Chimp

The near death experiences can be artificially induced with "g-forces" for example, pilots in a centrifuge.

These out of body experiences should be able to be tested and verified with experiments. I recall that some hospitals place hidden messages on the top of shelves, where only a "floating entity" could observe it

The question "what is consciousness?" really, has not been answered.

Chimp

Chiron

1) TalkOrigins (about halfway down the page) says this about the "something from nothing" phrase you keep returning to, A-M: "However, our best estimate today is that the total energy of the universe is zero (within a small zero point energy that results from quantum fluctuations), with the positive energy of matter balanced by the negative potential energy of gravity. Since the total energy is zero, no energy was needed to produce the universe and the first law was not violated."

2) Chiron: "Does this mean the people who use this technique have multitudes of people inside their skulls?"
yguy: "It means they are burning the object of their anger in effigy."
But it does not mean they have split personalities. This may be beating a dead horse, but hey.

3) If most people were self-motivated (that is, they acted, not reacted) most of the time, then my reasoned opinion is that there'd be chaos. If everyone acts spontaneously, you can't predict.

4) A-M: "Does anyone else have any ideas on how we might access parallel, perpindicular, or outer universes/multiverse?"
You might try reading Heinlein's The Number of the Beast; it's pretty interesting, and has some ideas similar to yours (and it sets the stage for other Heinlein books).

-Chiron

Wounded King

Now where did I put my gyroscope?

Anti-Materialist

Ah ha! Yes, thank you - this is my point about taking mathematical concepts too literally.


Assume that zero is nothing.

A=0


A=(-1) + (+1)


Negative one represents a certain amount of energy, and positive one represents a certain amount of opposite energy. From a mathematical perspective, this works just fine. But remember, math is abstract. We are using it to figure out real-world concepts.


Think about it this way - Gravity is thought of as warpage in spacetime. Energy, such as electromagnetic radiation, is often thought of as a ripple of a particular pattern in spacetime. Energy can be converted into matter. Thus, matter can be thought of as a patterned ripple in spacetime as well, just moving a lot slower.

So, the whole universe, both positive and negative energy, would be patterns in spacetime. That is fine, and it works out quite well mathematically. What that does not answer is this - Where did space time come from? We know it started at the moment of the big bang - but why did it do so?


One of my favorite classes in college was the seminar in analysis. We started with certain assumptions, and proved all of the basic mathematic rules. It was fun, like puzzle solving. One thing it taught me is that math, at its very basic level, still starts with assumptions. For example, you assume that if A=B and B=C, then A=C.


The basic assumptions of mathematics, from which all of the laws of mathematics are derived, are based upon intuitive concepts, such as the one above.


The idea that the fabric of spacetime itself, in which all positive and negative energy is defined, arose from nothing is not an intuitive concept. That begs the question - Then what intuitive concept would explain the formation of the universe? The creator argument, that is, the uncaused cause argument depends upon a looped chain of cause and effect. A causes B. Why?, because B caused A. To me, a looped chain of cause and effect is only slightly more intuitive than something coming from nothing. Neither is an assumption I am prepared to buy, at this time.


My belief in a creator stems more from what I consider mankinds' direct evidence. I believe that some of the evidence reported from near death experiences cannot be explained with materialistic arguments.

I have read all of the materialistic explainations, but they just fall short. People describe events that they see from above themselves in the operating room, with details they cannot possibly have known about in advance, during a time in which their brain were supposed to be shutting down.


I am familiar with the arguments about oxygen starved neuronal activity. I have read all the pros and cons on this stuff. The materialist explanations just don't make sense, upon deep analysis. Even some skeptics (such as Dr. Susan Blackmore) say they cannot explain why some people have intensely heightened clarity of thought during these near death experiences. I can offer you a non-material hypothesis to explain it, but you wouldn't buy it. It would violate your starting point assumptions about reality.


Plus, have you examined the evidence in support of reincarnation? I don't mean reading a little bit of it, then reading skeptic books where they try to explain it away. If you really read the evidence in support of reincarnation in detail, you might find yourself saying "hmmmm..."

Wounded King

Not everyone believes that maths is abstract.

Do you consider the evidence of NDE's which leads you to believe they are not attributable to material origins to be more than anecdotal. If so what is it. Skeptics are good at not being able to explain things, its part of what being a skeptic is all about. Susan Blackmore admitting she can't explain heightened awareness associated with NDE's is not the same as her saying she is convinced there is a supernatural explanation.

Anti-Materialist

But how would you possibly get non-anecdotal evidence of NDEs? These anecdotes have been studied extensively, and they are pretty convincing.

Why do you feel that anecdotal evidence should be dismissed? It seems to me that anecdotal evidence should be doubted - because they are many ways to confound the data from anecdotal evidence. However, if you investigate the anecdote backwards and forwards, and they seem plausible, then they are worth considering.

We cannot just dismiss data because it does not fit our worldview. One of the primary complaints from physicists about certain paranormal phenomena is that they violate they know laws of physics.

Oh well. That's life. We have to accept reality as we see it, not as we want to see it. The anecdotal evidence supporting NDEs and Reincarnation is very powerful. It will always be anecdotes.

