Afterlife Thoughts!

[chefranden]

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?

 

Well, sure I noticed it. I'm guessing that I'm suppose to wonder if this wasn't the outpouring of the spirit of god? Well as a matter of fact I did attribute the second episode to god/jesus, and I was completely puzzled for years as to why they took it away. In the first case I thought the source was my wife, and I was puzzled as to why she quit being so loving and soothing.

 

But this was before I knew anything about how the brain works and how it gets screwed up. In both cases it was chemicals made by the brain itself. The way the drug I take works in to block the adsorption of serotonin molecules once they are used. Serotonin is made by the brain and if it doesn't make enough the result is despair. This means I'm running on used serotonin. Of course it is all way more complicated than this, my explanation is crude to say the least.

[chefranden]

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.

 

I'm not much of an expert on NDE's, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express.

 

What is a Distressing Near-Death Experience?

 

Near-death experiences (NDEs) are often profound psychospiritual events. Most near-death experiencers (NDErs) report that their experience was dominated by pleasurable feelings such as peace, joy, and bliss. However, less commonly, some NDErs have reported that their experience was dominated by distressing, emotionally painful feelings such as fear, terror, horror, anger, loneliness, isolation, and/or guilt.

 

Greyson and Bush (1996) classified 50 reports of distressing NDEs into three types:

 

* The most common type included the same features as the pleasurable type such as an out-of-body experience and rapid movement through a tunnel or void toward a light but the NDEr, usually because of feeling out of control of what was happening, experienced the features as frightening.

* The second, less common type included an acute awareness of nonexistence or of being completely alone forever in an absolute void. Sometimes the person received a totally convincing message that the real world including themselves never really existed.

* The third and rarest type included hellish imagery such as an ugly or foreboding landscape; demonic beings; loud, annoying noises; frightening animals; and other beings in extreme distress. Only rarely have such NDErs themselves felt personally tormented.

 

Rommer (2000) speculated a fourth type, the rarest of all, in which the NDEr feels negatively judged by a Higher Power during their NDE life review in which, typically, the experiencer re-views and re-experiences every moment of their life. This latter type of distressing NDE contrasts sharply with the life review that sometimes occurs in a pleasurable NDE. In the predominantly pleasurable experience, the NDEr feels absolutely loved even as they re-view and re-experience the most unloving actions they committed during their lives. During this process, the NDEr typically is simultaneously themself and each person with whom they interacted. Thus, in the pleasurable NDE, the NDEr experiences what it was to have been on the receiving end of their actions and, typically, experiences profound regret and/or guilt, but within a larger context of being unconditionally loved. In the distressing NDE, by contrast, the NDEr only feels negatively judged.

How Common Are Distressing NDEs?

 

The estimated incidence of distressing NDEs (dNDEs) has ranged from 1% to 15% of all NDEs (Bonenfant, 2001). The results of prospective studies in which the researchers interviewed everyone who experienced cardiac arrest in one or more hospitals during a period of at least several months are noteworthy. In the four prospective studies conducted between 1984 and 2001 1, 2, 3, 4 involving a total of 130 NDErs, none reported distressing experiences. This finding seems to confirm that the experience is relatively rare.

 

However, dNDEs may occur more frequently than they are reported. One possible reason for underreporting might be repression, in which traumatic experiences are relegated to the unconscious mind. However, a cardiologist who has been present at numerous resuscitations and has been open to hearing about dNDEs, disagreed that repression could be occurring: "These experiences are so profound...that repression is hardly an option" (Rommer, 2000, p. 25).

 

Other possible reasons that the dNDE may be underreported are that dNDErs avoid talking about the experience, perhaps because they:

 

* Hope the distressing experience will just go away,

* Want to avoid re-experiencing the distress that occurs when they talk about the experience,

* Feel ashamed for having had a distressing experience when so many other people have reported pleasurable experiences, and/or

* Are afraid that others will judge them as bad or crazy.

 

Although distressing NDEs appear to occur much less often than pleasurable NDEs, exactly how frequently the distressing types occur is not yet known. Hopefully, future research will produce a clearer answer to this question.

[Guest end3]

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?

 

Well, sure I noticed it. I'm guessing that I'm suppose to wonder if this wasn't the outpouring of the spirit of god? Well as a matter of fact I did attribute the second episode to god/jesus, and I was completely puzzled for years as to why they took it away. In the first case I thought the source was my wife, and I was puzzled as to why she quit being so loving and soothing.

 

But this was before I knew anything about how the brain works and how it gets screwed up. In both cases it was chemicals made by the brain itself. The way the drug I take works in to block the adsorption of serotonin molecules once they are used. Serotonin is made by the brain and if it doesn't make enough the result is despair. This means I'm running on used serotonin. Of course it is all way more complicated than this, my explanation is crude to say the least.

 

 

I don't know that you are getting my point.....which is my fault, but why is it that the two experiences that you mentioned as being relieving are the same as professed in the book? How do you explain that these are chemical things when they didn't understand chemical things back then. Are you saying marriage and born again are experiences that produce these chemicals throughout time?

[chefranden]

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?

 

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.

 

I'm not limiting it to a sweat lodge. People seek to alter consciousness. Why? To be euphoric? Well sure, but also to be sane, to make sure life is worth the candle. What else is the vision about? I'm not trying to dismiss the feelings here. They are where we live and I doubt we could live elsewhere without some heavy evolutionary changes.

