Consciousness and the Paranormal

[trainedobserver]

Images you conjure up, including memories and visualizations, are different experientially. When the pink elephant comes into the room on it own, its a different story, yes? Visual and auditory hallucinations are unbidden over-rides to sensory constructed "imagery" in the system. Or at least that is how I understand it. Hallucinations range from the bizarre to filling in the blindspot created by the presense of the optic nerve.

 

[trainedobserver]

I know someone is going to ask you this - but has this been shown to be true? That it is the exact same pathways and processes . . . ?

I don't know for sure. Its been a while.

The blind spot fill-in seems to indicate it don't you think?

 

[smcder]

Images you conjure up, including memories and visualizations, are different experientially. When the pink elephant comes into the room on it own, its a different story, yes? Visual and auditory hallucinations are unbidden over-rides to sensory constructed "imagery" in the system. Or at least that is how I understand it. Hallucinations range from the bizarre to filling in the blindspot created by the presense of the optic nerve.

@Soupie may have some first hand knowledge to provide too - in my work with persons with mental illness - my understanding also is that hearing voices is an auditory experience - with the same qualities as what you ordinarily hear . . . so a hallucination can talk over real voices in the room (and the person can even be aware which voices are real and which hallucinatory - but that awareness might indicate different mechanisms or pathways) - also there can be various causes of hallucinations, not just mental illness (or adolescence!) and apparently some people for whom no known cause is present can hallucinate, also persons with trauma . . . perhaps there are neurological changes there but they would happen in response to the trauma or some extraordinary immediate change under the stress of a situation happening now . . . dream/hypnagogic experience can be tremendously "real" to me but at least in memory I can usually go back and find differences or unreal qualities - although I have convinced myself I was fully awake while dreaming and I have had text remain the same when I look away and back, etc . . . also hynosis isn't hallucination but in sports psychology - imagery and hypnosis is an effective means of practice (visualize throwing free throws correctly and you will get better) but it doesn't substitute for real practice - so I dunno . . . I'm not sure it's as simple as a one to one replacement with "real" experience - there is also the what one trillion bits or whatever of information that the senses sort and filter out from the real world in an act of perception that, presumably, wouldn't have to happen if a hallucination is generated internally, right? Does that make sense?

scroll down to see the experience of weightlifter Charles Garfield with Soviet Sports psychologists:
Sports Hypnosis | Barry JonesBarry Jones

 

[Constance]

There is no difference between a hallucination and normal experience. The mechanism is the same. Your experience of seeing these words displayed before you now is rendered in your brain in the same manner as a pink elephant would be created and presented to your conciousness.

https://www.theparacast.com/forum/goto/post?id=183783#post-183783

I know someone is going to ask you this - but has this been shown to be true? That it is the exact same pathways and processes . . . ?

TO, the truth value [veridicality] of the two cases you cite is certainly not 'the same', and I doubt that "the mechanism" producing them is "the same." With Steve, I'm wondering what the evidence is for making the claim you make. And I'm also wondering if you would state the larger point you seem to want to make, concerning the 'sameness' of these two cases of 'perception' {???}, which you see as relevant to the discussion of the nature of reality we're pursuing in this thread. Thanks.

 

[Soupie]

we have lots of links to peer-reviewed research on Psi/remote viewing etc - I think these may be of interest to your questions above. I think I also mentioned the John Hagelin post on Shadow Matter/subtle bodies - ?

I did look over that well-organized page of links to peer-reviewed Psi research. Unfortunately, I didn't see any that related to OBEs, believe it or not.

Regarding Hagelin: I did read over his description of Shadow Matter. It's an interesting concept, but that's all it appears to be at the moment.

there is a certain type of matter predicted by superstring theory

Superstring theory itself currently has little evidence to support it, and then this Shadow Matter is only predicted to exist.

When it comes to OBEs, I'm very intrigued by a lot of the current work in the cognitive sciences.

Researchers use virtual-reality avatars to create 'out-of-body' experience | Science | The Guardian

The research is aimed at understanding how the brain integrates information coming from the senses in order to determine the position of the body in space.

When this process gets disrupted, the body and senses are still working perfectly, but the brain mistakenly perceives the "self" to be located outside of the body, typically above or behind it. I'm not saying this is the explanation, but I think there's something to it. Especially when you consider it beside a phenomena like ecstatic seizures:

Ecstatic seizures, besides being highly pleasurable, involve a constellation of other symptoms including an increased vividness of sensory perceptions, heightened feelings of self-awareness – of being “present” in the world – a feeling of time standing still, and an apparent clarity of mind where all things seem suddenly to make perfect sense. For some people this clarity involves a realization that a ‘higher power’ (or Supreme Principal) is responsible, though for atheists such beliefs usually recede once the seizure has passed.

