Afterlife Thoughts!

December 26, 2008

...It's the essence of the experience of life coming out of crisis that bears great significance on meaning and identity to the person undergoing the crisis. Which is why I likened it to the insights gained by those in say, Peyote cultures who's vehicle to insight is through creating a "moving beyond oneself", a sort of transcendental experience. Is it a chemical that produces the effect. Sure, I wouldn't dispute that. Is it what caused it to happen in my case? You would also have to say that a chemical issue caused the crisis in the first place, which it can't be said it did...

You've sort of made my point here; chemicals give transcendental experience. But I wasn't trying to play reductionist in the sense of saying there is no experience. Obviously there is experience. However, I spent years in existential struggle caused by what I'd done and seen in Vietnam. Many of those years I didn't even know that was the source of my cognitive dissonance. I had too short experiences of relief from the meaninglessness, romancing my wife, and being born again. The first lasted about a year the second maybe 2 months before I was back in the pit again. I drove my wife nuts in trying to make her do it again, and I dove as deep into religion as I knew how to get that 2 months back. After I recognize religion's failure, I finally settled on staying alive long enough to get my youngest kid to 18. I planned to check out the day after his birthday.

I was ready to go in the winter after Zack's graduation, but I'd promised to tell my VA shrink before I went. She is a nice lady so I told her. That got me a 3 month stay in Saint Cloud and drugs. The drugs did what ever it was that all my spiritual maneuvering didn't. I don't live in ecstasy now, but I don't live in hell either. One reason I avoided taking the drugs for so many years after I knew about them is that I thought the relief wouldn't be real. I don't think that is the case. It could be that the relief from meaninglessness is fake, but I can't tell the difference.

We don't experience the chemical interplay like chemists. We experience the chemical interplay as feelings, existential or otherwise. Obviously as a species we don't need to know about the chemicals in order to produce another generation. We don't have to experience the world as it really is. We only have to experience the world well enough to get the next generation going. The above "have to" is not a moral imperative, but a biological imperative. Nevertheless, we experience it as a moral imperative. That is what it feels like, and so it is what we have to live by. That is no consciousness can function at a purely chemical level.

On the surface where we live it seems absurd that chemicals are the basis of existential struggle. But that is the way it is. Perhaps Descartes is to blame for the misunderstanding when his method reduced consciousness to a dimensionless point. It would be better to understand that the smallest unit of consciousness is a fairly complete brain with its attendant sensory devices.

What that experience was, was me. It was what was in me that desired life. I saved me. I saved me by desiring life. Life saved me by drawing me to live. What was possible was manifest through me and for me and by me and from life for that end. It the potential in life that saved me. It was life, and me seeking life that manifest the world to me for me for life. (I don't know an easy way to describe this). I just made the error of looking for answers, as opposed to listening to the heart that saved me in the first place and simply living. I met God, I met me and found life, and that's something that I haven't quit trying to find and realize and embrace.

It's so sad that belief in life like this that gets called "God" is made into a social institution. It harms the experience. I guess you could call me an Atheist Existentialist Mystic. What really is "God" anyway?

That experience was you, but that you was/is what the chemicals are doing as an organization. You are not or ever could be something else. The same goes for life. But it is absurd on a feeling level to say the chemical process of life drew me to live, because we are unaware of the process on a sensory basis. Nevertheless, that is what is going on. I.e. no brain chemical processes is no feeling.

December 26, 2008

Truthfully, this is the first time I’ve attempted to explore this, and I’m certain there are others who can express this more succinctly. I would say that all in all, it’s a phenomenon of our humanity, of how we approach relating to the world and others through our senses; a product that creates a language of dualism, of us and the other, which acts as a feedback loop enforcing this sense of separateness.

I think that this sense of otherness is one of the basics of life. One of the first mechanisms of the first living cells had to be some process to distinguish me from not me or else the cell would just dissipate, or take in a poison. So came the function of keep this in and keep that out. Of course it wasn't a conscious process. The necessity of knowing me from not me is perhaps in conflict with our being social animals. Would a solitary mammal like a wolverine experience the same alienation if it were conscious? I don't know, but I suspect not.

Perhaps we as a social animal feel conflicted because we need to belong and to be separate at the same time. That appears to be a tough balance to maintain. It looks like that balance can easily go screwy in either too much belonging or not enough. We pay for our wonderful consciousness with psychological weaknesses.

Perhaps the evolution of religious tendencies were evolution's usual convoluted way of making a patch that sort of works.

December 28, 2008

...It's the essence of the experience of life coming out of crisis that bears great significance on meaning and identity to the person undergoing the crisis. Which is why I likened it to the insights gained by those in say, Peyote cultures who's vehicle to insight is through creating a "moving beyond oneself", a sort of transcendental experience. Is it a chemical that produces the effect. Sure, I wouldn't dispute that. Is it what caused it to happen in my case? You would also have to say that a chemical issue caused the crisis in the first place, which it can't be said it did...

You've sort of made my point here; chemicals give transcendental experience. But I wasn't trying to play reductionist in the sense of saying there is no experience. Obviously there is experience. However, I spent years in existential struggle caused by what I'd done and seen in Vietnam. Many of those years I didn't even know that was the source of my cognitive dissonance. I had too short experiences of relief from the meaninglessness, romancing my wife, and being born again. The first lasted about a year the second maybe 2 months before I was back in the pit again. I drove my wife nuts in trying to make her do it again, and I dove as deep into religion as I knew how to get that 2 months back. After I recognize religion's failure, I finally settled on staying alive long enough to get my youngest kid to 18. I planned to check out the day after his birthday.

I appreciate your candor Chef. It makes me feel a bit less vulnerable in exposing my neck on this personal of a level in this thread.

As far as the chemical thing, I have said I recognize this. My point is less the means of the experience, as it is the opening up of oneself to insights through the experience, in other words the meaning found in it. In an argument that contends this experience "proves" the existence of God, then of course arguing about the causes would be helpful in debating that as so called evidence. But in my opinion, for anyone to argue it's evidence, is to entirely miss the point of it. It's besides the point and unimportant to the significance of what is gained individually, on a personal level.

To say to the mystic in the Sweat Lodge, that it was the heat that caused the vision is irrelevant. The vision isn't about finding proof of the supernatural. It's about finding insights into a greater perception than what the mundane offers. It's about transcendence of self. It's about an exploration of life. It's about the search for meaning, for insight, for wisdom, for the self. It's about finding truth in the sublime, in the transcendent.

I was ready to go in the winter after Zack's graduation, but I'd promised to tell my VA shrink before I went. She is a nice lady so I told her. That got me a 3 month stay in Saint Cloud and drugs. The drugs did what ever it was that all my spiritual maneuvering didn't. I don't live in ecstasy now, but I don't live in hell either. One reason I avoided taking the drugs for so many years after I knew about them is that I thought the relief wouldn't be real. I don't think that is the case. It could be that the relief from meaninglessness is fake, but I can't tell the difference.

I feel sorry for the challenges you've had to deal with and I'm not meaning to discount those by any means. But I'm feeling to try to make a distinction here between what is benefited through ecstasy, and what I'm trying to talk about here. I know the heights of ecstasy, through religious expression as well as romanticism, as well as through any number of means. It seems I had lived with a sort of Manic Depressive state for some time in my life, in which my musical composing was at its most prolific. External reliefs of happiness, followed by grave angst and longing in which poetic expression became the only life-line for me. What I've described however in that experience was different than the ecstasies that I found in the latter religious experiments. How can I say it?

Have you ever had the observation about yourself as a sort of third-party observer, where you look at the trends of your life, moving from left to right, back to left, back to right, and through all the movements you can see the core "you" in the center of that? That's what I'm talking about. That's what that experience was for me. Not ecstasy in the sense of a height of of emotional relief, but rather an encounter with the essence of me. It was a revelation of everything within me that I long for in the midst of distress.

