Philosophy, Science, & The Unexplained - Main Thread

[smcder]

Hi Constance. Read any good poetry lately . Here is the link for my critical thinking resources:

• http://www.criticalthinking.org/pages/learn-the-elements-and-standards/861

I'm not a perfect critical thinker. I tend to stray off into editorializing with random splashes of bad "self-styled 70s humor" and a dash of cynicism. But I do try to at least keep the spirit intact .

And a splash of honeyoil! ;-) (I had to look that vocabulary word up, by the way . . . )

 

[smcder]

Indeed. The Zimbabwe sighting and close encounter, while involving no abduction so far as we know, is powerful evidence of both the physical nature of a 'ufo' and of occupants able to communicate telepathically with humans precisely because young children provided most of the testimony. Children's NDEs are likewise very important in supporting the scores and scores of adult NDE accounts. One of the major NDE researchers has published a very good book concerning childrens' NDEs.

Melvin Morse?

 

[Constance]

Ufology, still reading the same inexhaustible poet. I'll read the material at your critical thinking link tonight.

 

[Constance]

Melvin Morse?

Yes, that's the one. I take it you've read it. What were your thoughts about it? May I call you Steve?

 

[Randall]

Indeed. The Zimbabwe sighting and close encounter, while involving no abduction so far as we know, is powerful evidence of both the physical nature of a 'ufo' and of occupants able to communicate telepathically with humans precisely because young children provided most of the testimony. Children's NDEs are likewise very important in supporting the scores and scores of adult NDE accounts. One of the major NDE researchers has published a very good book concerning childrens' NDEs.

NDEs and the Zimbabwe UFO landing/encounter case are two entirely different kinds of evidence, the latter consisting of verified external ( objective ) real-time stimuli rather than unverifiable 100% subjective memories of an after the fact experience. So the use of the word "likewise" is suggestive of evidence of equal weight, when that position isn't supportable. That being said. I don't doubt that NDE experiences happen. It's leaping to the conclusion that those experiences are evidence for non-locality of consciousness that I have an issue with.

 

[Randall]

Melvin Morse?

Yes, that's the one. I take it you've read it. What were your thoughts about it? May I call you Steve?

I just knew those two would get along . Now all we need is for @Michael Allen to join the party ! Then I can take a break ...

 

[smcder]

Yes, that's the one. I take it you've read it. What were your thoughts about it? May I call you Steve?

I haven't read it - I just remember the Skeptiko podcast and that he was later accused of water-boarding his own daughter, I think it was (?) - and I had not updated to see the outcome of the trial.

 

[smcder]

I just knew those two would get along . Now all we need is for @Michael Allen to join the party ! Then I can take a break ...

Well, lemme see now . . . who started this thread . . . ??? ;-)

 

[Constance]

C,
I am saying that that consciousness is the brain experiencing its own operation. I'll think about how to express that differently. I've read about and practiced different forms of meditation on and off over the years. It is generally understood and experienced that thought cannot be stopped. Meditation is an exercise in focus and usually incorporates disassociation to observe the constant stream of thoughts as though separated from them. Even in the most disciplined mind, thoughts spring up from a bottomless well without prompting.

That's a very good description of what I understand to be the process of proceeding into deep meditation. And my understanding is that the skilled practitioner reaches a deeper level in the well of consciousness that is not defined by what we ordinarily consider to be limitations in the structure of 'reality' based on the world view we've developed growing up in a given culture and society. The most interesting related research seems to be the discovery that the brains of skilled deep meditators are gradually changed through their practice.

You wrote: "I am saying that that consciousness is the brain experiencing its own operation." If that were true, I wonder how we could prove it. It might be true at some level, but isn't it the case that brain surgery is performed without anesthesia, suggesting that the brain doesn't experience itself or that which is done to it directly? (I may be all wrong about this.) If I recall the line of thought you're referring to correctly, it comes out of a computationally based theory in which sufficient complexity in the wiring of the brain produces a 'global workspace', unifying the many operations in which the brain is engaged continually. And then 'a miracle occurs': the brain becomes conscious. But of what? Surely of the world in which the being with a brain finds itself living and acting, rather than of itself operating inside the being's skull.

I think the best analysis of consciousness has been produced by phenomenological philosophers, especially Maurice Merleau-Ponty, for whom consciousness must be understood primarily as embodied, its embodiment providing the means by which it understands itself as embodied and connected with the rest of nature.

This isn't about ignoring evidence as much as it is qualifying it. Determining what qualifies as valid evidence is often not that easy.

What do you think would constitute 'valid evidence' of the nature of consciousness as something more than the brain, requiring more than the brain in order to develop?

 

[Constance]

I haven't read it - I just remember the Skeptiko podcast and that he was later accused of water-boarding his own daughter, I think it was (?) - and I had not updated to see the outcome of the trial.