 

But what is the source of the visions, feelings or what have you? The electrochemical structure and processes of your body/mind. Yes the emergent properties of consciousness, beauty, vision, and... are all very nice. Such things give life meaning i.e. make it worth living. I am all for looking for it if one has lost it or never had it. But where to look, that's the question.

 

As I look upon the looking, what I see mostly reminds me of that old joke about the drunk looking under the street lamp for his lost keys because the light is better. If one is looking for these things, why not look where they are, especially if you really have to have them. Your perspectives and insights have the same material source. If your material source is out of whack your perspective and insights are out of whack.

 

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.

 

I say the means is not unimportant. Why? Because some means don't produce the end. This is really the argument against religion at least for us. It doesn't work.

 

You can make music to match your mood. I can't. If I want music to match my mood I have to get it elsewhere. Now days I can buy it, just like I can buy meaning in the form of a drug. I can appreciate disdain for the easy way to find meaning, because I disdained it. However, It turns out that I couldn't produce meaning the hard way just like in spite of doing training in music I can't write it.

 

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.

 

I don't see that scientific means remove humanness. To fret over scientific means, or to dismiss it because it is cold and unfeeling, is to confuse proximate and ultimate causation. People don't live with a direct awareness of body/mind process and don't care about it if it is working; they care about happiness, love, power, respect, beauty, and other passions. But, nothing about the physical brain apparatus prevents that sort of expression of humanness. It is that apparatus that does the expressing. That is the natural as opposed to the supernatural. I may be wrong, but it seems you want there to be something beyond this without calling it supernatural.

 

More to follow.

[chefranden]

I don't know that you are getting my point.....which is my fault, but why is it that the two experiences that you mentioned as being relieving are the same as professed in the book? 1. How do you explain that these are chemical things when they didn't understand chemical things back then. 2. Are you saying marriage and born again are experiences that produce these chemicals throughout time?

 

1. Chemical things do not have to be understood to work. I'm sure that the ancient Romans could not tell anyone about the chemistry of concrete, but nevertheless they used it. People like explanations though and if they don't have a real one they will make up something.

 

2. Yes I'm saying this. People are meat, and there is plenty of evidence that they have always been meat. War is pretty good at making this fact up close and personal. It is quite disturbing, but there it is.

[Guest end3]

I don't know that you are getting my point.....which is my fault, but why is it that the two experiences that you mentioned as being relieving are the same as professed in the book? 1. How do you explain that these are chemical things when they didn't understand chemical things back then. 2. Are you saying marriage and born again are experiences that produce these chemicals throughout time?

 

1. Chemical things do not have to be understood to work. I'm sure that the ancient Romans could not tell anyone about the chemistry of concrete, but nevertheless they used it. People like explanations though and if they don't have a real one they will make up something.

 

2. Yes I'm saying this. People are meat, and there is plenty of evidence that they have always been meat. War is pretty good at making this fact up close and personal. It is quite disturbing, but there it is.

 

I guess I can rationalize needing to be "reborn" after a war.....I have not been there, so it is hard for me to comment, but it doesn't look to be good in most any direction. With that said Chef, I can see your point....kind of interesting really...I certainly imagine there being more conflict thousands of years ago and the need for understanding something different of ones self.

 

One thought...some of the things in the bible are interesting....the stick to purify the water. To me, understanding now that celluostic (sp) materials are used in reverse osmosis membranes if I am thinking correctly......it's these kind of relationships that keep me there.....the triple point of water thing...that too.

 

I do though feel as I have moved away from the weekend pew thing.....kind of graduated. I know that sounds arrogant as there is always something to learn, but it doesn't seem as though they get past the same stuff.....guess I will hold my finger up in the air and see which way the wind blows these days. Your alright Chef. Glad you made it through the hard times you had.

[chefranden]

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?

 

I might be for dumping any philosophy inquiry that doesn't take reality into account as far as what is real is known. I don't know haven't considered it much. Lets just say I'm for Philosophy in the Flesh, rather than philosophy in the ether.

 

I don't see any point in dumping the arts, perhaps because I like them.

 

1. 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?

 

2. 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.

 

1. I'm not sure what the antecedent of this it is. Therefore I decline to answer.

 

2. I don't think I can be said to argue that humans can our should be purely rational.

 

Philosophy in the Flesh tries to take into account the cognitive sciences. I don't see any point running off on philosophical roads that don't take the physical reality of the human organism into account -- philosophical roads like the blank slate (the Scottish enlightenment, Marx), the ghost in the machine (Descartes), the purely subjective(Burns or Keats), or the purely objective (Ayn Rand)...

 

To be sure the discoveries of the cognitive sciences will have to be translated into perspectives and insights in order to be useful. But I don't really see how understanding the mechanics of insight and perspective would ruin them in some fashion -- as you appear to fear.

 

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 think you are talking about education -- not the experience of enlightenment. Satori is every day life only 2 inches off the ground. I thought we were discussing the religious like moments like Satori, or an NDE, or getting blinded on the way to Damascus.

 

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

 

Only if chemistry produces better living. I'd be willing to beat my head on a tree if it would actually produce better living. Is there something superior about the insights from peyote over the insights from venlafaxine hcl? I've tried both and I'm leaning towards venlafaxine hcl.

 

 

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.

