Alex
Administrator
ok, but this extends way beyond "these phenomena." shut up and calculate :)
Rey Hernandez, Scientific Study of ET Contact and the Paranormal |412|
- Thread starter Alex
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"Shut up and calculate" implies stick to what we know because as incredible as the implications of the wider context are, we don't have the tools or the belief system to take them on. Only this narrow little subset. (We've got great hammers, so let's stick to the nails).
I agree that Rey's focus area is where we should be going. The crossover among NDE, DMT, and contactee/abduction "trip reports" is obvious once you've read enough of them. It's just unclear to me what the benefits of aggregation and collation are when the stories/narratives themselves seem to be where the value is. We do we get from 5000 scientifically parsed surveys that we don't get from reading 5000 first person narratives?
malf
Member
I was thinking this. The “science” here (like much of the NDE “science”) is just collating and curating stories.
If we are to accept every “experience” as presented (and make no space for the fantasist, the fabulist, the egotist, the vainglorious, the coincidence, the misremembered, the misconstrued and the mentally ill) it is unsurprising that Alex is struggling to find a way that it all fits together.
But carry on. Leave no experience behind! Everyone loves a good story (hence most Skeptiko episodes are starting with a movie clip these days).
That’s sort of my point, tho. You need to read the stories to sort the wheat from the chaff via intuition or by noticing the glaring red flags. If they’re saying they’ve found an AI bullshit filter I’m all for that but that doesn’t seem to be the claim.
Doing sciency things is good branding these days but what’s illuminated by their methods here.
Alex
Administrator
I don't know, seems like scientific blocking and tackling (i.e. basics). like his example about cross correlating across languages / cultures... great stuff... increases confidence... as long as we're playing the shut up and calculate game :)
B
Baccarat
More data? For subjective experiences? Lol
Michael Patterson
Member
I thought Rey was heading in the direction of all experiences being types of each other - the way we get that Chinese cuisine is not fundamentally different from Mexican or Italian or Indian. When we get that we can stop imagining that fusion is not possible. I think then that stories are the beginning of a more cohesive grasp of what is going on. It is useful to draw from them common themes that point to a shared underpinning reality - and that may help us see that there is persistent interplay between the physical and metaphysical.
As an experiencer I am not remotely dependent upon 'science' to define or validate my experience. But I do see that 'science' expressing an interest in this domain will change the baseline of what reality can be. That must weaken the grip of materialism, and stimulate the imagination of an alternative. So what are then rational boundaries of that emergent alternative? That's what we are in the process of discovering.
Michael Patterson
Member
Totally agree. Alex must be a data junkie. There is a fundamental existential, problem when one person has a non-conforming experience, but that problem diminishes as more people share it. But once you get to 3 experiences what you have is a real thing. Extraordinary experiences do not need extraordinary evidence - unless what is extraordinary is that the evidence is scarce and hard to come by.
Reality is inclusive. It will embrace those who are too dense to get that its not concrete with same love it embraces those who have wild and individual encounters.
I don't know what more data will do - if it is about convincing an inquirer that things are not as they think they are. For me the problem is not data based now, but attitudinal. Another 50 studies will generate the same problem of accepting the implications that existed after one, or ten.
Michael Patterson
Member
You mean laying it all, out in a paint by numbers way so a bunch of slow thinking recalcitrants can be carried over the line on stretcher of the by now bleeding obvious? More does not equal better.
I think there are two streams of thought apply here:
1. The personal realisation of what the data is pointing to.
2. Clobbering the opposition with so much evidence that even the dullest finally are obliged to 'get it'.
I think the momentum for 1 is so strong that we don't need 2. But there is a risk that personal realisation leads to a kind of evangelical zeal that drives the enthusiast into the 'evidence' to convince others - like a Christian convert ploughing through the Bible - as if that actually had anything to do with their 'awakening'.
The data that 'flips' (in Kripal's terms) is indicative, not overwhelming. Rey was turned by experience. There is an absolute abundance of people who have had experiences that are, of themselves, compelling to any open minded inquirer. We need more studies? For what?
Alex
Administrator
yeah, but one could take the opposite position. if a hundred other people share their experience and it matched perfectly with yours it might help define and validate your experience. on the other hand, if if 100 people reported seeing a wizard behind the curtain it might cause you to re-examine your experience.
and we can take the "you" part out of it. I mean, this applies across-the-board with paranormal / traumatic / ordinary experiences.
Alex
Administrator
I don't understand the push back. a good social scientist knows how to collect quantitative and qualitative data in a way that allows us to identify patterns. we want this?
I'm pretty sure Rey's survey allows people too record their experiences along with answering survey questions. I know this is true with jeff long's nde research. it's also true with jeffrey martin's research that we talked about a few episodes ago. again, a good social scientist gets both.
Richard Cox
Member
Thank you for the interview Alex, having recently read through some of David Jacobs work I'd just started on Rey's Beyond UFOs. I am still caught up in the stark contrast between Jacobs and the likes of Mary Rodwell's investigative approach, and how this seems to yield totally different results. I read through the old forum comments from their Skeptiko interviews- that was six years ago and I wondered what people's thoughts are on this today?
I also recently read Susan Clancey's book Abducted, where she attempts to explain the phenomenon through false memory and sleep paralysis. I was disappointed, I'd hoped to find her case more compelling than I did.
I also recently read Susan Clancey's book Abducted, where she attempts to explain the phenomenon through false memory and sleep paralysis. I was disappointed, I'd hoped to find her case more compelling than I did.