Not continuing to experience the depths of that encounter if you will, on an emotional level following it, didn't leave me feeling incomplete or wanting for some lack, rather it served to enlighten me to what is possible in myself, what is in me. That gives me hope in being. Not in the distractions from moments of ecstasy, as I knew well from my experience in religious manipulations that I got distracted by on my way, like the intoxication of drug usage, but a core outlook on life, a core realization of the meaning of life in me. I encountered the essence of who I am, in how I see the world and myself within it, and that has been the purpose of that vision that was manifest for my sake, from me.

Truthfully, this is the first time I’ve attempted to explore this, and I’m certain there are others who can express this more succinctly. I would say that all in all, it’s a phenomenon of our humanity, of how we approach relating to the world and others through our senses; a product that creates a language of dualism, of us and the other, which acts as a feedback loop enforcing this sense of separateness.

I think that this sense of otherness is one of the basics of life. One of the first mechanisms of the first living cells had to be some process to distinguish me from not me or else the cell would just dissipate, or take in a poison. So came the function of keep this in and keep that out. Of course it wasn't a conscious process. The necessity of knowing me from not me is perhaps in conflict with our being social animals. Would a solitary mammal like a wolverine experience the same alienation if it were conscious? I don't know, but I suspect not.

Perhaps we as a social animal feel conflicted because we need to belong and to be separate at the same time. That appears to be a tough balance to maintain. It looks like that balance can easily go screwy in either too much belonging or not enough. We pay for our wonderful consciousness with psychological weaknesses.

Perhaps the evolution of religious tendencies were evolution's usual convoluted way of making a patch that sort of works.

Hah, that's very good (what I highlighted in red).

Your analogy of the wolverine raises some points of consideration. Stirring and brewing in my mind are the thoughts of how utterly relative and created all our perceptions of the universe are. I fully realize that ALL the constructs about the world we manufacture (our mythologies - both religious and secular), our frameworks of language, etc are entirely, wholly centered around our ideas, which are products of our biology, which are wholly skewed and limited. So I suppose... that's the sense that that was picked up on in seeking new boundaries of understanding to push ourselves beyond in furthering the basis on which to try to grasp our sense of self. I guess this is where the mystic comes in; to look beyond reason to the existential self through emotional awareness of the world. Hmm... I'll have to ponder this some more.

Happy holidays, and thanks for the discussion. I'm wondering if Buddy will get back to this discussion? Haven't seen him around since this took off.

December 28, 2008

Good morning, AM.

Hope your holidays have been relaxing and enjoyable. Kinda nice skipping a few days work. Thanks for the continued posts, pal. It helps flesh out the person a bit to see some of the path they've traveled. Let me pick up the trail here ...

... A point in my life of great crisis; an event that took me to the edge of death; a cry of desperation for help out into the utter darkness; white light suddenly appearing everywhere, in an instant driving everything else out that tormented me; a complete cessation of time; infinite peace, infinite love, infinite knowledge, infinite awareness, infinite power, infinite grace and compassion, all in only a sliver of an inconceivable infinity that lay beyond that; and then a gentle voice of infinite compassion and awareness speaking only my name, conveying my life's story before my eyes in an instant of utter timelessness with the knowledge spoken without words to my mind that I was never alone, that was loved beyond all knowledge.

... The World was full of light and love and color, and permeated everything as a sort of living joy that surrounded me, moved through me, and began flowing out of the most unimaginably deepest part of my being out into the world in a sort of song, as can only be described as utter, living love.

I saw people walking by me, and rather than feeling darkness and shame in my heart and averting my eyes away as in my past, instead I felt pure love and joy. No thoughts of darkness were in me anywhere at that moment, and I felt truly alive for the first time in my life.

From this point began the life-long quest of mine that I stumbled about to build upon, again making the mistake of looking for answers from ministers. Two years later, and no further towards finding answers I happened upon a very charismatic Biblical literalist whose convictions of truth inspired me. I was caught into the snare, and found myself convinced somehow that all this was somehow God calling me to serve him in the ministry. I enrolled in Bible College and graduated top of my class with a degree in theology, all the while being ripped apart inside by the conflict of what was in my heart, and what was being portrayed about God.

Tell me more, friend. Without being argumentative, I'm curious how you might have arrived at the origin of such an experience being from within. The classic question,

"Could God Himself create such lovely things as I dreamed?"

"Whence then came thy dream?" answers Hope.

"Out of my dark self, into the light of my consciousness."

"But whence first into thy dark self?" rejoins Hope.

"My brain was its mother, and the fever in my blood its father."

"Say rather," suggests Hope, "thy brain was the violin whence it issued, and the fever in thy blood the bow that drew it forth.—But who made the violin? and who guided the bow across its strings? Say rather, again—who set the song birds each on its bough in the tree of life, and startled each in its order from its perch? Whence came the fantasia? and whence the life that danced thereto? Didst THOU say, in the dark of thy own unconscious self, 'Let beauty be; let truth seem!' and straightway beauty was, and truth but seemed?"

Man dreams and desires; God broods and wills and quickens.

When a man dreams his own dream, he is the sport of his dream; when Another gives it him, that Other is able to fulfill it."

I suspect many of the readers here have found the descriptions of reality provided by religionists to be bland and inadequate, and I'll freely admit to sharing their perspective. Conversely, while the rigidity of objective science is appealing for many reasons, I've never been able to adopt it as fully comprehensive. Nor have I been able to acquiesce completely to the position that you describe where "I fully realize that ALL the constructs about the world we manufacture (our mythologies - both religious and secular), our frameworks of language, etc are entirely, wholly centered around our ideas, which are products of our biology, which are wholly skewed and limited." I will buy the 'skewed and limited' caveat.

Is it religion that so diminishes real truth by its explanations? Or is it perhaps our human desire (need?) to describe comprehensibly all that we experience and thereby conclude that we understand and have some measure of control? The 'charismatic Biblical literalist' you mentioned is not uncommon, perhaps, among the fundamentalists and evangelicals; I know a few and appreciate their good intentions while taking what they so confidently profess with a grain of salt.

In all fairness then, it raises a question. How might someone be affected if they had in fact encountered God or perhaps one of his angels? From the narrative, Moses was physiologically changed, Paul was temporarily blinded, John was left doing his stumbling best to describe in first century words what was indescribable in any language. Jacob was persuaded that he had wrestled with an angel and been injured in the process. Daniel's account of encountering an angel suggests attention to detail regarding the angle's appearance which was totally inhuman. Each was fully persuaded to the legitimacy of his encounter; each was changed by it in some measure; enlarged, perhaps. By the encounter, all were handed a different ethic, a different world view, a different priority for their life. Each went on with new purpose and understanding. It seems that an encounter like they described would lead to the changes that followed. There are modern equivalents, perhaps, in the NDEs or in being 'born again'. Should we presume that all such are from within?

Further thoughts? I'd really appreciate hearing how you condensed your experience to its having emerged full grown as wholly a product of your ?mind? or biology. Isn't that a bit of a 'little bang'? Out of nothing... something?

Buddy

December 28, 2008

I suspect many of the readers here have found the descriptions of reality provided by religionists to be bland and inadequate, and I'll freely admit to sharing their perspective. Conversely, while the rigidity of objective science is appealing for many reasons, I've never been able to adopt it as fully comprehensive. Nor have I been able to acquiesce completely to the position that you describe where "I fully realize that ALL the constructs about the world we manufacture (our mythologies - both religious and secular), our frameworks of language, etc are entirely, wholly centered around our ideas, which are products of our biology, which are wholly skewed and limited." I will buy the 'skewed and limited' caveat.

I doubt there are many here that believe "objective science ...is fully comprehensive." Most recognize that there are undiscovered things in the universe. But the scientific method has value. You won't respond to this, because you have me on ignore, but get real, Buddy. How is it that anything from the outside would not be filtered through our brains, our conditioning, our physical senses, our memories, our total experience of life? Yes, our ideas are limited, why wouldn't they be? We don't see in infrared light like some birds and animals, we don't have ears like a bat, these creatures exist in a different sensory world.