 

I think that the difference is one of difficulty.

 

Is an ant hill natural? Is a wasp's nest natural? Is a beaver damn natural? I think so. Anything that exists even things that are made is a natural thing/process. Nothing about a car makes it supernatural. Nothing about a car makes it subnatural. I see that humanness it an emergent property of the bio-mechanics of a human, just like carness of a car is an emergent property of the mechanics of a car. I expect that if the bio-mechanics of a human were understood, a human could be fixed. I'm not too sure that we are actually smart enough to figure out the bio-mecnanics, but if we could... At least we are smart enough to see that is the direction in which to look for insight that can be trusted.

[Antlerman]

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?

I’ve been hoping to get back to this, but having available time again….

 

To address your question, was it enough to enlarge us? Without equivocation I would answer most assuredly yes. It was so powerful that the doctrines and theologies of a world religion couldn’t stand in its way. It opened me to something far greater than any doctrine of religious orthodoxies or the pursuits of science alone can express adequately in its essence known to the heart. The closest to it for me is found in the expressions of humanity through art and acts and philosophies of love in its many forms.

 

I want to be as open as I can with you Buddy. I may be misunderstanding the motive behind your trying to get behind these things in asking about the “origin”. Is what you are trying to get to is to look at that maybe, possibly it’s external to us, and if so that this might lend support to this traditional, or at least a part of, historical Christian teaching about God? I wonder this on the basis that when I was concerned with defending Christian doctrines I would try to make it fit as best I could in order to support my own choices in following that system of teachings. That may not be the case with you in this. So I guess I’m wondering if you yourself are concluded one way, and are trying to show us your belief is possible, or if you yourself are curious to explore possibilities too, as I was and am?

 

At this point in my life it’s almost become an answer of really who cares? If it’s an external God that perhaps bears some resemblance to the various bits and pieces of collected thoughts strewn about in the formation of what was codified by vote into what has become mythologized as “Holy Scripture”, or it’s all a creation of humans in response to their awareness and relationship with themselves and the universe, the question really is “What’s served?” Is what is important a doctrine, or love? Honestly, if there is a god, what do you think it/he/she/they/we/me really cares about? Getting a big ego pat on the back for being the Big Number One, or that life and love is served?

 

If you were to argue that believing in the teachings aids in living a life devoted to love, then I’d say fine. I have no issue with embracing love and principles of behavior that nurtures that. In fact I support that wholeheartedly, regardless of the inclusion or exclusion of a god in the means of embracing that! Truthfully, can you also? I honestly do hope so. If so, then I will call you brother without reservation. I’m not about my way of approaching being of greater importance than the thing itself.

 

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.

Really, I’ve said my take on it. I see it that way for a number of reasons, but as I said above the cause it really besides the point as I see it. One can stand and contend that God doesn’t exist, that the idea is silly, and one can contend that God does exist and the fools says he doesn’t, but where are the arguments coming from and what are they about? Are they about one side defending its doctrines, its tenants of faith against the others, each claim the ill-effect of believing the way the other side does and arguing for their own approach as the point of the belief itself?

 

What is the argument about; Methods or the lack of respect going both directions, each side presuming, and neither side listening beyond the rhetoric to the humanity, to the heart the lives in others. We’re so damned caught up in our doctrines that we miss the point of it all. We argue about how each person is wrong, yet never reaching out to understand. IMHO.

 

(I’m in a bit of state tonight, so cut me some leeway if I come off a bit critical). I'll get to Chef's response when I have the time. At this point, I seem to be hearing that we would be better off all taking pills. I see that as genuinely helpful for some, but certainly not all. As I said, I'd hate to see what that drive in us that defines us as humans sedated and controlled when there's not an issue of instabilities threatening survival. I addressed all that in a previous post.

 

Edit: I just saw now that my points about art and philosophy were addressed before I mentioned the above. I'll read them and try to assess them shortly. I'm hoping that I'm not sounding dismissive of the benefits of taking medication. I'm not at all. I am just reluctant to agree that adjusting chemical levels is a better path for everyone. Not sure that's what's being said...

[chefranden]

I do though feel as I have moved away from the weekend pew thing.....kind of graduated. I know that sounds arrogant as there is always something to learn, but it doesn't seem as though they get past the same stuff.....guess I will hold my finger up in the air and see which way the wind blows these days. Your alright Chef. Glad you made it through the hard times you had.

 

Thanks, and I don't think that it sounds arrogant.

[Antlerman]

ahh.. we're over posting! I added an edit to the end of my last post. I have to play catch up before we start talking over each other...

[Antlerman]

Greyson and Bush (1996) classified 50 reports of distressing NDEs into three types:

 

* The most common type included the same features as the pleasurable type such as an out-of-body experience and rapid movement through a tunnel or void toward a light but the NDEr, usually because of feeling out of control of what was happening, experienced the features as frightening.

* The second, less common type included an acute awareness of nonexistence or of being completely alone forever in an absolute void. Sometimes the person received a totally convincing message that the real world including themselves never really existed.

* The third and rarest type included hellish imagery such as an ugly or foreboding landscape; demonic beings; loud, annoying noises; frightening animals; and other beings in extreme distress. Only rarely have such NDErs themselves felt personally tormented.

