Max Planck Vs. AI… Scientific Materialism is Kaput |602|

[Open Mind]

Nelson, by coincidence., I was listening to your old skeptiko interview a few days ago. Interesting.

1) Placebo effect usually somewhat effective but usually not completely.

It is remarkable how strong the placebo effect is, considering the person is not really focussing on a potential benefit, generally just taking a pill. Even against some successful drugs, the placebo effect is often about one-third as effective.

2) Sheldrake's telepathy experiments showed that telepathy in his test subjects was only a weak factor.

Philosopher Henri Bergson (a member of the Society For Psychical Research) suggested the brain was not evolving telepathy but filtering it out to create a clear sense of individuality. Imagine humans had 100% perfect telepathy, individuality would be lost. Nor should we expect telepathy to evolve strong in humans as they are such secretive, competitive creatures. We should perhaps expect telepathy to be stronger between, say a mother and child, and some studies indicate this.

Thoughts?

If idealism was 100% true, one would expect mind to dominate matter. So I think 'non-duality' philosophers are too quick dismiss unfashionable 'interactive dualism' which is our natural intuitive experience. Even the Near Death Experience suggest an expansion of consciousness where individuality survives death, rather than we lose individuality in the non-duality of cosmic consciousness. But idealism could be true at a deeper level, what some call a 'deep monism'. Just my 'thoughts'.

 

[Nelson]

Thanks OM. Yes, I think the 100% non-dualist perspective is overly simplistic. It doesn't conform with observable reality.

I've thought for a long time that a qualified non-dualism ('vishishtadvaita' as it was termed in Old India) is the answer.

Robbe's Super Mario analogy seems a promising pointer in that direction.

 

[Open Mind]

I've thought for a long time that a qualified non-dualism ('vishishtadvaita' as it was termed in Old India) is the answer.

I do not know much about Eastern philosophy but I should look it up. I would speculate idealism has to encompass an inteactive dualism of mind and matter as both feel real and distinct. It seems to me objectivity is always the product of matching subjectivies. When senses or measurements match, we feel it is objectively real. Therefore subjectivity could be more fundamental than objectivity. Now here is the problem, how can matching subjectivities build into the properties of matter? Too complex for me. Incidentally, I like Robbe's metaphor.

 

[Nelson]

I do not know much about Eastern philosophy but I should look it up.

The non-dualism with distinctions (Vishishtadvaita) of its most well-known proponent, Ramanuja, about a thousand years ago is interesting and in some ways correct I think. But I find it overly theological (e.g. looking to the Bhagavad-Gita as a source of truth even if it contradicts sense perceptions and logic). And I find it overly devotional (worshipping the entity Vishnu). And it's also extremely verbose.

But despite the cultural matrix it was written in, I find the essential point correct. Namely, that all is a unity but there are distinctions within the unity.

 

[Nelson]

In previous ages, philosophers were also much more limited in their available metaphors. E.g. the sea or other body of water was often an metaphor debated over regarding to what degree a soul is an individual or as indistinct as a ripple on the water.

But nowadays with more variety in our phenomenal world (such as computers), I think we can have a far more nuanced debate, such as bringing up Robbe's Super Mario analogy.

 

[Nelson]

Plus as outsiders to India, we can be more objective about the various theologies / philosophies / biases there.

And rather than fixating on a religious text such as the Bhagavad-Gita, we can look more to NDE research etc. as pointers to the nature of reality.

 

[Open Mind]

Nelson thanks for the inforrmation. I will probably comment more later :-)

 

[Robbedigital]

Brother, I love this analogy!
It's so profound yet relatable. It opens up a new way of exploring all sorts of phenomena. So much explanatory power. I know you've said before you're satisfied just listening to skeptiko and communicating on the forum, but I hope you and Alex would consider doing a show on this.
Thank you!

Thanks Man! I take that as a huge compliment.
I've gone back and forth with Alex on this topic (speculation on the nature of consciousness) quite a bit and I really appreciate his approach which generally always steers toward the research, the data, the experts, etc. Whereas the majority of what I bring to the table is anecdotal.
LOL (of course i thought of another analogy)..
I'm very talented of painting a picture of how it 'walks like a duck and quacks like a duck' with all sorts of analogies and hyperbolic exaggerations to drive the point that therefore 'it's obviously a duck'... But, I rarely have experts or data to cite.

That said, I'm working toward eventually getting myself on podcasts. I have a nervous disposition and I think it will probably take some practice to get comfortable enough to want a lot of eyes on me.

 

[Robbedigital]

PS: As far as I see it, your Super Mario analogy makes the following (seeming) paradox more understandable:

- If so-called 'consciousness' is fundamental (and by implication powerful), why do the following phenomena exist:

1) Placebo effect usually somewhat effective but usually not completely.

