that others are discussing it.......as if it were not previously mentioned at all

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.

BTW,

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.

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.

 

[Navigator]

"The OBE has been explained,"


Nope - only hypothesized about

You're kidding, right?

Nope - Just acknowledging your pov

I'm sorry, I don't follow you. I've heard people describe the "more real" experience after eating mushrooms or dropping acid.

I was doing neither.

And what about the feel of wind with clothes on and the feel of wind while inside my house? Same wind... different experience. It sounds very poetic, but what does it really mean?

Yes - it is poetic. You know what it is like explaining subjective experience to anyone who has never had that experience...More real as if the separation from the body was like taking your clothes off and experiencing the wind without them.

Your 'wind while in house' would be like being unable to feel your body at all due to paralysis

 

[Nick227]

Well the idea of souls (and so-called gods) started when humans didn't have a clue "and many still don't" about the workings of the brain and the body. They had no idea of cells etc. Well, we have way more then a clue now, and have studied what happens to people with strokes and other damage to the brain. The OBE has been explained, and found out to part of the brain that if stimulated gives a people that experience.

I actually think neurology is great stuff. For me though, I figure it's going to hit a moment of truth when they do finally start to understand the brain process that creates the experience of limited selfhood. This process creates the experience of objectivity, which in turn is the backbone of empiric science, of which neurology is a field. Do you see where this is heading? If you uncover the very process which justifies your research, which if it's not functioning makes your research look meaningless, what does that say about the actual nature of reality?

Nick

 

[articulett]

I see it differently. I think all people including scientists would love information that consciousness could exist outside of a brain... it would allow us to refine that knowledge. But there is no evidence... it's a dead end to knowledge, just like using god to explain that which you don't understand. Most woo is built on the false premise that consciousness can exist absent a material brain.

Until someone proves that it can, I think the smartest bet is to presume all such beliefs about such things are delusions. We must have a way to distinguish such things from delusions to presume otherwise, and we already have eons of evidence that people explain altered states of consciousness the exact same way they describe woo. There's nothing to distinguish the two. Moreover, there is no test for knowing whether an invisible entity is real or imaginary... or a delusion... so since they are all identical in reality, the skeptical thing to do is to treat them all as such... If your goal is to understand the truth and not just what people are perceiving.

You could take all the evidence and experience in the world and believe the earth was flat and build on that premise... but that doesn't change the fact that you are building on a faulty premise in the first place and everything built on a faulty premise is as faulty or more faulty than the premise it is built upon.

We take replicable, evidentiary, logical information as far as it can go, but we don't insert woo where we don't understand something because that leads us to find "signs" that woo is true... We can make hypothesis, but unless we have a way to distinguish one hypothesis from the other, we have nothing. We can show that none of these things that people "imagine" work when tested by skeptics or scientifically... so we can conclude they are products of the brain until someone passes such a test.

There is a big difference between believing you "know" something and whether that something is objectively true. All woo thinks their woo is true. That is not a reason for a skeptic to believe any of it. When we can think of a way to test it and they let us, we can see if their version of reality jibes with agreed upon reality... it it doesn't, then we can treat them as delusional because there is no way to differentiate them from the delusional.

 

[lupus_in_fabula]

I actually think neurology is great stuff. For me though, I figure it's going to hit a moment of truth when they do finally start to understand the brain process that creates the experience of limited selfhood. This process creates the experience of objectivity, which in turn is the backbone of empiric science, of which neurology is a field. Do you see where this is heading? If you uncover the very process which justifies your research, which if it's not functioning makes your research look meaningless, what does that say about the actual nature of reality?

I really don’t see how understanding the brain somehow leads to scientific research becoming meaningless. It’s not like technologies or medicine etc. would suddenly become less valid therefore. The contrary might very well be the case.

 

[articulett]

I really don’t see how understanding the brain somehow leads to scientific research becoming meaningless. It’s not like technologies or medicine etc. would suddenly become less valid therefore. The contrary might very well be the case.

Yes...everything we know and share and can build on is built on this. All of our technology and medicine and math and languages. Everything that makes us proud to be human is built on the accumulated knowledge that come from using our brains... none of it comes from any outside source... even when people thought it was an outside source, it was coming from their own mind. We understand that now... to presume otherwise is to presume that there are realities that are indistinguishable from fantasies. And if that's the case, since we have no way to distinguish these "external realities" from "internal fantasies" then it's safe to treat them as the latter. We KNOW the latter exists and that it subjectively feels like the former to the believer-- but we don't know anything at all about the former... we can't. Thetans are as likely as souls. Demons are as likely as gods. A matrix is as likely as brains in vats with "programmed reality". We could be an experiment some other beings are running. But we have no reason to suspect any of these scenarios might be true.