 

Rommer (2000) speculated a fourth type, the rarest of all, in which the NDEr feels negatively judged by a Higher Power during their NDE life review in which, typically, the experiencer re-views and re-experiences every moment of their life. This latter type of distressing NDE contrasts sharply with the life review that sometimes occurs in a pleasurable NDE. In the predominantly pleasurable experience, the NDEr feels absolutely loved even as they re-view and re-experience the most unloving actions they committed during their lives. During this process, the NDEr typically is simultaneously themself and each person with whom they interacted. Thus, in the pleasurable NDE, the NDEr experiences what it was to have been on the receiving end of their actions and, typically, experiences profound regret and/or guilt, but within a larger context of being unconditionally loved. In the distressing NDE, by contrast, the NDEr only feels negatively judged.

How Common Are Distressing NDEs?

 

The estimated incidence of distressing NDEs (dNDEs) has ranged from 1% to 15% of all NDEs (Bonenfant, 2001). The results of prospective studies in which the researchers interviewed everyone who experienced cardiac arrest in one or more hospitals during a period of at least several months are noteworthy. In the four prospective studies conducted between 1984 and 2001 1, 2, 3, 4 involving a total of 130 NDErs, none reported distressing experiences. This finding seems to confirm that the experience is relatively rare.

 

However, dNDEs may occur more frequently than they are reported. One possible reason for underreporting might be repression, in which traumatic experiences are relegated to the unconscious mind. However, a cardiologist who has been present at numerous resuscitations and has been open to hearing about dNDEs, disagreed that repression could be occurring: "These experiences are so profound...that repression is hardly an option" (Rommer, 2000, p. 25).

 

Other possible reasons that the dNDE may be underreported are that dNDErs avoid talking about the experience, perhaps because they:

 

* Hope the distressing experience will just go away,

* Want to avoid re-experiencing the distress that occurs when they talk about the experience,

* Feel ashamed for having had a distressing experience when so many other people have reported pleasurable experiences, and/or

* Are afraid that others will judge them as bad or crazy.

 

Although distressing NDEs appear to occur much less often than pleasurable NDEs, exactly how frequently the distressing types occur is not yet known. Hopefully, future research will produce a clearer answer to this question. [/i][/indent]

I'm trying to play catch a piece at a time, so be patient. There's a number of points I want to address along the way.

 

This is a great info above. I just wanted to highlight the part in red as quite descriptive of my own experience, along with the white light and all. You also asked me earlier,

 

"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."

 

I had the thought to answer what I just read above, so that can stand as an answer. It is significant, but unlikely someone care's to extol that since it isn't conducive to living with a well state of being. We extol and idealize things which bring about positive responses inside of us. If we were preoccupied with the ugly, well that just doesn't make sense. We consider it ugly on the basis that it repulses us, and if it repulses us, it does so for some reason of benefit. We don't eating rotting meat because it smells bad to us, and to do so would harm us. Same sort of thing in how we developing a taste for things which benefit us. Love, peace, harmony, wisdom are all things we have called with these words and imbued them with positive significance for the sake of promoting us seeking them for our benefit. In a nutshell.

 

So then... looking at the extraordinary sense of well being described above (and in my own experience), this goes way beyond a general sense of well being, and as such it serves as a symbol, and ideal, a "vision", which all plays into what I've been trying to get at, and what I just mentioned above about imbuing words, or ideas, with significance for the sake of giving a symbol of inspiration to stretch towards. That's part of the process of growth is to reach. I'll pick this up later in the rest of my responses.

[Guest end3]

So then... looking at the extraordinary sense of well being described above (and in my own experience), this goes way beyond a general sense of well being, and as such it serves as a symbol, and ideal, a "vision", which all plays into what I've been trying to get at, and what I just mentioned above about imbuing words, or ideas, with significance for the sake of giving a symbol of inspiration to stretch towards. That's part of the process of growth is to reach. I'll pick this up later in the rest of my responses.

 

Pardon me for infusing myself into this conversation, but your paragraph here suggests that the experience is one greater, God to some, than a normal feeling of wellbeing.

 

Why do we perceive ourselves as separate from our body, even you Chef, said that you were going to "check out".....maybe a term used loosely, but still suggests that you were moving "out" of your body. And I don't know that I, after achieving post-childhood, have perceived myself as an entity of my body. Why?

[Antlerman]

So then... looking at the extraordinary sense of well being described above (and in my own experience), this goes way beyond a general sense of well being, and as such it serves as a symbol, and ideal, a "vision", which all plays into what I've been trying to get at, and what I just mentioned above about imbuing words, or ideas, with significance for the sake of giving a symbol of inspiration to stretch towards. That's part of the process of growth is to reach. I'll pick this up later in the rest of my responses.

 

Pardon me for infusing myself into this conversation, but your paragraph here suggests that the experience is one greater, God to some, than a normal feeling of wellbeing.

Yes, of course. If we believe in something greater than ourselves, then we strive to live towards that. I want to explore this thought more later, but briefly beauty doesn't exist outside of us, love doesn't exist outside us. It is however what we experience as we respond to various queues in the world. Those queues are perceived as beauty, are perceived as love existing outside us, but the experience is ours from within us. It is a response from within to the perception of beauty.

 

I am saying it is greater than a normal feeling of well-being, unless normal well-being consists of the perception of absolute beauty in everyone and everything as a living, vital, limitless potential of active and endless love flowing out of you like a wellspring of life, where not the least thought of fear, dread, despair, worry, or anxiety has any inkling of power and if considered seems more some distant removed memory of a life past with no reality in this world. If that's normal well-being, then why does the world look as it does?