Michael Patterson
Member
Doesn't work that way. I have to come to terms with my experience on its terms. Sure it helps to know others have some similar experience especially when what you experience causes harm. They say misery loves company. War veterans and others who have had traumatic experiences can share what they went through with others who 'get' their story. Sympathetic non-experiencers are not a substitute.
Yeah, I get that if something like a NDE or an OBE freaks the experiencer out, going hunting for something similar is a potential sanity saver.
So let's distinguish between that which traumatises and that which does not. That means we need to distinguish between intellectual curiosity about the nature of reality as informed by the radically non-ordinary experience and the response to ontological shock - a trauma to a worldview that us assuaged only by gathering 'evidence' as if it is a balm to an existential wound.
Michael Patterson
Member
Hi Richard. First up, thank you for spurring me to discover I bought Rey's book back in October last year- and then let it be buried in my Kindle to read pile. Its now on top..
Way back, when I read Mack's Abduction shortly after publication, I was struck by an account of a woman 'abductee' who described how desire to 'conference' with ET was taken literally and she was ushered into an all too familiar terrestrial conference room, supposedly on board a UFO. The other thing that got me was the ET didn't seem to have any culture and operated in scenarios that could have been constructed by the same BBC techs that gave us Dr Who.
Those ideas festered until I revisited Strieber via Kripal - and a whole bunch of notions collapsed into the notion that what we call ET is way more metaphysical than anything else. But, at the same time I have also been led to believe that there are 'nuts and bolts' ETs operating entirely within our dimension. Its not entirely unreasonable that the latter could also be employed as a metaphor for the former.
My source said that the nuts and bolts ET were 'traders', and that I should heed the advice - 'leave them alone and they will leave you alone'. As I had nothing to trade I took such a suggestion to heart - mostly by inactivity. They have, apparently, neither conquest nor diplomacy in mind. But what's coming after them?
In any sense the metaphysical ETs still merit the name, and Rey is more on the money when he refers to their sky presence in terms of phenomena rather than objects. They are more metaphor than self-asserted forms.
We tend to think that our engagement with reality is all 'out there' - so that's where we get our images from. But, because, we are also about the 'inner' dimensions of reality I think that we are finding sci fi is replacing 'religion' as a source of imagining. Our existential extension is driven more by sci fi than faith - more Marvel than Bible, more X-men than Moses.
In the context of the greater existential/metaphysical drama that is upon is, I think Rey is right in that his line of thought is more on the money than the proponents of the nuts and bolts vision of ET. There is no reason why we might not be expanding in both dimensions at the same time, but we gotta get the metaphysical right if we are going to handle the physical future well.
There is something similar in relation to carry on about alleged 'hybridisation' - which should not make any sense if ET is metaphysical - unless what is being created a kind of thought form template first - the 'genetic' modelling of a better adapted physical form. We are not suited, in our present form, for the kind of future we are creating for ourselves. Once we rested from physical labour to do 'recreational' activity that uplifted mind and spirit. Now the reverse is true. Now we have to pause to run or go to the gym. There's a nice little book called Manthropology that's worth a read.
Now I know I bought Rey's book I am going to have to read it and get back to you. Maybe Alex will have him back sometime soon?
Alex
Administrator
hi Richard... yes I've had similar thoughts especially while watching this video:
the Dolans do a nice job of summarizing the situation but seem content to leave the mystery unresolved. I don't understand. I also don't understand why they seem to favor jacobs's take despite its clear limitations... e.g. verified healing, FREE survey, ancient alien evidence.
On the other hand, it seems to me they are onto something regarding swallowing whole the "ET light and love" thing.
The motivations for promoting or accepting an overly positive or negative view of the phenomena are at the very least questionable if not baffling. From the conspiracy angle - either to serve a variety of means. Pushing the negative scares people and might make them more likely to trust the government to take care of a frightening problem while pushing the positive has a “nothing to see here but sci fi hippies” effect. However, I feel its more likely whichever “side” of the phenomena more prominently presented by someone is more a reflection of that personality than it is of ulterior motives.
I imagine some of us have seen this and maybe its been shared or discussed here before. I think Jorjani’s take is a slice of the pie worth considering.
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When I'm happy and my vibration is higher, I don't find myself feeling small-minded towards anyone and wish only the best for all creatures everywhere. That's a state, of course, and transitory. But I'm inclined to believe that beings who have reached a higher average vibration and consciousness will have more access to that state, and so I am less willing to attribute small motives to seemingly evolved beings. It only feels suspect and hippy-dippy in our common state of consciousness.
That said, I can also see there being intellectually advanced entities who greatly lag on the spiritual side. My wild ass guess is that there are more intellectually + spiritually evolved entities out there than imbalanced forms. The entities interacting with Dorothy Izatt told her there was only 1 "species" of alien actively working against humanity's evolution.
David Bailey
Member
To me, the real problem with the idea that UFO's are malevolent, is that clearly, they could destroy us more or less at will if that was their aim!
David
One thought prevails in my mind as Mr. Hernandez describes his extensive research into such a variety of phenomenon: Is it all part of the same thing coming from the same source? As the fruit of the experiences for the experiencers are similar, this being a changed life afterwards from one of self centered materialism to a more inclusive unconditional unity with all life; is this by design? Is some Higher Power desiring a change in selected persons so they might serve a greater good? Is the ultimate goal of this Higher Entity the graduation of that individual from this hard world? After possibly many lifetimes, has the time at last come for him or her to move on to that better place?