In all fairness then, it raises a question. How might someone be affected if they had in fact encountered God or perhaps one of his angels? From the narrative, Moses was physiologically changed, Paul was temporarily blinded, John was left doing his stumbling best to describe in first century words what was indescribable in any language. Jacob was persuaded that he had wrestled with an angel and been injured in the process. Daniel's account of encountering an angel suggests attention to detail regarding the angle's appearance which was totally inhuman. Each was fully persuaded to the legitimacy of his encounter; each was changed by it in some measure; enlarged, perhaps. By the encounter, all were handed a different ethic, a different world view, a different priority for their life. Each went on with new purpose and understanding. It seems that an encounter like they described would lead to the changes that followed. There are modern equivalents, perhaps, in the NDEs or in being 'born again'. Should we presume that all such are from within?

All these experiences came from within, yes. Assuming they happened, they were organized by the mind and conditioned by the thought process. Not a one of these people would be able to identify what they saw as angels or Gods, if they hadn't heard of such things in the past. As far as life changing, who knows? All we have is a book that says they were. An unreliable book in many ways.

December 28, 2008

... All these experiences came from within, yes. Assuming they happened, they were organized by the mind and conditioned by the thought process. Not a one of these people would be able to identify what they saw as angels or Gods, if they hadn't heard of such things in the past. As far as life changing, who knows? All we have is a book that says they were. An unreliable book in many ways.

Yes, you're quite correct, of course. Each of us 'sees' according to filters, language, prejudices, experience and wrong/right thinking, or whatever.

What are the chances of being pushed outside such limits? What are the chances of there being someone able to address us from outside the limits of our current thinking?

I'd be quite pleased to engage in conversation, friend. Let me politely point out (without intending criticism, just observation) that perhaps you're somewhat less so inclined this morning. Discounting a question rather than answering it is pretty much of a conversation killer. It might be worth doing if you were to offer your reasons rather than conclusions in the context of the offered question. Feel free to give it another try.

Buddy

December 28, 2008

What are the chances of being pushed outside such limits? What are the chances of there being someone able to address us from outside the limits of our current thinking?

Zero. And Zero to the second question if you think its some outside force like a God (which I am sure you do).

You are unchanged from your earlier postings on this site. The same disrespect for us; the same throwing out statements as if they were the absolute truth, and refusal to grasp what people are saying.

December 28, 2008

What are the chances of being pushed outside such limits? What are the chances of there being someone able to address us from outside the limits of our current thinking?

Zero. And Zero to the second question...

No disrespect intended, pal. Let me rephrase the question and see if it is a bit more palatable.

Yes, you're quite correct, of course. Each of us 'sees' according to filters, language, prejudices, experience and wrong/right thinking, or whatever. What are the chances of progressing beyond our current limits? What are the chances of there being someone with more information than we currently see? Are we accessible from outside the limits of our current thinking?

Buddy

December 28, 2008

Each of us 'sees' according to filters, language, prejudices, experience and wrong/right thinking, or whatever. What are the chances of progressing beyond our current limits?

What do you mean by "progressing"?

What are the chances of there being someone with more information than we currently see?

"See" in what way? If you are implying there is a way for an outside entity to provide us with "information" which is not filtered through our own senses and mental conditioning - I say zero chance.

Are we accessible from outside the limits of our current thinking?

Accessible by what or whom?

December 28, 2008

To say to the mystic in the Sweat Lodge, that it was the heat that caused the vision is irrelevant. The vision isn't about finding proof of the supernatural. It's about finding insights into a greater perception than what the mundane offers. It's about transcendence of self. It's about an exploration of life. It's about the search for meaning, for insight, for wisdom, for the self. It's about finding truth in the sublime, in the transcendent.

I don't think it is irrelevant. If relief from angst or whatever one chooses to call it can come from altered states of consciousness, the method of alteration seems an important factor. It seems that pretending the supernatural in altered consciousness is necessary to gleaning some meaning for mundane consciousness from what we'd call religious or metaphysical practices. I know finding this meaning can happen from these practices, but it seems a pretty hit and miss process. Few who practice ever get to be a Buddha.

What is this "truth in the sublime". I understand the feeling of it, but what is really? What is being felt? I say it really is a brain chemical sweet spot. Now that we know that the supernatural is not there, now that we know there is only physics and no metaphysics, it is hard to pretend that an altered state of consciousness is something other than messing with chemical imbalances. It seems to me that the science of hitting the sweet spot would produce more buddhas then the umpteen religious, or quasi religious methods manage to bring about -- not that these don't bring about some relief on occasion.

The drug I take is a very crude solution, but it is less crude than alcohol, grass, or opium and way less work than meditation or prayer. It is scientific research that found the less crude solution, rather than any metaphysical/spiritual study and practice. What if the effort and resources spent on the metaphysical were instead spent on the cognitive and neurological sciences? Sure it would be less romantic and take out the personal questing. For myself I don't miss the personal questing in this matter. However I think that more people would get a taste of transendence if the effort and resources were redirected.

I don't think this will happen, in part because people enjoy their misery too much. Since part of the reality I'm writing about is the very subjective nature of the species, I think the objective processes that produce the subjective nature will be largely ignored in favor of some popular meta physics.

Have you ever had the observation about yourself as a sort of third-party observer, where you look at the trends of your life, moving from left to right, back to left, back to right, and through all the movements you can see the core "you" in the center of that? That's what I'm talking about. That's what that experience was for me. Not ecstasy in the sense of a height of of emotional relief, but rather an encounter with the essence of me. It was a revelation of everything within me that I long for in the midst of distress.

Yes I have, but again that is not a real thing with a separate existence. It can only be an emergent property of brain process. I remember from reading in Pinker and Damasio that there are brain damaged people that don't have a "me" and yet are still aware. Of course we want that me to function well, but it seems the best way to do that is to take care of "me's" component parts. A car's carness is an emergent property of its parts and processes. We want the carness of a car, because it can get us to grandma's house, or to work. But when the carness is broken we don't look at carness to fix it. We look at it's parts. Oh look the fuel filter is dirty! Clean it or replace it and carness is back.

I think that what we have experienced as you describe, may be the smallest unit of consciousness. That is the smallest bit of self that we can be aware of, but it is by no means the smallest bit of what the brain is doing. I even suspect it is not even the main thing the brain is doing, as much as we'd like to think so.

December 28, 2008

Each of us 'sees' according to filters, language, prejudices, experience and wrong/right thinking, or whatever. What are the chances of progressing beyond our current limits?
What do you mean by "progressing"?

What are the chances of there being someone with more information than we currently see?
"See" in what way? If you are implying there is a way for an outside entity to provide us with "information" which is not filtered through our own senses and mental conditioning - I say zero chance.

Are we accessible from outside the limits of our current thinking?
Accessible by what or whom?

Your caution hobbles you, friend. In school, our teachers knew more than we; some of them still do. We progressed beyond our juvenile limits when teachers opened up broader understand to us; we were accessible from outside the limits of our juvenile mentality; we were 'teachable'. The same questions and context apply equally now. There is much we don't know, there is much in our filters and prejudices that we will have to rise above, etc., etc. No hidden meanings, no traps.

December 28, 2008

Your caution hobbles you, friend. When we were children, our teachers knew more than we. We progressed beyond our juvenile limits when teachers showed us the way; we were accessible from outside the limits of our grade school mentality; it's called 'teachable'. The same questions and context apply equally now. There is much we don't know, there is much in our filters and prejudices that we will have to rise above, etc., etc. No hidden meanings, no traps.

How predictable. You are refusing my request for clarification of your questions and are now attempting to obscure and change the subject, as always.

As I recall we were discussing Damascus- road- type visions of God and so-called life changing experiences brought about by supernatural means, not a classroom and being teachable. I agree there is much we don't know - I say if we learn something it doesn't come through the unknown- the unknown being angels, gods, etc. It comes from ourselves, our own mental apparatus. We are bombarded with information all the time, and the brain must filter out a large portion of it. Otherwise the world would not make sense. Our vision and our senses are limited. Probably sometimes information comes together and is processed differently, then we get insight.