2) Sheldrake's telepathy experiments showed that telepathy in his test subjects was only a weak factor.

3) Many people fervently follow manifestation techniques such as in The Secret but don’t get what they visualise. E.g. a somewhat crass example would be millions of people consuming porn (pornography as well as 'romance novels') who visualise and feel that they have the sexual partner they fantasise about; but how many of these people end up in bed with an actor/actress or a vampire as boyfriend or girlfriend?...

4) Some yogis/shamans could/can manipulate the elements with their psyches, yet their lands were taken over by people with rather materialistic worldviews and technology.

5) Many UFOs are reportedly powered and navigated by the psyches of adept beings, yet there are remarkably many reports of UFOs CRASHING.

Thoughts?

I think my answer to all of the above would be that I assume the law of our universe acts like a shared agreement / fair play. That any one individual's exercise of this higher consciousness cannot trespass that of another. This is why I don't believe that "God" intervenes in our experience. Rather I think we just mistake what are simply divine experiences, to be intervention.

 

[Nelson]

I rarely have experts or data to cite.

That said, I'm working toward eventually getting myself on podcasts. I have a nervous disposition and I think it will probably take some practice to get comfortable enough to want a lot of eyes on me.

What I did before my skeptiko dialogue was write on a piece of paper about 10 phenomena incl. examples / evidence / quotes I wanted to address. That way we covered a lot and I had the freedom to speculate and go off on tangents, because I had my piece of paper in front of me to bring it back to groundedness again :-)

 

[Nelson]

I think my answer to all of the above would be that I assume the law of our universe acts like a shared agreement / fair play. That any one individual's exercise of this higher consciousness cannot trespass that of another.

I talked to someone who's had multiple NDEs about this and she said the same thing you did.

I can imagine that's correct. But this "physical" dimension does in general seem to have a lot of objectivity to it, in contrast to say lucid dreaming where it's so subjunctive. E.g. one imagines the planet Saturn being huge in the sky and it instantly happens. Whereas in the physical dimensional that doesn't happen.

According to people who can astral project (such as on the 'Astral Doorway' yt channel), when one astral projects there's a solidness / objectivity to it too, like in the physical bit more energetic/alive feeling.

NDEs also seem to be somewhat objective, somewhat subjective.

I think the level of subjectivity/objectivity of a dimension determines how effective manifestation is.

 

[Nelson]

PS: I don't know enough about how electronics & computer programming works to say more about your Super Mario analogy, but I'd love to hear an expert in the electronics & programming fields talking about it more, how it fits with what we see in the evidence of the extended consciousness realms, any shortcomings etc.

Any thoughts, Alex or anyone else with a background in computers?

 

[Robbedigital]

PS: I don't know enough about how electronics & computer programming works to say more about your Super Mario analogy, but I'd love to hear an expert in the electronics & programming fields talking about it more, how it fits with what we see in the evidence of the extended consciousness realms, any shortcomings etc.

Any thoughts, Alex or anyone else with a background in computers?

I just formulated a thought experiment for you.
Say tonight you and I are asleep and dreaming at the same time. By some miracle or coincidence we find eachother in a dreamscape. Baffled by the experience we decide we must take something back…. But in order to do so we must first prove to eachother that we were in a dream and that we are in the same dream.
What evidence of the waking world will we have inside the dream?

 

[Nelson]

I just formulated a thought experiment for you.
Say tonight you and I are asleep and dreaming at the same time. By some miracle or coincidence we find eachother in a dreamscape. Baffled by the experience we decide we must take something back…. But in order to do so we must first prove to eachother that we were in a dream and that we are in the same dream.
What evidence of the waking world will we have inside the dream?

Interesting :)
What's recommended by the Astral Doorways yt channel to check if one's in the physical plane or not is to pinch one's nose tight and try to breathe in. I did that in a lucid dream, because I wasn't quite sure. I was amazed that I could breathe in, despite my nostrils being pinched together! (Reportedly the same test works during astral projection too)

As far as proving that we met in a dream, I could give you a specific object and we could agree in the dream that when we're in the physical world you ask me what I gave you. You write your answer and I write mine. Something like that.

 

[Robbedigital]

Interesting :)
What's recommended by the Astral Doorways yt channel to check if one's in the physical plane or not is to pinch one's nose tight and try to breathe in. I did that in a lucid dream, because I wasn't quite sure. I was amazed that I could breathe in, despite my nostrils being pinched together! (Reportedly the same test works during astral projection too)

As far as proving that we met in a dream, I could give you a specific object and we could agree in the dream that when we're in the physical world you ask me what I gave you. You write your answer and I write mine. Something like that.