 

[smcder]

TO, the truth value [veridicality] of the two cases you cite is certainly not 'the same', and I doubt that "the mechanism" producing them is "the same." With Steve, I'm wondering what the evidence is for making the claim you make. And I'm also wondering if you would state the larger point you seem to want to make, concerning the 'sameness' of these two cases of 'perception' {???}, which you see as relevant to the discussion of the nature of reality we're pursuing in this thread. Thanks.

I did look over that well-organized page of links to peer-reviewed Psi research. Unfortunately, I didn't see any that related to OBEs, believe it or not.

Regarding Hagelin: I did read over his description of Shadow Matter. It's an interesting concept, but that's all it appears to be at the moment.

Superstring theory itself currently has little evidence to support it, and then this Shadow Matter is only predicted to exist.

When it comes to OBEs, I'm very intrigued by a lot of the current work in the cognitive sciences.

Researchers use virtual-reality avatars to create 'out-of-body' experience | Science | The Guardian

The research is aimed at understanding how the brain integrates information coming from the senses in order to determine the position of the body in space.

When this process gets disrupted, the body and senses are still working perfectly, but the brain mistakenly perceives the "self" to be located outside of the body, typically above or behind it. I'm not saying this is the explanation, but I think there's something to it. Especially when you consider it beside a phenomena like ecstatic seizures:

Regarding Hagelin: I did read over his description of Shadow Matter. It's an interesting concept, but that's all it appears to be at the moment.

Superstring theory itself currently has little evidence to support it, and then this Shadow Matter is only predicted to exist.

Exactly correct - it's a beautiful concept with the idea of it fitting over the "regular" (for want of a better term) matter of the body - but Hagelin notes in the excerpt that it is very speculative - (you hear the emphasis in his voice in the actual interview - he isn't pushing this idea, just playing with it at the interviewer's request - from what you can get from his voice, he seems to be a playful person and very relaxed) he says there are experiments planned when the LHC comes back online next year . . . he talks a bit more about string/m-theory in the whole interview . . .

when it gets to this sort of thing (string theory, any cutting edge work in science really) I feel like, as a layperson (and apparently unless you are one of a handful of theoreticians - we are all laypersons) - I'm at the mercy of the press on this (and what I mean by "the press" is enormously expanded from what it used to reliably mean) and I'm distrustful of Wikipedia here too, these entries would require the attention of people who probably don't have time to spend on it, but that may be unfair of me . . . but some things are lost along with the many pluses of Wikipedia . . . in terms of Wikipedia's handling of paranormal issues - there is apparently quite a hard line skeptical influence - Skeptiko podcast did something on this recently, you can also google guerilla skepticism and wikipedia (actually I try to use duckduckgo.com to avoid "filter bubbling") . . . for what it is worth:

236. Rome Viharo, Wikipedia, We Have a Problem | Skeptiko - Science at the Tipping Point

but yes, all very speculative on shadow matter, string theory all of this . . . but I do think of Clarke's first law:

1. When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.

 

[trainedobserver]

C,
I have not read every post in this mammoth thread, I was responding to the manxman's suggestion that hallucinations are not a common experience. They are.

My point has absolutely nothing to do with the veridicality of any experience, completely hallucinatory or not. My point is that all human beings actively "hallucinate" as a matter of course. Our normal perception of reality is in effect the same type of thing as a "hallucination" and is created using the same hardware.

A poor illustration: Your television set displays reality and fiction using the same mechanisms, theories, and hardware independent of the programming.

See Charles Bonnet Syndrome for some insight into my thinking there.

One theory is that memories and visualizations do not "render" in the consciousness like direct sensory input because they are reconstructions from meta-data and not complete copies of the initial experiences stored somewhere. It's easy to test. Look at your thumb. Now look away and recall from your memory the image of your thumb. These are two very different experiences.

Conversely, a visual, tactile, or audio hallucination can display/manifest/render into consciousness in a manner casually indistinguishable from visual, tactile, or audio experiences produced by direct sensory input. Why? I think it is because it is made of the same "stuff" processed by the same machinery. Are some areas of the brain used by one and not the other? Possibly, but I wasn't trying to write a neurology text, I was trying to illustrate that the brain constructs our experience of reality independent of the "truthfulness" of it and many times independent of actual sensory input from the outside.

 

[smcder]

I did look over that well-organized page of links to peer-reviewed Psi research. Unfortunately, I didn't see any that related to OBEs, believe it or not.

Is your specific interest about the experience of being or feeling out of the body? What I had in mind were some of the remote viewing and information transfer experiments - your original question was about perceiving information without senses, without a body, so I made a connection there. I have been on the lookout for OBE reports.