I say there is no information coming in from the outside that doesn't go through our past conditioning and is interpreted through it. Learning new facts about the world from a teacher, that is added into the memory and either retained, or not, according to our interest in the information.

So are you going to define, in the context of these life changing experiences, what you mean by "progressing beyond our current limits"?

December 28, 2008

In all fairness then, it raises a question. How might someone be affected if they had in fact encountered God or perhaps one of his angels? From the narrative, Moses was physiologically changed, Paul was temporarily blinded, John was left doing his stumbling best to describe in first century words what was indescribable in any language. Jacob was persuaded that he had wrestled with an angel and been injured in the process. Daniel's account of encountering an angel suggests attention to detail regarding the angle's appearance which was totally inhuman. Each was fully persuaded to the legitimacy of his encounter; each was changed by it in some measure; enlarged, perhaps. By the encounter, all were handed a different ethic, a different world view, a different priority for their life. Each went on with new purpose and understanding. It seems that an encounter like they described would lead to the changes that followed. There are modern equivalents, perhaps, in the NDEs or in being 'born again'. Should we presume that all such are from within?

Lot's of schizophrenics are convinced the voices are real. Lots of prophets of other religions are/were convinced their similar encounters with their "false gods" were or are real. Many are/were changed in some measure. Though I've not read much about NDE's I suspect that this experience what ever it is, has also brought people closer to Allah, Krishna, and who knows what other gods. So what is so special about Moses, Paul, Jacob, Daniel, John, or even Jesus?

Your consciousness is aware of only a small measure of your brain's processes and the brain makes up a great deal of what it knows, senses and then reports to consciousness. For example your eyes have a blind spot due to the stupid (if done by design) placement of the optic nerve connection. Your brain routinely fills the spot in with it's best guess as to what is there with out your conscious awareness of the process. The brain often makes mistakes about it's best guesses concerning what is happening, but it is quite convincing to your consciousness even if it is wrong.

This problem is the main reason the scientific method was invented. It is a method of using the brain to get around its own best guesses. Sometimes the guesses are right, but very often they are not. Science is useful for determining the difference.

By the way, perfect truth is not necessary for human existence. You don't need the precise coordinates of that deer's location in the universe in order to chuck your spear at it with a decent hope of success. All you need is a rough idea of its relative position to you. You can guess that the source of this hail storm is an angry god and still seek shelter.

Paul was a sophisticated guy for his time, but there was no way for him to know if his experience was a temporal lobe seizure, or a spot of ergot on his toast for breakfast. He guessed god, not an unusual guess in those days. These days he might have guessed, "dang I think I need an brain scan!"

You mention that you don't think that science is comprehensive enough on these matters, and I would say you are right. But hardly think that you could successfully argue that the Bible is more comprehensive, so what makes makes metaphysics more comprehensive in your mind

December 29, 2008

Lot's of schizophrenics are convinced the voices are real. Lots of prophets of other religions are/were convinced their similar encounters with their "false gods" were or are real. Many are/were changed in some measure. Though I've not read much about NDE's I suspect that this experience what ever it is, has also brought people closer to Allah, Krishna, and who knows what other gods. So what is so special about Moses, Paul, Jacob, Daniel, John, or even Jesus?

Your consciousness is aware of only a small measure of your brain's processes and the brain makes up a great deal of what it knows, senses and then reports to consciousness. For example your eyes have a blind spot due to the stupid (if done by design) placement of the optic nerve connection. Your brain routinely fills the spot in with it's best guess as to what is there with out your conscious awareness of the process. The brain often makes mistakes about it's best guesses concerning what is happening, but it is quite convincing to your consciousness even if it is wrong.

This problem is the main reason the scientific method was invented. It is a method of using the brain to get around its own best guesses. Sometimes the guesses are right, but very often they are not. Science is useful for determining the difference.

By the way, perfect truth is not necessary for human existence. You don't need the precise coordinates of that deer's location in the universe in order to chuck your spear at it with a decent hope of success. All you need is a rough idea of its relative position to you. You can guess that the source of this hail storm is an angry god and still seek shelter.

Paul was a sophisticated guy for his time, but there was no way for him to know if his experience was a temporal lobe seizure, or a spot of ergot on his toast for breakfast. He guessed god, not an unusual guess in those days. These days he might have guessed, "dang I think I need an brain scan!"

You mention that you don't think that science is comprehensive enough on these matters, and I would say you are right. But hardly think that you could successfully argue that the Bible is more comprehensive, so what makes makes metaphysics more comprehensive in your mind

Thanks for the thoughtful response, fella. Your vote then is for an 'internal origin', if I understand correctly.

To your questions then: I've not argued that the Bible is anything in particular, and metaphysics is a broad category. I doubt the bible is comprehensive on any subject. I don't think it says otherwise of itself. It looks like we both have concerns regarding the adequacy of objective science. Following your consideration of Paul, shall we dismiss him in so cavalier a fashion by suggesting he was 'guessing' at the substance of his encounter? If we do, then what criteria shall we use for our own lives? Our encounters here are even more likely to be suspect.

Back to my question from earlier ... How might someone be affected if they had in fact encountered God or perhaps one of his angels? From the narrative, Moses was physiologically changed, Paul was temporarily blinded, John was left doing his stumbling best to describe in first century words what was indescribable in any language. Jacob was persuaded that he had wrestled with an angel and been injured in the process. Daniel's account of encountering an angel suggests attention to detail regarding the angle's appearance which was totally inhuman. Each was fully persuaded to the legitimacy of his encounter; each was changed by it in some measure; enlarged, perhaps. By the encounter, all were handed a different ethic, a different world view, a different priority for their life. Each went on with new purpose and understanding. It seems that an encounter like they described would lead to the changes that followed. There are modern equivalents, perhaps, in the NDEs or in being 'born again'. Should we presume that all such are from within?

Shall we then presume they were all schizophrenics as you have offered. Or should we perhaps wait for AM to catch up.

Buddy

December 29, 2008

... A point in my life of great crisis; an event that took me to the edge of death; a cry of desperation for help out into the utter darkness; white light suddenly appearing everywhere, in an instant driving everything else out that tormented me; a complete cessation of time; infinite peace, infinite love, infinite knowledge, infinite awareness, infinite power, infinite grace and compassion, all in only a sliver of an inconceivable infinity that lay beyond that; and then a gentle voice of infinite compassion and awareness speaking only my name, conveying my life's story before my eyes in an instant of utter timelessness with the knowledge spoken without words to my mind that I was never alone, that was loved beyond all knowledge.

... The World was full of light and love and color, and permeated everything as a sort of living joy that surrounded me, moved through me, and began flowing out of the most unimaginably deepest part of my being out into the world in a sort of song, as can only be described as utter, living love.

I saw people walking by me, and rather than feeling darkness and shame in my heart and averting my eyes away as in my past, instead I felt pure love and joy. No thoughts of darkness were in me anywhere at that moment, and I felt truly alive for the first time in my life.

From this point began the life-long quest of mine that I stumbled about to build upon, again making the mistake of looking for answers from ministers. Two years later, and no further towards finding answers I happened upon a very charismatic Biblical literalist whose convictions of truth inspired me. I was caught into the snare, and found myself convinced somehow that all this was somehow God calling me to serve him in the ministry. I enrolled in Bible College and graduated top of my class with a degree in theology, all the while being ripped apart inside by the conflict of what was in my heart, and what was being portrayed about God.

<snip>

I suspect many of the readers here have found the descriptions of reality provided by religionists to be bland and inadequate, and I'll freely admit to sharing their perspective. Conversely, while the rigidity of objective science is appealing for many reasons, I've never been able to adopt it as fully comprehensive. Nor have I been able to acquiesce completely to the position that you describe where "I fully realize that ALL the constructs about the world we manufacture (our mythologies - both religious and secular), our frameworks of language, etc are entirely, wholly centered around our ideas, which are products of our biology, which are wholly skewed and limited." I will buy the 'skewed and limited' caveat.