 

To me this serves as an ideal that I know the potential of what can be, and one worthy of aspiring to let live through me. Not for the sake of euphoria, again, but rather as ideals to live by and aspire towards. For me what happened was an opening up to beauty that was buried inside of me. That's the potential of life for us, that's the potential of what is in us, from my perspective.

 

Why do we perceive ourselves as separate from our body, even you Chef, said that you were going to "check out".....maybe a term used loosely, but still suggests that you were moving "out" of your body. And I don't know that I, after achieving post-childhood, have perceived myself as an entity of my body. Why?

http://psychology.about.com/od/sindex/g/def_superego.htm

 

I suppose one reason too is that our thoughts move independently from our body actions. It's not like we only just think to reach and our arms responds. We also dream. We imagine. We go places while our bodies rest. Just some thoughts about it.

 

 

P.S. You're not infusing injecting yourself into the conversation. You've been a part of it.

[par4dcourse]

AMan borders on brilliant in some of his responses, and I enjoy the thought they usually provoke.

I'm the Occam's razor man, and I'm going to infuse inject a quick thought at the risk of repeating myself et. al.: all we perceive, from dreams and memories to sights and sounds to fantasys and emotions to buddy's angel and end's god, all boil down to electro-chemical reactions in the brain. Science now knows enough about the human brain to understand we haven't begun to understand it yet.

It's all in your mind.

[Guest end3]

P.S. You're not infusing injecting yourself into the conversation. You've been a part of it.

 

Chalk me up for an IOU....please remember I was educated as a "yout" in west Texas....back when the new math started

[Guest end3]

AMan borders on brilliant in some of his responses, and I enjoy the thought they usually provoke.

I'm the Occam's razor man, and I'm going to infuse inject a quick thought: all we perceive, from dreams and memories to sights and sounds to fantasys and emotions to buddy's angel and end's god, all boil down to electro-chemical reactions in the brain. Science now knows enough about the human brain to understand we haven't begun to understand it yet.

It's all in your mind.

 

Par!.....as much as I would now like to agree, I respectfully don't. Y'all need to go re-read or do a word search for stick, tree, and staff. It may be in us and is us, but it ain't from us. Happy New Year friend.

[BuddyFerris]

... I want to be as open as I can with you Buddy. I may be misunderstanding the motive behind your trying to get behind these things in asking about the “origin”. Is what you are trying to get to is to look at that maybe, possibly it’s external to us, and if so that this might lend support to this traditional, or at least a part of, historical Christian teaching about God? I wonder this on the basis that when I was concerned with defending Christian doctrines I would try to make it fit as best I could in order to support my own choices in following that system of teachings. That may not be the case with you in this. So I guess I’m wondering if you yourself are concluded one way, and are trying to show us your belief is possible, or if you yourself are curious to explore possibilities too, as I was and am?

 

Of course, friend; my thoughts regarding God, life after death, all are probably known by now. I'm fully persuaded, etc. Would I like to show you that such belief is supportable? Sure, if it comes up that way; not on my agenda, though. Beyond the adversarial context, I'm curious if there might not be a way we can approach the same issues without becoming antagonists in conflict. For instance, are there things we don't know? Sure. Are there grand truths beyond our current perspectives and perceptions? Sure. Are there real things about which people will have differing opinions? Sure. Is man a machine, for instance. Is thought just the predictable product of the computer and its input? Are motives chosen? Are there truly such a things as character or nobility or unselfish love? Religious perspective aside, are there?

 

I'm provoked by the rationalist's view; it seems to me to be all inside; no design, no nobility, no unselfish love, no grand endeavor. All those things might be explained away by determinism, evolution, and chemistry. If one truly believed such things though, why go further? Why try to be noble or good or loving if such things are neither real nor truly chosen?

 

Or (back to Paladin's premise) might there be a portion of existence that is grander than the 'only a machine'. Thanks for the frank conversation and openness. AM.

 

Oops, running off at the mouth when I'm supposed to be working. Forgive me for being an incomplete post & run.

Buddy

[par4dcourse]

AMan borders on brilliant in some of his responses, and I enjoy the thought they usually provoke.

I'm the Occam's razor man, and I'm going to infuse inject a quick thought: all we perceive, from dreams and memories to sights and sounds to fantasys and emotions to buddy's angel and end's god, all boil down to electro-chemical reactions in the brain. Science now knows enough about the human brain to understand we haven't begun to understand it yet.

It's all in your mind.

 

Par!.....as much as I would now like to agree, I respectfully don't. Y'all need to go re-read or do a word search for stick, tree, and staff. It may be in us and is us, but it ain't from us. Happy New Year friend.

 

There is no absolute. I don't know for sure that what you see as red (650-720 nm wavelength light) is the same as what I see. We can describe it to death, pick the same crayon, but there's no positive way of knowing the neuron's firing in my brain's visual receptors are the same as yours. All the items you described are neurons firing, else you couldn't "see" them.

I stand by my statement.

Happy New Years to you and yours, and I look forward to our future disagreements.

[par4dcourse]

I'm provoked by the rationalist's view; it seems to me to be all inside; no design, no nobility, no unselfish love, no grand endeavor. All those things might be explained away by determinism, evolution, and chemistry. If one truly believed such things though, why go further? Why try to be noble or good or loving if such things are neither real nor truly chosen?