Actually, with NDEs you can induce many of the same physiological conditions using injections of the drug Ketamine. This has proven a valid way to study the NDE experience. Ketamine is an NMDA receptor antagonist. NMDA receptors can be thought of as the master regulator receptor within the brains neural net. Massive blocking of NMDA receptors shuts down much of the brains functioning - as happens when people come close to death.

In these situations, with deliberately induced NDEs, people experience many of the same phenomena - tunnel of light, life review, even talking to God or family. In fact it has been categorized quite well with these studies.

However, these studies do not provide independently verifiable data. The bit about people floating over the bodies and watching while they are being resuscitated - that is pretty hard to induce. We know of at least one example where it was induced - where a woman was awake on the operating room table. When they stimulated a certain part of her brain, she found herself floating above the table.

However, this does not prove that it was a real experience. It could be that they were activating a component of the interface between the physical brain and the etheric brain, which triggered this experience. Or it could be that they were inducing a hallucination.

In order to test the validity of the experience, they would have had to have the woman provide details from her vantage point from above that she could not get from the table - and they did not do that.

Materialists, of course, jumped all over this story as evidence of the physical nature of NDEs. But their arguments were terribly weak. The fact that you can physically stimulate a spiritual event does not prove that the even is itself strictly physical. If there is a soul, then there obviously has to be some sort of interface between the body and the soul.

My question would be different - I would ask, why in the world would we just happen to possess the ability to leave our bodies? This sounds like an awfully strange ability for the brain to develop on its own.

I am sorry that you are not satisfied with anecdotal evidence. To be honest, neither am I. However, anecdotal evidence is weak evidence, not non-existent evidence. It must be considered.

Wyz_sub10

Well, that's good to know.

I'm sorry, yguy, but this is just a bizarre assertion. Why on earth would you be so convinced that one cannot motivate themselves?

Perhaps your definition of "motivate" is different than mine, but I'm as disciplined as a five-year old in a chocolate factory, and I still find that I can motivate myself to perform.

I'm interested to know why you think this is such an impossibility.

yguy

It's like lifting yourself by the ears. While you may be self-motivated in the sense that you don't need others to motivate you, I don't think you're aware of the source of the motivation. On a physical level, we are not self-sufficient, being ultimately dependent mainly on solar energy for our sustenance. I submit that is also true on a metaphysical level.

Anti-Materialist

Ahhh...

I see what you are saying now.


Ultimately, everything within ourselves comes from outside of ourselves.

Free will is a myth.


I agree.


I did not understand your perspective before. Correct me if I am wrong here, but you are saying that our reasons for doing things, ultimately, lies outside of ourselves. Basically, if you trace the chain of cause and effect backwards for a long enough period of time, you can trace the origin of every decision we make to something outside of ourselves.


That makes perfect sense. In fact, here is an excerpt from my book:


=======================
Tenth Principle

Adopt a Proper Understanding of Pride, Free Will and Motivation

The concept of free will is very confusing. It is certainly the case that we possess will. That is, the ability to make decisions. But to what extent is that will free? For every effect there is a cause or causes. If you make a decision, there are a number of factors why you made that decision. For each one of those factors, there are also a number of factors that led up to them. In tracing any chain of cause and effect backwards, each link in that chain brings you further back in time. If you trace it back far enough, you will find that your decisions are the result of actions that go back all the way to when the multiverse was first created. This makes the free part of free will somewhat meaningless. What are your decisions supposed to be free from? Your decisions are the direct result of the incredibly long reaching branched chain of cause and effect that led up to those decisions.

This eliminates the need to dwell on pride. I define pride as the feeling of being superior to others. It may, in fact, be true that you are superior to others, but ultimately, the reasons you are superior to others is because of a complex set of factors that predates the moment of your creation.

This also eliminates the need to dwell on self-hatred, which can be thought of as negative pride. It is possible that you might hate yourself because you have done horrible things. Ultimately the reasons why you did those things can be traced back to a time preceding the moment of your creation.

However, this does not eliminate the need for personal responsibility. If anything, it makes personal responsibility more important. The reason we must hold people responsible for their actions is not for the sake of revenge, although it is certainly understandable in some situations. The reason we hold people responsible for their actions is that doing so makes it more likely that their actions, as well as the actions of those who observe any necessary punishments, have a good chance of being improved in order to avoid future punishment.

Removing the need for pride and self-hatred does not need to remove our motivation for doing things well. We can find the motivation to do things well by carefully observing the consequences of our actions and feeling joy when those consequences are good. I have found this creates a strong work ethic and provides a much stronger and healthier source of motivation in my life than what I got from indulging in pride or self-hatred.
======================



I am thinking of motivation from a psychological perspective. Why do we do what we do? My primary desire in life is to create things that will improve the world. My motivation for doing this is the emotional satisfaction I get out of seeing good things that I have created. It is the same sort of feeling a father gets for his child, when his child accomplishes something. It is a combination of the joy of creation, and appreciation of good things.



So, I guess it depends on how you define motivation.

yguy

No. Free will is the decision to incline one's self towards motivation from within or from without. Drug addicts, for instance, are motivated from without. Christ as portrayed in the Gospels was motivated from within, as demonstrated by the fact that no one was able to manipulate him in the slightest degree.