I find it hard to believe that a pediatrician (I think Morse is a pediatrician but am not sure) would be capable of doing that. I don't find it hard to believe that someone whose work is as threatening to consensual reality as his would be accused of something like that. Would love to read more about this if you can link me to the discussion of it.

 

[smcder]

I think the best analysis of consciousness has been produced by phenomenological philosophers, especially Maurice Merleau-Ponty, for whom consciousness must be understood primarily as embodied, its embodiment providing the means by which it understands itself as embodied and connected with the rest of nature.

Have you read Lakoff's work?

Philosophy In The Flesh: The Embodied Mind And Its Challenge To Western Thought: George Lakoff: 9780465056736: Amazon.com: Books

 

[Constance]

I just knew those two would get along . Now all we need is for @Michael Allen to join the party ! Then I can take a break ...

Which two?

 

[Constance]

Have you read Lakoff's work?

Philosophy In The Flesh: The Embodied Mind And Its Challenge To Western Thought: George Lakoff: 9780465056736: Amazon.com: Books

I bought it from amazon last year but have not yet gotten to it. Do you recommend it? Have you read M-P?

 

[smcder]

Philosophical humor

"A philosopher once had the following dream.

First Aristotle appeared, and the philosopher said to him, "Could you give me a fifteen-minute capsule sketch of your entire philosophy?" To the philosopher's surprise, Aristotle gave him an excellent exposition in which he compressed an enormous amount of material into a mere fifteen minutes. But then the philosopher raised a certain objection which Aristotle couldn't answer. Confounded, Aristotle disappeared.

Then Plato appeared. The same thing happened again, and the philosophers' objection to Plato was the same as his objection to Aristotle. Plato also couldn't answer it and disappeared.

Then all the famous philosophers of history appeared one-by-one and our philosopher refuted every one with the same objection.

After the last philosopher vanished, our philosopher said to himself, "I know I'm asleep and dreaming all this. Yet I've found a universal refutation for all philosophical systems! Tomorrow when I wake up, I will probably have forgotten it, and the world will really miss something!" With an iron effort, the philosopher forced himself to wake up, rush over to his desk, and write down his universal refutation. Then he jumped back into bed with a sigh of relief.

The next morning when he awoke, he went over to the desk to see what he had written. It was, "That's what you say."

[From Raymond Smullyan, 5000 B.C. and Other Philosophical Fantasies. St. Martin's Press, 1983]"

 

[Constance]

ufology wrote: "If they (aliens) are so smart and wonderful then how about a little help? But no, never, not once have we been given any information that is beyond the scope of our present day technology that would help reduce our environmental impact on the planet. Nothing but platitudes !"

I don't think we actually know whether we have been given help cleaning up our environment from aliens. There appear to be many reports of ufos around Chernobyl after its meltdown and claims that radiation levels were anomalously reduced thereafter. If it happened would we be told about it? No we wouldn't, as we probably all realize here. Robert Hastings's research on thirty years of ufo interventions at nuke bases, nuke labs and testing areas, etc., in the US and Russia suggest a long program of intended education. Maybe things have to get still worse before some advanced race stops us. I've long thought it likely that some member of our species might have accidentally triggered nuclear exchanges and vast destruction at some point over the last 65 years and that it was stopped, not by us.

 

[smcder]

I bought it from amazon last year but have not yet gotten to it. Do you recommend it? Have you read M-P?

Not since college, really - a friend was into phenomenology a year or two ago and I did some reading then . . .

so . . . little . . . time

I have read more Nietzsche than anything else . .. . believe it or not

 

[smcder]

Which two?

I think he means you and I!

And . . . hello there, by the way.

 

[Constance]

It's interesting Husserl comes up - I was thinking about phenomenology and introspection, the results of these kinds of thought experiments (literally!), looking at our own subjective experience, seem to be very heavily influenced by, well subjective factors and culture, training, expectations . . . Buddhists tend to see Buddhist stuff, Western phenomenologists report kind of what you'd expect - I just read a passage on not-self and how, if you could, you most certainly would control your thought formations but of course you can't, so your thoughts are not-self.

I've come across articles and perhaps a book or two discussing significant comparisons that can be made between Eastern philosophy and European and American phenomenology. I haven't pursued those comparisons yet but I think they're likely to be very important for an understanding of the complexity of consciousness. What was the source of that passage referring to the 'not-self'?

 

[Constance]

I think he means you and I!

And . . . hello there, by the way.

Hi Steve. I thought that's what he meant (and I did find myself agreeing with almost everything you wrote in the first 17 pages of this thread, when I decided to join in). I also find myself in agreement with most everything Jeff Davis writes, the only exception being that I think there's enough evidence by now to conclude that some ufos are indeed material, high tech 'vehicles' that are 'not ours'.

 

[Constance]

Not since college, really - a friend was into phenomenology a year or two ago and I did some reading then . . .

so . . . little . . . time

I have read more Nietzsche than anything else . .. . believe it or not

I've read very little of Nietzsche. Yes, exactly, "so . . . little . . . time." It gets worse every year.