Ecstatic seizures, besides being highly pleasurable, involve a constellation of other symptoms including an increased vividness of sensory perceptions, heightened feelings of self-awareness – of being “present” in the world – a feeling of time standing still, and an apparent clarity of mind where all things seem suddenly to make perfect sense. For some people this clarity involves a realization that a ‘higher power’ (or Supreme Principal) is responsible, though for atheists such beliefs usually recede once the seizure has passed.

I like that last line! *whew!* lol - I know atheists have dark moments of doubt too. Thomas Nagel was emphatic on why he didn't believe in God, he said he didn't want the universe to be like that - (I'm thinking this was a traditional protestant God he had in mind, but I'm not sure) - I also think of the Bradbury story The Man and in Life of Pi how he felt a kinship with the atheists he found in the science classes at University, he felt they had a deep faith just as he did and so had more in common than he did with the agnostics.

 

[Burnt State]

I don't know for sure. Its been a while.

The blind spot fill-in seems to indicate it don't you think?

More than just the blind spot, as suggested earlier, our minds make up stuff all the time. Most of our sensory perceptions are based on pre-recorded experiences. So not just the blind spot is being filled. The fovea centralis is focussing on a very small fraction of the visual field. Not only that, but the majority of our decision making processes are decided unconsciously, or as the doctor puts it in the program below, "The conscious mind is a just a PR job to let us think we are in charge." Increasingly science tells us that the unconscious is what is running the show for the most part. What does this mean when it comes to witness reports and hallucinatory reports of experiences. This episode from TVO, an educational station here in Ontario, explores how our unconscious works and may be of interest to this thread:The Unconscious Brain | TVO

The show I really wanted people to see was concerned more with perception and how almost all our perceptions are almost entirely pre-recorded, or as stated above, just a simulation titled The Magic of the Unconscious but this is not available. But the basic idea is that memory and perception are just two sides of the same coin. What does this mean for what we are really seeing?

Conversely, a visual, tactile, or audio hallucination can display/manifest/render into consciousness in a manner casually indistinguishable from visual, tactile, or audio experiences produced by direct sensory input. Why? I think it is because it is made of the same "stuff" processed by the same machinery. Are some areas of the brain used by one and not the other? Possibly, but I wasn't trying to write a neurology text, I was trying to illustrate that the brain constructs our experience of reality independent of the "truthfulness" of it and many times independent of actual sensory input from the outside.

But to that notion of how what trainedobserver is explaining here, in terms of the reality of the hallucination, as the mind will adopt external stimulus as its own and accommodate it and integrate it. This is only a small example of this:

 

[Burnt State]

and further to this notion that we are just automatic robots navigating blindly, i ironically ran into this paper: Internal simulation of perception: a minimal neuro-robotic model https://web.cs.dal.ca/~tt/CSCI650805/papers/internalModel.pdf

Abstract:This paper explores the possibility of providing robots with an ‘inner world’ based on internal simulation of perception rather than an explicit representational world model. First a series of initial experiments is discussed, in which recurrent neural networks were evolved to control collision-free corridor following behavior in a simulated Khepera robot and predict the next time step’s sensory input as accurately as possible. Attempts to let the robot act blindly, i.e. repeatedly using its own prediction instead of the real sensory input, were not particularly successful. This motivated the second series of experiments, on which this paper focuses. A feed-forward network was used which, as above, controlled behavior and predicted sensory input. However, weight evolution was now guided by the sole fitness criterion of successful, ‘blindfolded’ corridor following behavior, including timely turns, as above using as input only own sensory predictions rather than actual sensory input. The trained robot is in some cases actually able to move blindly in a simple environment for hundreds of time steps, successfully handling several multi-step turns. Somewhat surprisingly, however, it does so based on self-generated input that is not particularly similar to the actual sensory values.

 

[Randall]

Just a note that the Fake Hand illusion takes a while to "kick in", doesn't work all the time on everyone, and is still a response to a real physical stimulus, in this case a real and perceptual brush plus the experience of actually feeling the sensation on the real hand. Last but not least, we also know the trick is an illusion because we have intelligence to help us differentiate between illusion and the real thing. So this type of illusion in no way justifies making blanket assumptions about the frailty or inadequacy of humans to discern what is going on in real time experiences, including ones that are unfamiliar or setup in such a way as to deceive us.

 

[Constance]

More than just the blind spot, as suggested earlier, our minds make up stuff all the time. Most of our sensory perceptions are based on pre-recorded experiences. So not just the blind spot is being filled. The fovea centralis is focussing on a very small fraction of the visual field.