To try to unravel and clarify what underlies all the bits and pieces of what I’ve be dumping out in all these posts the last few days over the holiday, I’ll start with your picking up on what I said to Chef in the post before yours that, “I fully realize that ALL the constructs about the world we manufacture (our mythologies - both religious and secular), our frameworks of language, etc are entirely, wholly centered around our ideas, which are products of our biology, which are wholly skewed and limited.”

I wasn’t saying that I believe experience itself is wholly manufactured by it. However it is wholly defined and given signification by us through the agency of language. I believe that experience precedes description, but that description defines its meaning, and that description itself becomes embedded within the experience itself though a type of feedback loop. The experience wasn’t God, per se, but takes on the meaning of God through the programming we all receive through our cultures. In short, this is why a Hindu will see a glowing Blue Krishna, a Catholic will see the Virgin Mary, etc. Something extraordinary is experienced, and the manifestation of how that appears is generated by our minds.

For some technical ways of talking about this I’ll make a brief reference for interest's sake:

Hermeneutical phenomenology:

Heidegger, Gadamer, and Ricoeur are the foremost representatives of the movement of hermeneutic phenomenology. Phenomenology becomes hermeneutical when its method is taken to be interpretive (rather than purely descriptive as in transcendental phenomnenology). This orientation is evident in the work of Heidegger who argues that all

description is always already interpretation. Every form of human awareness is interpretive. Especially in Heidegger's later work he increasingly introduces

poetry and art as expressive works for interpreting the nature of truth, language, thinking, dwelling, and being

.

Heidegger's student, Hans-Georg Gadamer, continued the development of a hermeneutic phenomenology, expecially in his famous work Truth and Method. In it, he carefully explores the role of language, the nature of questioning, the phenomenology of human conversation, and the significance of prejudice, historicality, and tradition in the project of human understanding.

Paul Ricoeur also studied Husserl, and he too does not subscribe to the transparency of the self-reflective cogito of Husserl. He argues that

meanings are not given directly to us

, and that we must therefore make a hermeneutic detour through the symbolic apparatus of the culture. Ricoeur's hermeneutic phenomenology examines how

human meanings are deposited and mediated through myth, religion, art, and language

. He elaborates especially on the narrative function of language, on the various uses of language such as storytelling, and how narrativity and temporality interact and ultimately return to the question of the meaning of being, the self and self-identity.

Do I believe the rigidity of science as fully comprehensive to the human experience? No. That's why I find the exploration of meaning through many means to be important. That's why I've talked about this experience. It's not about finding an objective explanation for it, rather its about the signification of it experientially, existentially. I said this in my last response to Chef. So I too find science to have its limits.

As far as the poem below which you offered and the question attached to it (which I removed the bright yellow highlights so it could be read by my eyes against the brown backdrop I have selected as my forum skin theme ):

Tell me more, friend. Without being argumentative, I'm curious how you might have arrived at the origin of such an experience being from within. The classic question,

"Could God Himself create such lovely things as I dreamed?"

"Whence then came thy dream?" answers Hope.

"Out of my dark self, into the light of my consciousness."

"But whence first into thy dark self?" rejoins Hope.

"My brain was its mother, and the fever in my blood its father."

"Say rather," suggests Hope, "thy brain was the violin whence it issued, and the fever in thy blood the bow that drew it forth.—But who made the violin? and who guided the bow across its strings? Say rather, again—who set the song birds each on its bough in the tree of life, and startled each in its order from its perch? Whence came the fantasia? and whence the life that danced thereto?

Didst THOU say, in the dark of thy own unconscious self, 'Let beauty be; let truth seem!' and straightway beauty was, and truth but seemed?

"

Man dreams and desires; God broods and wills and quickens.

When a man dreams his own dream, he is the sport of his dream; when Another gives it him, that Other is able to fulfill it."

This is of course a poetic expression and doesn't really serve as an objective argument. One can poetically externalize and personify any number of natural attributes for the sake of expression, like calling Wisdom a entity living with God like a sister, but that certainly doesn't mean that we should consider wisdom as some deity and not something that arises from within us, does it? I use that example because that has historical roots in the lead up to the emergence of the Christian mythologies incorporating this objectification of an attribute of human perceptions. Often times I will shift modes and talk this way to impart significance, not an objective evaluation, referring to Beauty, and Life, and Love with capital letters to give it a certain almost objectified deity to it. That's poetic expression.

The closest I'd be willing to consider something as external is the quality of beauty in existence and life's seeming dependence on it. We perceive beauty in various forms of nature because we are born a part of it. Perhaps its better to say there are patterns in the universe we respond to which we call beauty. So as was asked above which I highlighted in red, "Didst THOU say, in the dark of thy own unconscious self, 'Let beauty be; let truth seem!' and straightway beauty was, and truth but seemed?" I would answer in a sense, yes. It was me saying let me see beauty and let truth seem, and straightway I did. So did I create that experience? Yes. I desired to see beauty and meaning, and I did. I could have also created a vision of great darkness but did not. As I said, it was about me.

**Just an interesting related aside to challenge you with. As I certainly don’t see the cannon of scripture as anything divinely ordained, but rather pieces of early Christian thought that was ‘approved’ to support the mainline current theology, it is certainly of great value to look at the other traditions and texts that didn’t find their way into what became called orthodoxy. In very similar tradition to the Q document buried within the texts of Mathew and Luke is the sayings Gospel of Thomas discovered in 1945. This is saying number 70 from the text (which again is quite similar to Q and itself contains 30 percent identical texts). Saying 70:

Jesus said, "If you bring forth what is within you, what you have will save you. If you do not have that within you, what you do not have within you [will] kill you.”

Sound familiar? I just came across this text tonight. Ironic, isn’t it?

As far as taking the poem as a logic argument, asking such questions as "who created the watch then", those discussions have been explored in great depth many times elsewhere and need not burden this discussion with them. In short, when it comes to this, we are interpreters and supply the meaning of a thing. Hence why I say all the time, "Man creates God in his own image". (see reference to phenomenological hermeneutics above).

In all fairness then, it raises a question. How might someone be affected if they had in fact encountered God or perhaps one of his angels? From the narrative, Moses was physiologically changed, Paul was temporarily blinded, John was left doing his stumbling best to describe in first century words what was indescribable in any language. Jacob was persuaded that he had wrestled with an angel and been injured in the process. Daniel's account of encountering an angel suggests attention to detail regarding the angle's appearance which was totally inhuman. Each was fully persuaded to the legitimacy of his encounter; each was changed by it in some measure; enlarged, perhaps. By the encounter, all were handed a different ethic, a different world view, a different priority for their life. Each went on with new purpose and understanding. It seems that an encounter like they described would lead to the changes that followed. There are modern equivalents, perhaps, in the NDEs or in being 'born again'. Should we presume that all such are from within?

I too was fully persuaded it was God. And in fact my life was dramatically changed and it carries through into the fabric of who I am to this today. But as I explored understanding within the traditions that teach and instruct of God, what I was encountering disagreed with the spirit of it in its views, and ideas, and its attitudes, and behaviors. I didn’t come to the belief that God wasn’t a Being out there, some external entity as it were, until considerably longer than when I abandoned looking to Christianity out of a sheer waste of time and even hindrance.

What I found was that once I was able to see this world as not needing a magical creator, I suddenly actually did find beauty in the world again, and that what one could call God was not in any way within the providence of the religion Christianity, or any other doctrinal system. Life again held mystery and beauty and awe, and I could feel myself connected to it again in the ways that “Damascus Road” experience had offered me.

Should we presume all of these experiences described of Paul and other heroes of faith to be from within, as well as that of my own? Yes. It is the visionaries who bring insights to the world, and these visions, these messages are something that well up from within. This is not simply the mystic, but the poet, the artist, the musician. They are innovators within their societies whose internal spirit is driven towards “something”.