Doing good because I feel like it beats the hell out of doing it because the sky daddy[s gonna send me to hell if I don't.

[Ouroboros]

I'm provoked by the rationalist's view; it seems to me to be all inside; no design, no nobility, no unselfish love, no grand endeavor. All those things might be explained away by determinism, evolution, and chemistry. If one truly believed such things though, why go further? Why try to be noble or good or loving if such things are neither real nor truly chosen?

Well, as a rationalist, I admit that Evolution did have a role in this. Unselfishness and altruism has been proven to exist as a functions in our brain (in general), and is correctly to believe and understand as a result of evolved benefit. Dogs show a level of fairness, and so does other animals, like apes. And the reason is very simple: the group will have a better chance of survival against certain threats if it can unite as a group instead of everyone being completely selfish. It's true, it removes some of the magic and dreamy idea of unselfishness as something supernatural and spiritual. The truth might remove some of the glitter and childish awe we feel for some things in life, but yet, it doesn't remove the existence of those emotions. Those emotions exists, but they're just not supernatural in nature.

 

It seems like the line between rationalists and idealists is that the rationalist want to see things as they are, see the dragon for what it is, face to face, while the dreamy idealist wants to explain away everything with some fantasy instead of facing reality head on. It's just a matter of preference, I guess, and in some cases maybe living in fantasy land helps some people to cope better with life, while for others like me, it's better to take a bite of the sour life and deal with it. In other words, we might talk about the exact same things in life, but the realist wants to explain it as how it works, while the idealist wants to explain it in prose.

[nightflight]

... I want to be as open as I can with you Buddy. I may be misunderstanding the motive behind your trying to get behind these things in asking about the “origin”. Is what you are trying to get to is to look at that maybe, possibly it’s external to us, and if so that this might lend support to this traditional, or at least a part of, historical Christian teaching about God? I wonder this on the basis that when I was concerned with defending Christian doctrines I would try to make it fit as best I could in order to support my own choices in following that system of teachings. That may not be the case with you in this. So I guess I’m wondering if you yourself are concluded one way, and are trying to show us your belief is possible, or if you yourself are curious to explore possibilities too, as I was and am?

 

Of course, friend; my thoughts regarding God, life after death, all are probably known by now. I'm fully persuaded, etc. Would I like to show you that such belief is supportable? Sure, if it comes up that way; not on my agenda, though. Beyond the adversarial context, I'm curious if there might not be a way we can approach the same issues without becoming antagonists in conflict. For instance, are there things we don't know? Sure. Are there grand truths beyond our current perspectives and perceptions? Sure. Are there real things about which people will have differing opinions? Sure. Is man a machine, for instance. Is thought just the predictable product of the computer and its input? Are motives chosen? Are there truly such a things as character or nobility or unselfish love? Religious perspective aside, are there?

 

I'm provoked by the rationalist's view; it seems to me to be all inside; no design, no nobility, no unselfish love, no grand endeavor. All those things might be explained away by determinism, evolution, and chemistry. If one truly believed such things though, why go further? Why try to be noble or good or loving if such things are neither real nor truly chosen?

 

Or (back to Paladin's premise) might there be a portion of existence that is grander than the 'only a machine'. Thanks for the frank conversation and openness. AM.

 

Oops, running off at the mouth when I'm supposed to be working. Forgive me for being an incomplete post & run.

Buddy

 

I agree with much of what you say here, however I cannot fathom how any person could say Christianity is better than nihilism. How could a Christian be okay with their loved ones, not to mention vast swaths of humanity, writhing in eternal torment? I think a Christian, if he or she is a decent person would wish that Xianity wasn't true. I will take bleak, meaningless existence over billions screaming forever.

[Antlerman]

I'm not limiting it to a sweat lodge. People seek to alter consciousness. Why? To be euphoric? Well sure, but also to be sane, to make sure life is worth the candle. What else is the vision about? I'm not trying to dismiss the feelings here. They are where we live and I doubt we could live elsewhere without some heavy evolutionary changes.

 

But what is the source of the visions, feelings or what have you? The electrochemical structure and processes of your body/mind. Yes the emergent properties of consciousness, beauty, vision, and... are all very nice. Such things give life meaning i.e. make it worth living. I am all for looking for it if one has lost it or never had it. But where to look, that's the question.

 

As I look upon the looking, what I see mostly reminds me of that old joke about the drunk looking under the street lamp for his lost keys because the light is better. If one is looking for these things, why not look where they are, especially if you really have to have them. Your perspectives and insights have the same material source. If your material source is out of whack your perspective and insights are out of whack.

Yes, I completely agree that the feelings are invoked through chemical responses. But the chemical responses resulting in emotions are directly tied to the cognitive process, like the caboose trailing behind the train engine. This process then becomes a feedback loop upon itself; the thought feeding the emotions, feeding back upon the thought, feeding back the response of emotions, feeding back upon the thought, etc. That is the nature of inspiration and its function; to motivate. And what is motivation but a mental response driven towards an emotional fulfillment.