To Clarify - My premise is that we need to prove to each other that we're in a dream while in the dream. The challenge is to identify, inside the dream, a substance or factor or constraint or quality that proves that realm to not be the primary realm.
I currently suspect it would be language based.
You remember how a few years there was some sort of weird (probably psyop study) everyone passed around a recording of a woman saying a word, but people heard 2 different words? Some people heard "Laurel" and some people heard "Yanny"??
I think that was military testing how different people literally hear things differently.
I think language can be used to encode intentions.

 

[Nelson]

To Clarify - My premise is that we need to prove to each other that we're in a dream while in the dream. The challenge is to identify, inside the dream, a substance or factor or constraint or quality that proves that realm to not be the primary realm.
I currently suspect it would be language based.
You remember how a few years there was some sort of weird (probably psyop study) everyone passed around a recording of a woman saying a word, but people heard 2 different words? Some people heard "Laurel" and some people heard "Yanny"??
I think that was military testing how different people literally hear things differently.
I think language can be used to encode intentions.

As far as I've noticed, language usually isn't so important in non-physical dimensions.

To prove we're in the astral plane while in the astral plane is easy: both of us could just do the nose pinching & breathing technique, or both of us could try to fly up in the air and hover around. Those are possible in the astral but highly unlikely in the physical...

 

[Robbedigital]

As far as I've noticed, language usually isn't so important in non-physical dimensions.

To prove we're in the astral plane while in the astral plane is easy: both of us could just do the nose pinching & breathing technique, or both of us could try to fly up in the air and hover around. Those are possible in the astral but highly unlikely in the physical...

(Sorry to be a pain, but it's worth the thought exploration)
Ok. That's step 1 (Prove We're in a dream).

Step 2 - While in the dream, prove we're in the same dream (Meaning prove that it's not only one of us dreaming it).

Step 3 - While in the dream, prove that the waking world exists.

I'm not insisting that you answer this. Just showing that the idea has some depth to it.

Basically this thought experiment serves to give a human example of Super Mario's perspective (as i imagine it). Thought you might get a kick out of it.

 

[Nelson]

(Sorry to be a pain, but it's worth the thought exploration)
Ok. That's step 1 (Prove We're in a dream).

Step 2 - While in the dream, prove we're in the same dream (Meaning prove that it's not only one of us dreaming it).

Step 3 - While in the dream, prove that the waking world exists.

I'm not insisting that you answer this. Just showing that the idea has some depth to it.

Basically this thought experiment serves to give a human example of Super Mario's perspective. Thought you might get a kick out of it.

I like the thought experiment. I don't see any way steps 2 & 3 could be fulfilled without having some marker organised in the astral that one then checks up on to confirm once back in the physical.

In other words, interdimensional "travel" is necessary in order to really confirm that there are different dimensions.

 

[Nelson]

Do you agree?

 

[Robbedigital]

I like the thought experiment. I don't see any way steps 2 & 3 could be fulfilled without having some marker organised in the astral that one then checks up on to confirm once back in the physical.

In other words, interdimensional "travel" is necessary in order to really confirm that there are different dimensions.

I agree. And you said it much better than I would have. And that got my wheels turning even more.
*You got an A+ on the thought experiment above. Below are just some more thoughts.

So back to Language. I'm currently working through an idea that Language can carry Intent that has nothing to do with it. Like symbolism. Or Markers! like you said..!(Awesome).
Many people believe that "God" "Speaks" to humans through synchronicity. Like little hints or markers that validate one's trajectory.
I think the same must apply for the Evil forces...
Hear me out..
When somebody says "God told me this" or "God told me that". In my opinion their position is too dumbfounded(or too excited) to identify/specify the difference between words - vs - what is actually their mind translating synchronicity into words.

To keep with the Mario analogy, imagine that Mario notices every time he approaches a difficult part of a level that he's been failing at, there often occurs a weird blip of his sense of time - nothing physical - and his watch reads the same, but he feels something weird, and notices that these events usually come before a smoother more-gathered and often successful attempt. And on the outside (in the real world) what's occurring and what Mario is sensing is the Player (you) is pausing the game to take a deep breath and think about how you're going to win that part of the level.

So another method of interdimensional "travel" could just be identifying synchronicities and interacting with them.

I have a really yucky dirty theory that this is what they "Elite" "Oligarchs" are doing and that it has something to do with maintaining a sufficient balance of evil in our realm, while facilitating experiments on behalf of someone on the outside of our realm(real science). Sorry, it's a messy theory part of which is borrowed from others and I hope to clean it up.