What is it that the artist feels as he paints? I am a musician among other things, and as I compose I “access” something deep inside of me in a type of “vision”, if you will. Not out of body type stuff at all, but rather a wellspring of passion that I, for lack of better words, “channel” through me. I allow myself as it were to participate in the vision and all myself to become a vessel, for lack of better words. Where is that coming from? An external hocus-pocus spirit entity standing behind me? Hardly. It’s me. It’s me tapping into a vein of my deep impressions of the world filtered through the framework of images created through access to my culture. Others who hear my music on an emotional level, are doing so because I am in essence channeling that language of their culture back to them in a different form, a new meaningful take on familiar and valuable theme. They “have ears to hear”, so to speak.

So it is with those who "see God", those who find God within and bring him forth in the language of their world, whether that is in the form of mythical characters, or new forms of the old familiar themes. There is little difference between the mystic and the artist, as I see it. Even the language of the Bible talks about the kingdom of God within you, doesn’t it?

To quote from the Gospel of Thomas again,

Jesus said, "If you bring forth what is within you, what you have will save you. If you do not have that within you, what you do not have within you [will] kill you.”

December 29, 2008

Thanks for the thoughtful response, fella. Your vote then is for an 'internal origin', if I understand correctly.

You are welcome I'm sure. Let's say I vote for a material origin. The body is not a completely closed organism, and it would be silly to say that what is inside the skin is sufficient for life.

To your questions then: I've not argued that the Bible is anything in particular, and metaphysics is a broad category. I doubt the bible is comprehensive on any subject. I don't think it says otherwise of itself. It looks like we both have concerns regarding the adequacy of objective science. Following your consideration of Paul, shall we dismiss him in so cavalier a fashion by suggesting he was 'guessing' at the substance of his encounter? If we do, then what criteria shall we use for our own lives? Our encounters here are even more likely to be suspect.

True, I haven't read any thing in your postings yet that defines your relationship to the bible, but the mods took the trouble to give you an apologist's label, with that info my mind made an apparently wrong guess about about how you might view it. I wasn't very scientific of me.

I don't have a concern about the adequacy of science as a method of finding out. My concern is that science has not discovered much about how things work yet. I'm also a bit concerned over pseudo science like Marx's works, or Hubbard's Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health

Edit On Paul: I don't dismiss Paul cavalierly as you say. Paul made his best guess as to what happened to him and went with it. A better guess would have been, "Hey, I'm having some sort of brain fart here, please call 911, but it was 2000 years give or take too early for that guess.

Back to my question from earlier ... How might someone be affected if they had in fact encountered God or perhaps one of his angels? From the narrative, Moses was physiologically changed, Paul was temporarily blinded, John was left doing his stumbling best to describe in first century words what was indescribable in any language. Jacob was persuaded that he had wrestled with an angel and been injured in the process. Daniel's account of encountering an angel suggests attention to detail regarding the angle's appearance which was totally inhuman. Each was fully persuaded to the legitimacy of his encounter; each was changed by it in some measure; enlarged, perhaps. By the encounter, all were handed a different ethic, a different world view, a different priority for their life. Each went on with new purpose and understanding. It seems that an encounter like they described would lead to the changes that followed. There are modern equivalents, perhaps, in the NDEs or in being 'born again'. Should we presume that all such are from within?

And here I though I answered this above. I consider the possibility that they actual interacted with a real honest to goodness god to be quite slim indeed. But if i may deduce form said encounters that a real supernatural being was there, I would say the difference between that difference between the "real god" and a brain fart of some sort is small enough so as not to be noticeable to a trained observer. I think that if a paramedic had picked Paul up on that day he would have taken Paul to the hospital rather than a church.

Shall we then presume they were all schizophrenics as you have offered. Or should we perhaps wait for AM to catch up.

Yes I shall presume the any evidence found will tilt to some sort of brain fart rather than to any intervention of any particular god.

December 29, 2008

You guys are priceless; thank you both for taking the time to explore the issues more fully. Our near-connections are both instructive and frustrating. For the record, I suspect it's an inherent part of the human condition that position and explanation exchanges are tremendously difficult across certain boundaries. Makes you wonder what we might learn from that; more me than you, perhaps, as I'm notoriously difficult to pull to one side or the other. Meanwhile, you guys have overwhelmed me with new thoughts in your last posts, and it's Monday morning. I'll be a little slow keeping up for the next couple of days. Feel free to press ahead; I'll try to catch up.

Buddy

If I ever manage to retire, it'll be on Mondays first. Mondays are the only part of working that I really dislike.

December 29, 2008

Back to my question from earlier ... How might someone be affected if they had in fact encountered God or perhaps one of his angels?

We must presuppose the existence of such and the accuracy of the narrative accounts. Why should we believe it? Because the Bible tells us so? Far from my being hobbled by asking a few questions (which you refused to address), you are, because of your unquestioning acceptance of the narratives of Moses, Jacob, etc...

Should we presume that all such are from within?

Yes, assuming these accounts were real.

Shall we then presume they were all schizophrenics as you have offered.

That is not what Chef said. He said "Lot's of schizophrenics are convinced the voices are real," which is not the same as saying that is the cause of all such experiences. Like Chef, I also am convinced these experiences all come from within, by probably a number of different causes.

December 29, 2008

Back to my question from earlier ... How might someone be affected if they had in fact encountered God or perhaps one of his angels?
We must presuppose the existence of such and the accuracy of the narrative accounts. Why should we believe it? Because the Bible tells us so? Far from my being hobbled by asking a few questions (which you refused to address), you are, because of your unquestioning acceptance of the narratives of Moses, Jacob, etc...
Should we presume that all such are from within?
Yes, assuming these accounts were real.
Shall we then presume they were all schizophrenics as you have offered.
That is not what Chef said. He said "Lot's of schizophrenics are convinced the voices are real," which is not the same as saying that is the cause of all such experiences. Like Chef, I also am convinced these experiences all come from within, by probably a number of different causes.

"We all know how prone we are to find what we are looking for in the Scriptures and in our own lives. When appraising ourselves, we sometimes unconsciously adopt the technique of the defense attorney, that of playing up everything favorable to us and conversely playing down whatever would put us in an unfavorable light." (Tozer)

Similarly, we're all aware of how prone we are to narrow the realm of the possible to that which is consistent with our philosophical preference. Can we agree to that? It might open the discussion up just a bit.

What if the realm of the possible were larger than our preferences? What if our predisposition to deny any larger reality were preventing us from seeing anything outside the realm of the familiar? What are the chances that we see other than through a glass, darkly?

I can understand your disinclination to allow any biblical account. Perhaps you can understand my disinclination to accept the narrower perspective of the absolute rationalist. We're both left with the question of cause. If mystics or schizos have such encounters, are all such encounters thereby definable as understood or irrelevant? Is there therefore no cause, no origin, no substance in the experience? That you might find within yourself an awareness of something immeasurably grand and beautiful suggests that perhaps there are such things immeasurably grand in the reality beyond your personal grasp, does it not?

AM is precisely correct in saying that description of an event is immediately interpretive. We're stuck with applying words to something that may well defy description; the results are often diminishing. His account of a personal experience is a good example; in spite of a most careful approach to the event, he describes and interprets as he goes through it. I've done the same in an earlier post, describing a particular occasion of observing an angel(?) for several minutes. I recall being absolutely without words for days afterward, then solidifying my thoughts into words (interpretation) of the event. My curiosity is focused not on the interpretation offered by AM (or Moses or myself) but rather on the origin. Something outside our experience occurred (within us?) leaving a lasting impression. It was forceful enough to change our thinking, perhaps, in some manner. Was it enough to enlarge us?

We all hope, perhaps, to avoid the narrow-mindedness of the legal-thinking fundamentalist, the sour anti-religionist, or the party-loyal politico, who miss grander truths by simplifying everything to that with which they can agree.