 

The rub, as you ask it then is where do we look for it? Can it be reduced down to something like the drunk looking only under the street lamp for lost keys? Again, I do agree with you that if your chemistry is out of whack, these processes may go askew, resulting in obsessive compulsive behaviors, clinical depressions, etc. At which point stability brought about through medication can be beneficial. I don’t however believe that for the relatively stable (those within a certain functional range), that the answer for their desire for insights beyond the ordinary, for some higher ideals, should be answered through pharmaceuticals. That’s what I mean by taking the humanness out of humans through science.

 

Not everyone dances the same dance to life. Nor should they.

 

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.

 

I say the means is not unimportant. Why? Because some means don't produce the end. This is really the argument against religion at least for us. It doesn't work.

 

You can make music to match your mood. I can't. If I want music to match my mood I have to get it elsewhere. Now days I can buy it, just like I can buy meaning in the form of a drug. I can appreciate disdain for the easy way to find meaning, because I disdained it. However, It turns out that I couldn't produce meaning the hard way just like in spite of doing training in music I can't write it.

Yes indeed, some means don’t produce the end. I agree wholeheartedly with this. I would say this argument also applies to the hard core rationalist also, not just those in religion. I think fulfillment can be found on either the religious or the secular sides, but not through thinking all answers lie on one side or the other. I see it lying in between, throughout, and over the top of both.

 

As far as music for me, it’s really not just matching a mood as it is finding a voice through it for something within. Or it can be a vehicle to some other place within myself (or outside if someone wants to frame it that way). Sometimes also it is to create an atmosphere to reflect and support my mood. No doubt. It’s versatile that way. When I write generally, it’s a vision of something I wish to put into some expression I can touch, so to speak.

 

I don't see that scientific means remove humanness. To fret over scientific means, or to dismiss it because it is cold and unfeeling, is to confuse proximate and ultimate causation. People don't live with a direct awareness of body/mind process and don't care about it if it is working; they care about happiness, love, power, respect, beauty, and other passions. But, nothing about the physical brain apparatus prevents that sort of expression of humanness. It is that apparatus that does the expressing. That is the natural as opposed to the supernatural. I may be wrong, but it seems you want there to be something beyond this without calling it supernatural.

A few things. I don’t mistake science for being cold and unfeeling. Those things simply aren’t a part of it, nor should they be. A doctor writing a prescription is (or at least should be) doing it as a result of their knowledge through science, and their humanity through… (fill in the blank). Science doesn’t inform us about the value and meaning of life. This is why I see those who hold it up as a sort of salvation for humanity, to be actually religious in their thinking and not scientific, and mistaken IMO.

 

You are somewhat mistaken that I want there to be something beyond the natural without calling it supernatural. I’m saying that there is something more to the experience of living than what can be expressed in the context of the rational, the logical, the scientific framework of perception. I don’t see it as supernatural, as it is part of the natural world – the world of human thought and response. To me its all about finding a way to embrace that aspect of our humanness, without either leaving reality altogether, or reducing down to something as clinical as say – calling it a chemical response. As accurate as that may be on one level, it should not deny there's many facets to the gem to find a different perspective on the thing. And that last statement really contains pretty much everything I'm saying.

 

 

More to follow.

Ditto...

[Antlerman]

I might be for dumping any philosophy inquiry that doesn't take reality into account as far as what is real is known. I don't know haven't considered it much. Lets just say I'm for Philosophy in the Flesh, rather than philosophy in the ether.

Well, that raises a bit of a question. Any philosophy that doesn’t take reality into account… Isn’t philosophy really about defining reality? Isn’t really about different ways of looking at the experience of living? Can’t science when used to support of philosophy of materialism, be considered co-opted for a philosophy itself? There are many scientists who are not reductionists, materialist, and rationalists.

 

I’m not talking about giving credence to any pseudo-scientists, but merely saying that materialism is not what science teaches. It’s a philosophy derived from its take on what science shows, just as equally is any other philosophy that looks at what science shows and suggests something other than a reductionist philosophy. It’s a thin line that gets crossed over, but one that is more than beneficial to define.

 

I don't see any point in dumping the arts, perhaps because I like them.

May I ask, how do you see they come about, what drives it?

 

 

2. 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.

 

 

2. I don't think I can be said to argue that humans can our should be purely rational.

 

Philosophy in the Flesh tries to take into account the cognitive sciences. I don't see any point running off on philosophical roads that don't take the physical reality of the human organism into account -- philosophical roads like the blank slate (the Scottish enlightenment, Marx), the ghost in the machine (Descartes), the purely subjective(Burns or Keats), or the purely objective (Ayn Rand)...

 

To be sure the discoveries of the cognitive sciences will have to be translated into perspectives and insights in order to be useful. But I don't really see how understanding the mechanics of insight and perspective would ruin them in some fashion -- as you appear to fear.

Not at all. I don’t fear the light of discovery. On the contrary. It’s through insights into the natural would that we can base an understanding into how we as humans function within the system. I’m all about replacing unfounded speculation with knowledge, but not as a point to smash the symbols we built for reasons of our humanness, but that we can find some way to express that part of ourselves symbolically consistent with modern knowledge.

 

At one point in our past, the knowledge of science could easily be layered within a system of mythological symbols, but not so easily today. Instead, we’ve slashed a line through us with science on the one hand, and religious symbolism on the other. It’s my belief that we shouldn’t fear or run from either perspective. After all, it’s humans that desired and created both, isn’t it? Why?