 

[Paulhoff]

"The OBE has been explained,"


Nope - only hypothesized about

No, it has been done in the lab.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/08/070823141057.htm

Paul

 

[Foster Zygote]

Nope - Just acknowledging your pov

Again, it really is much less work for everyone, you included, if you use the quote tags.

What about OBEs requires a soul? Did you eliminate the possibility that they are a result of some remote observation capability of your brain but that the brain stays put? Not that I've seen any evidence for this. Certainly none more than for your hypothesis, but you seem to be jumping to a conclusion.

And it seems curious to me that OBEs contain sensory elements, like vision, that must be operating independently of the body's sensory systems. Yet when someone's vision is damaged they are not able to continue to "see" with their souls. Have you considered this problem?

I was doing neither.

That does not change the fact that such feelings can be experienced by those who are simply physically altering their brain chemistry. In fact, schizophrenics often report such experiences. Such feelings are not evidence of your claims.

Yes - it is poetic. You know what it is like explaining subjective experience to anyone who has never had that experience...More real as if the separation from the body was like taking your clothes off and experiencing the wind without them.

Again with the senses. Tell me, why can't people who have lost their sight, hearing etc. not train themselves to use their souls to replace their damaged senses.

I'm sure you will continue to believe what you want to believe, I'm just explaining that you have failed to convince me that your conclusion is the only reasonable one, or even the most likely.

 

[Nick227]

I really don’t see how understanding the brain somehow leads to scientific research becoming meaningless. It’s not like technologies or medicine etc. would suddenly become less valid therefore. The contrary might very well be the case.

If you understand how the brain constructs the experience of objectivity...it doesn't change things?

Right now, the thoughts passing through the mind...they appear to be "your" thoughts. That experience, that there's a "you", an "I" that is somehow "having" these thoughts, that experience is being created by a neurological process, as yet not understood. Without it, the thoughts would simply be arising, without any sense of them belonging to anybody. They wouldn't be happening to anybody. Just thoughts passing.

I agree that it needn't stop technology in its tracks. But it would put a new perspective on things. Can you see it on the cover of SciAm magazine - we know how to switch "you" off! The ultimate in relaxation, no more identification.

Nick

 

[articulett]

I think temporal lobe seizures and the Persinger helmet cause one to feel at one with the universe and other feelings that negate the selfness one normally feels. They believe they are having a "transcendent" experience. Even pain in your body or your position in space requires interpretation by the brain... just as your boundaries of self...

I think we have some big pieces to the puzzle regarding this sense of self and that we are on the right track. I think imagining or hoping or wishing it was something beyond the brain or that could exist independent of the brain is a recipe for finding "signs" for such. Such signs would be worthless unless or until you were resting on the assumption they couldn't exist. If you assumed that, you are less likely to let what you want to be true interfere with what is verifiably true. There does not seem to be any further knowledge to be gained once someone inserts a supernatural element as an explanation, you know. Humans have always used such explanations for fillers, but science erases those explanations with facts. Really believing and wanting something to be true doesn't make it so.

 

[Wings]

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?

 

[articulett]

No.... if there were, we'd be honing that information like crazy... instead it's just anecdotes like Navigator...

When we try to test it, it fails... so do NDE's-- (operating rooms have pix that can only be viewed from someone looking down from the ceiling) so far, no one has had an NDE where they could relate what the images showed. And we don't have a reason to believe that people can see or "watch over us" or anything without working eyes hooked up to a working brain to interpret what is being seen.

OBE's and NDE's are very likely an illusion that we use to support what we want to believe. The brain is really prone to see certain shapes and things in it's delusions--spirals, tunnels, faces of loved ones, etc... and have feelings that they describe as "descendant" or feeling like they "know" some profound truth. People who really want to believe get mad at those who point this out... as do people who believe they've had such experiences and they are "real".

 

[Tricky]

As a person who has had several OBE's I can give my anecdotal evidence that there was nothing "mystical" about them. They are a fairly common symptom of "panic attacks" or "anxiety attacks", from which I have suffered for a number of years. The sensation, also known as "depersonalization" is the feeling that you are not really "you" and indeed may be a third person or disembodied presence that is observing the ongoing scene.

Fortunately, education and medication can ameliorate the symptoms of these attacks and I have not had an OBE for many years now. I can still remember vividly what they were like though. Sometimes you feel like you are already dead and your spirit is hanging over the room. It is quite an odd experience.

The thing about panic attacks though is that they feed on themselves. Once you start having one, you panic even more, especially since many of the symptoms mimic heart attack symptoms. The best key to this is education. Once you know what is happening, you don't get so scared. Odd, isn't it, that rational thinking offers "placebo relief" much the same way magical thinking does. Once you have convinced yourself you feel better, you feel better.