AM reaches the farthest, perhaps, as he describes how "... as I compose I “access” something deep inside of me in a type of “vision”, if you will. Not out of body type stuff at all, but rather a wellspring of passion that I, for lack of better words, “channel” through me. I allow myself as it were to participate in the vision and all myself to become a vessel, for lack of better words. Where is that coming from? An external hocus-pocus spirit entity standing behind me? Hardly. It’s me. It’s me tapping into a vein of my deep impressions of the world filtered through the framework of images created through access to my culture."

The rationalists among us might ponder how the biological computer and its evolved programming might create such apparently 'original' substance out of records (experience) and manipulation (thought). It's moderately contrary to evolutionary psychological models. The less rigid among us might ponder the seed a bit further. To what was the mind exposed that would produce such profound beauty? Chef put it rather nicely with, "The body is not a completely closed organism, and it would be silly to say that what is inside the skin is sufficient for life."

AM, I don't question the locus of the event. It is quite likely to be as you describe, within you. Still, I wonder at the origin of it all.

Buddy

December 29, 2008

I can understand your disinclination to allow any biblical account. Perhaps you can understand my disinclination to accept the narrower perspective of the absolute rationalist. We're both left with the question of cause. If mystics or schizos have such encounters, are all such encounters thereby definable as understood or irrelevant? Is there therefore no cause, no origin, no substance in the experience? That you might find within yourself an awareness of something immeasurably grand and beautiful suggests that perhaps there are such things immeasurably grand in the reality beyond your personal grasp, does it not?

Before I leave this thread I just want to go on record as saying I am not an "absolute rationalist". I don't actually think there is such a thing. I am sure there are many things in inner space and outer space left to be discovered.

December 29, 2008

To say to the mystic in the Sweat Lodge, that it was the heat that caused the vision is irrelevant. The vision isn't about finding proof of the supernatural. It's about finding insights into a greater perception than what the mundane offers. It's about transcendence of self. It's about an exploration of life. It's about the search for meaning, for insight, for wisdom, for the self. It's about finding truth in the sublime, in the transcendent.

I don't think it is irrelevant. If relief from angst or whatever one chooses to call it can come from altered states of consciousness, the method of alteration seems an important factor. It seems that pretending the supernatural in altered consciousness is necessary to gleaning some meaning for mundane consciousness from what we'd call religious or metaphysical practices. I know finding this meaning can happen from these practices, but it seems a pretty hit and miss process. Few who practice ever get to be a Buddha.

I don't think the finding of relief as you put it, is the point. It's not a matter of seeking the experience to give happiness, but through the experience one gains insights that form the basis for finding a more enlightened path. Escape into religion for the sake of experience itself to provide "relief" is little different than escaping facing reality through drug abuse. That's not the point of the mystical experience. It's not for finding meaning in the feeling. It's to open up ones awareness through perception beyond one self, through which they gain insights for living.

I don't think I agree with you that it is necessary for someone to pretend its source is supernatural for it to function. I believe we could say that believing it to be significant, special, sacred, ideal, etc would be a part of the experience of it and make it more meaningful as a means seek insights through it. But this doesn't have to be limited to the Sweat Lodge experience, one need only look to our philosophies of romanticism in our culture. You would almost need to claim that Romanticism is comparable to the supernatural, because it goes above and beyond just the plain interpretation of a thing. To me, God is a really more a romanticized ideal. If someone sees "God" in something, what exactly are they describing by that? A literal sky being, or an ideal; a symbol in which to embody significance?

What is this "truth in the sublime". I understand the feeling of it, but what is really? What is being felt? I say it really is a brain chemical sweet spot.

Again, I'm talking perspectives and insights, not feelings and chemistry. If chemistry puts us in a place that we can gain insights (as opposed to just feelings), and that if we walk away from it a changed person for the better, than the means to the end is unimportant, which is why I see anyone insisting that its supernatural and arguing about that, is really missing the point, which is far greater. Insight into living. A vision to live by. Inspiration, etc. Those are quite different things than seeking to feel euphoric.

What I said about the mystic, the artist, the poet, the musician whose vision and compulsion to express something of life through them is how I see this. I think it offers something to others, and its driven by some very human need. Not everyone is compelled this way, and frankly I think we as a species and as a society would be diminished if that left us somehow, through removing that humanness out of us through scientific means.

What if the effort and resources spent on the metaphysical were instead spent on the cognitive and neurological sciences?

Or schools of philosophy and the arts, since neurological sciences don't offer instruction and insights for better living or appreciation of life?

Are you suggesting we dump philosophy and the arts as well, since that was tied under the umbrella of metaphysics along with the natural sciences before they split disciplines? Do you see nothing of benefit to be gained in those disciplines?

Now that we know that the supernatural is not there, now that we know there is only physics and no metaphysics, it is hard to pretend that an altered state of consciousness is something other than messing with chemical imbalances.

And therefore it has no benefit, now that we understand how it works? We understand how the cosmos was formed. Is it therefore irrational to see it as beautiful and awe-inspiring, or that it can inform of us of some intangible within ourselves, something about ourselves in our humanness? Our perceptions of life will never be purely rationalistic, as far as I can see. We need to frame it in certain languages, and as of yet I don't see neuroscience saying anything to describe and inform emotionally the sense of awe one feels when looking at the sunset. It's all the language of art, and that comes through finding new perspectives on old themes.

Science is only one perspective, the rational analytical one.

It seems to me that the science of hitting the sweet spot would produce more buddhas then the umpteen religious, or quasi religious methods manage to bring about -- not that these don't bring about some relief on occasion.

No it wouldn't. Enlightenment is not just experience of emotion. It's insights of mind, wisdom, knowledge, and then embracing it with the emotions. A sense of euphoria is not an enlightenment.

I don't think this will happen, in part because people enjoy their misery too much. Since part of the reality I'm writing about is the very subjective nature of the species, I think the objective processes that produce the subjective nature will be largely ignored in favor of some popular meta physics.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but are you suggest we just seek better living through chemistry?

Have you ever had the observation about yourself as a sort of third-party observer, where you look at the trends of your life, moving from left to right, back to left, back to right, and through all the movements you can see the core "you" in the center of that? That's what I'm talking about. That's what that experience was for me. Not ecstasy in the sense of a height of of emotional relief, but rather an encounter with the essence of me. It was a revelation of everything within me that I long for in the midst of distress.

Yes I have, but again that is not a real thing with a separate existence. It can only be an emergent property of brain process. I remember from reading in Pinker and Damasio that there are brain damaged people that don't have a "me" and yet are still aware. Of course we want that me to function well, but it seems the best way to do that is to take care of "me's" component parts. A car's carness is an emergent property of its parts and processes. We want the carness of a car, because it can get us to grandma's house, or to work. But when the carness is broken we don't look at carness to fix it. We look at it's parts. Oh look the fuel filter is dirty! Clean it or replace it and carness is back.

Humans aren't cars. And by that I mean that making comparisons between mechanical creations that we understand, and biological organisms that we barely can comprehend are functioning on entirely different levels. I shoot down the Watchmaker's argument, that a watch has to have a designer, so therefore so must humans on that same basis. What goes into a biological organism is a natural process and operates (and is understood) on an entirely different level than a watch, or a car. Fixing a car, and fixing the person behind the wheel are not at at all on the same level.

This is the crux of the debate between the rationalist and the existentialist. Humans aren't solely rational machines that can be tinkered with like a machine, moving from fixing the axle and wheels, to the addressing the heart and soul of the mind driving the machine. We have a certain ineffable aspect within the machine that so far transcends our abilities to quantify and exploit that we are left with other, less perfect systems to talk to it: such as the arts, philosophies, and religion on some levels.

I think that what we have experienced as you describe, may be the smallest unit of consciousness. That is the smallest bit of self that we can be aware of, but it is by no means the smallest bit of what the brain is doing. I even suspect it is not even the main thing the brain is doing, as much as we'd like to think so.

I'm not in disagreement here.