 

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 think you are talking about education -- not the experience of enlightenment. Satori is every day life only 2 inches off the ground. I thought we were discussing the religious like moments like Satori, or an NDE, or getting blinded on the way to Damascus.

Actually, in looking that up it’s not Satori I’m talking about, but Kensho in what the NDE offered. IMO, it’s the road to enlightenment that’s the point. Just as perfection is a goal and not a reality.

 

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

 

Only if chemistry produces better living. I'd be willing to beat my head on a tree if it would actually produce better living. Is there something superior about the insights from peyote over the insights from venlafaxine hcl? I've tried both and I'm leaning towards venlafaxine hcl.

Some also value the angst and the child born through it, despite the anguish at times.

 

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.

 

I think that the difference is one of difficulty.

 

Is an ant hill natural? Is a wasp's nest natural? Is a beaver damn natural? I think so. Anything that exists even things that are made is a natural thing/process. Nothing about a car makes it supernatural. Nothing about a car makes it subnatural. I see that humanness it an emergent property of the bio-mechanics of a human, just like carness of a car is an emergent property of the mechanics of a car. I expect that if the bio-mechanics of a human were understood, a human could be fixed. I'm not too sure that we are actually smart enough to figure out the bio-mecnanics, but if we could... At least we are smart enough to see that is the direction in which to look for insight that can be trusted.

Is human imagination reflective of reality? Does our imagination offer a means to motivation through emotional (chemically created) responses? Yes. The power of myth. So, I don’t agree we can reduce all of humanity to the machine. We are creators of gods, which like it our not, resulted in the creation of the world we live in through the societies we've built. Humans aren’t cars. We’re gods.

[BuddyFerris]

...

Well, as a rationalist, I admit that Evolution did have a role in this. Unselfishness and altruism has been proven to exist as a functions in our brain (in general), and is correctly to believe and understand as a result of evolved benefit. Dogs show a level of fairness, and so does other animals, like apes. And the reason is very simple: the group will have a better chance of survival against certain threats if it can unite as a group instead of everyone being completely selfish. It's true, it removes some of the magic and dreamy idea of unselfishness as something supernatural and spiritual. The truth might remove some of the glitter and childish awe we feel for some things in life, but yet, it doesn't remove the existence of those emotions. Those emotions exists, but they're just not supernatural in nature.

 

It seems like the line between rationalists and idealists is that the rationalist want to see things as they are, see the dragon for what it is, face to face, while the dreamy idealist wants to explain away everything with some fantasy instead of facing reality head on. It's just a matter of preference, I guess, and in some cases maybe living in fantasy land helps some people to cope better with life, while for others like me, it's better to take a bite of the sour life and deal with it. In other words, we might talk about the exact same things in life, but the realist wants to explain it as how it works, while the idealist wants to explain it in prose.

Hello, Hans. Nice to hear from you.

You and I agree on many things including a preference for gut-level confrontation of life as it is. We'd both rather wrestle with truth, however difficult and personally uncomfortable it might be. I'm disinclined to fantasy except as a literary convention and like you, have gone to some lengths over the years to separate my personal convictions from wish-based dogma. The result of that sincere labor has left me with a Christian's worldview and convictions. Interesting that you would juxtapose your rationalism with (my?) idealism; I don't think I've been categorized that way before.

 

I'll not disagree that evolution plays a part in out history, and your comments have merit, yet can we really be reduced to the brain/survival description produced. Unselfishness and altruism being computer generated 'group survival' results is maybe valid but too small a definition. For example:

 

A few days ago, Anwar and Samira and their 9 children came home after visiting with grandparents. The trouble had begun in Gaza, so they went to their home next to a Mosque, thinking perhaps it would be safe there. Rockets flattened their home, five daughters were killed in the collapse. The parents were inconsolable. The parents poured out their hearts, full of grief beyond understanding. Their loss is almost too difficult to consider. You and I as fathers can perhaps grasp a little of what the parents are experiencing. Shall we comfort ourselves and them with words of chemistry. "You'll get over it; your survival program will take care of your pain." or, "That's the way it works; the strong survive." Such concepts deny the truth we know; our children are so much more than group survival elements. Anwar and Samira had invested their lives in raising their children; the girls who died were between 4 and 17 and could hardly be reduced to mere expressions of survival traits. They were each unique persons, each so much more. The joy I have in my daughter's magnificent character is so far removed from such simple descriptions as to be visibly 'other'. Such emotions exist in us, yes. But are they just a computer program? No nobility, no grand endeavor? Just favorable survival traits? Or is, perhaps, the model incomplete, describing function without recognizing content?

Buddy

[BuddyFerris]

... I agree with much of what you say here, however I cannot fathom how any person could say Christianity is better than nihilism. How could a Christian be okay with their loved ones, not to mention vast swaths of humanity, writhing in eternal torment? I think a Christian, if he or she is a decent person would wish that Xianity wasn't true. I will take bleak, meaningless existence over billions screaming forever.

If I shared your perspective and definitions, I would probably agree. There are significant elements of Christianity, usually as presented by fundamentalists and evangelicals, with which I have real problems. Their simple formulas for heaven and legalistic approach to life seem woefully inadequate, even detrimental. The God they offer seems way too small to be real.

 

On the other hand, life needn't be meaningless, regardless of your position on God's existence. Bleak? OK, Mondays are pretty bleak sometimes. Happy new year, by the way.