December 30, 2008

I don't think the finding of relief as you put it, is the point. It's not a matter of seeking the experience to give happiness, but through the experience one gains insights that form the basis for finding a more enlightened path. Escape into religion for the sake of experience itself to provide "relief" is little different than escaping facing reality through drug abuse. That's not the point of the mystical experience. It's not for finding meaning in the feeling. It's to open up ones awareness through perception beyond one self, through which they gain insights for living.

According to the Buddha the path to enlightenment is about the cessation of suffering. What else would be the point of enlightenment? Supposedly the narrow path of Christ is about salvation. "Salvation from what", one might ask? I should think it would be from suffering. Certainly on a crude level the escape from the torment of hell, but also the end of tears and sorrow. Why does a Hindu want to get off the wheel of life if not the end of suffering? Sure I guess one might pursue enlightenment for the experience, something like base jumping maybe. I'm supposing that base jumping is about altering consciousness. What ever "truth" one may gain from doing that, it is still messing with brain chemicals to get the rush from an overdose of adrenaline and what ever else goes along with that.

Do you want a repeat of your experience of beauty? What if you could take a drug that would give you the same sort of experience that so impressed you? Would you take it? Would you jump off a mountain for it? Would you meditate for it? Would you write music for it?

What is meaning if not the feeling? I feel as if my life has meaning now, that is my life feels worth living. Why does one want meaning? I think that one wants meaning in order to keep one's brain from leaking out through a bullet hole. I did great deal of mystical pursuing, reading the mystics, prayer disciplines, devotion disciplines, meditations -- Transcendental, Christian, and Zen...

The NDEs that are talked about are the ones were the person comes back all happy, happy, joy, joy. The NDEs that produce terror or just are basically ignored. The former are admired for the renewed meaning in that persons life and also envied, because I want some too.

When the drug I have kicked in, I had meaning in the way I'm guessing you mean. I stopped the pursuit of meaning, because I had it. But, and here's my point, there was nothing mystical about it. This is not very romantic or noble I know. It is just a little brown capsule twice a day.

I don't mean to mean here, but I think that this "truth" people pursue is as much hooey as the Chrystal Spheres of old.

December 30, 2008

I don't think the finding of relief as you put it, is the point. It's not a matter of seeking the experience to give happiness, but through the experience one gains insights that form the basis for finding a more enlightened path. Escape into religion for the sake of experience itself to provide "relief" is little different than escaping facing reality through drug abuse. That's not the point of the mystical experience. It's not for finding meaning in the feeling. It's to open up ones awareness through perception beyond one self, through which they gain insights for living.

According to the Buddha the path to enlightenment is about the cessation of suffering. What else would be the point of enlightenment? Supposedly the narrow path of Christ is about salvation. "Salvation from what", one might ask? I should think it would be from suffering. Certainly on a crude level the escape from the torment of hell, but also the end of tears and sorrow. Why does a Hindu want to get off the wheel of life if not the end of suffering? Sure I guess one might pursue enlightenment for the experience, something like base jumping maybe. I'm supposing that base jumping is about altering consciousness. What ever "truth" one may gain from doing that, it is still messing with brain chemicals to get the rush from an overdose of adrenaline and what ever else goes along with that.

Do you want a repeat of your experience of beauty? What if you could take a drug that would give you the same sort of experience that so impressed you? Would you take it? Would you jump off a mountain for it? Would you meditate for it? Would you write music for it?

What is meaning if not the feeling? I feel as if my life has meaning now, that is my life feels worth living. Why does one want meaning? I think that one wants meaning in order to keep one's brain from leaking out through a bullet hole. I did great deal of mystical pursuing, reading the mystics, prayer disciplines, devotion disciplines, meditations -- Transcendental, Christian, and Zen...

The NDEs that are talked about are the ones were the person comes back all happy, happy, joy, joy. The NDEs that produce terror or just are basically ignored. The former are admired for the renewed meaning in that persons life and also envied, because I want some too.

When the drug I have kicked in, I had meaning in the way I'm guessing you mean. I stopped the pursuit of meaning, because I had it. But, and here's my point, there was nothing mystical about it. This is not very romantic or noble I know. It is just a little brown capsule twice a day.

I don't mean to mean here, but I think that this "truth" people pursue is as much hooey as the Chrystal Spheres of old.

I don't guess I have considered it much Chef, but I guess it would be in the curve that there are "non-positive" NDEs. Are they mostly similar as in the light and love thing is to positive, or are they different and random?

BTW, I am still looking for some meaning....maybe if those f'n Cowboys would have won....nah.

December 30, 2008

1. Similarly, we're all aware of how prone we are to narrow the realm of the possible to that which is consistent with our philosophical preference. Can we agree to that? It might open the discussion up just a bit.

What if the realm of the possible were larger than our preferences? What if our predisposition to deny any larger reality were preventing us from seeing anything outside the realm of the familiar? What are the chances that we see other than through a glass, darkly?

I can understand your disinclination to allow any biblical account. Perhaps you can understand my disinclination to accept the narrower perspective of the absolute rationalist. We're both left with the question of cause.

1. I can agree that we are prone to narrow the realm of the possible. But why, grasshopper? I say it is because life is limited to what you have. The pursuit of the broader possibilities is psychologically detrimental, because you can't choose them all and one is very likely to wonder if the ones chosen weren't a mistake. It is my guess that we are prone to narrow the realm of the possible as a psychological defense.

2. Therefore the possible is probably larger than our preference, but so what? How much extra is actually useful for this particular life? There must be a evolutionary reason why people like the familiar better than the unfamiliar. I think that there is a fairly thin line between enough novelty to keep things interesting and inventive, and the breakdown of disorder.

We are embodied minds subject to our genetics and our cultural upbringing. We are limited to a certain time, space, and sensibility. With enough extra resources that limitation can be expanded to a certain extent, but of course using the extra resources means that the boundaries of other human lives and non-human lives are reduced in like measure.

3. Absolute rationality can't exist, at least in humans. Not even the gods are rational.

1. If mystics or schizos have such encounters, are all such encounters thereby definable as understood or irrelevant?

2. Is there therefore no cause, no origin, no substance in the experience?

3. That you might find within yourself an awareness of something immeasurably grand and beautiful suggests that perhaps there are such things immeasurably grand in the reality beyond your personal grasp, does it not?

1. I doubt if any are irrelevant. They are at least relevant to the individual having them. And they are relevant to the many that follow a few madmen into the breach.

2. Of course there is a cause, but it is much more likely to be a bit of bad bacon than a god or other supernatural being, if that is what you are getting at. I'm not sure what you mean by substance, the golden rule perhaps? I don't think that one needs an encounter to figure stuff like that out.

3. Of what use is the immeasurably grand? I guess I could use a couple of cubic feet of grand, but after that I don't think I'd have the space to keep it. Anyway this sounds like the ontological argument, which I don't think is able to hold even a cup of grand.

---------------------------------

Why all the preoccupation with the immeasurably grand without an equal preoccupation with the immeasurably ugly? I'm sure that some people have had "encounters" with the immeasurably ugly too, like Saint John and his Revelations. This is a question for AM as well.

December 30, 2008

You've sort of made my point here; chemicals give transcendental experience. But I wasn't trying to play reductionist in the sense of saying there is no experience. Obviously there is experience. However, I spent years in existential struggle caused by what I'd done and seen in Vietnam. Many of those years I didn't even know that was the source of my cognitive dissonance. I had too short experiences of relief from the meaninglessness, romancing my wife, and being born again. The first lasted about a year the second maybe 2 months before I was back in the pit again. I drove my wife nuts in trying to make her do it again, and I dove as deep into religion as I knew how to get that 2 months back. After I recognize religion's failure, I finally settled on staying alive long enough to get my youngest kid to 18. I planned to check out the day after his birthday.

Did you notice here Chef that the two times of release without chemicals, I am assuming, is described in the bible? And the point is, the "wife/bride" thing and the "born again" thing. Seriously, is this just a coincidence?

Afterlife Thoughts!

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