Hmm, that may be what the fovea centralis focuses on, but in my experience I can also (and often do) focus on the entire visual field available to me and then extend it by turning my head in various directions. extending it further by walking around within the local space and farther into its depths in various directions. It is by doing so that I like any animal with functional eyes gains contact with and appreciation of the environment in which I'm temporarily located. Not to mention that our prereflective experience (involving perception) is of a gestalt before we begin to focus on a single thing that can then be focused and made to stand out for us in the visible field. I have more I'd like to add but am about to go out for a few hours.

 

[smcder]

and further to this notion that we are just automatic robots navigating blindly, i ironically ran into this paper: Internal simulation of perception: a minimal neuro-robotic model https://web.cs.dal.ca/~tt/CSCI650805/papers/internalModel.pdf

Abstract:This paper explores the possibility of providing robots with an ‘inner world’ based on internal simulation of perception rather than an explicit representational world model. First a series of initial experiments is discussed, in which recurrent neural networks were evolved to control collision-free corridor following behavior in a simulated Khepera robot and predict the next time step’s sensory input as accurately as possible. Attempts to let the robot act blindly, i.e. repeatedly using its own prediction instead of the real sensory input, were not particularly successful. This motivated the second series of experiments, on which this paper focuses. A feed-forward network was used which, as above, controlled behavior and predicted sensory input. However, weight evolution was now guided by the sole fitness criterion of successful, ‘blindfolded’ corridor following behavior, including timely turns, as above using as input only own sensory predictions rather than actual sensory input. The trained robot is in some cases actually able to move blindly in a simple environment for hundreds of time steps, successfully handling several multi-step turns. Somewhat surprisingly, however, it does so based on self-generated input that is not particularly similar to the actual sensory values.

If you like such notions - you might find this interesting:

Vehicles: Experiments in Synthetic Psychology: Valentino Braitenberg: 9780262521123: Amazon.com: Books

It's a short book and I was taken with it . . . but in the end, my heart was not in it. ;-)

 

[Burnt State]

Just a note that the Fake Hand illusion takes a while to "kick in", doesn't work all the time on everyone, and is still a response to a real physical stimulus, in this case a real and perceptual brush plus the experience of actually feeling the sensation on the real hand. Last but not least, we also know the trick is an illusion because we have intelligence to help us differentiate between illusion and the real thing. So this type of illusion in no way justifies making blanket assumptions about the frailty or inadequacy of the humans to discern what is going in real time experiences, including ones that are unfamiliar or setup in such a way as to deceive us.

In another place i posted a different video where the actual sensation was being recorded by people, while watching a video of themselves where it appeared they were being touched, but not being touched anymore and yet had their brains trained to believe that in fact the sensation was real and so they felt it. This goes back to me solving my experience of touching the phantom tree: Do mental expectations create the effects of physical reality?

The problem with this event as this article explores is that our intelligence can be tricked on a high order pretty quickly and allow for out bodies to accept new sensory experiences in an out of body manner. In my case i actually felt like i touched something that was not there but touched it nonetheless. Our perceptual apparatus is pretty slippery at best and confuses the intellect easily.

Out-of-body experience: Master of illusion : Nature News & Comment

 

[Burnt State]

If you like such notions - you might find this interesting:

Vehicles: Experiments in Synthetic Psychology: Valentino Braitenberg: 9780262521123: Amazon.com: Books

It's a short book and I was taken with it . . . but in the end, my heart was not in it. ;-)

Boomerang posted this one for me - you might be more taken by it?

Mind Machines You Can Build

 

[smcder]

In another place i posted a different video where the actual sensation was being recorded by people, while watching a video of themselves where it appeared they were being touched, but not being touched anymore and yet had their brains trained to believe that in fact the sensation was real and so they felt it. This goes back to me solving my experience of touching the phantom tree: Do mental expectations create the effects of physical reality?

The problem with this event as this article explores is that our intelligence can be tricked on a high order pretty quickly and allow for out bodies to accept new sensory experiences in an out of body manner. In my case i actually felt like i touched something that was not there but touched it nonetheless. Our perceptual apparatus is pretty slippery at bes

Boomerang posted this one for me - you might be more taken by it?

Mind Machines You Can Build

I'll have a look.

I got the Vehicles book in Los Alamos, was really into robotics back then - especially Mark Tilden's stuff and solarbotics.com (BEAM robotics) - still have a thing for cool robots - came across a DARPA or millitary/rescue robot recently that is like a real-life robosapien, can reconfigure itself -will try to find the link.

 

[smcder]

Boomerang posted this one for me - you might be more taken by it?

Mind Machines You Can Build

Actually I remember now I've seen this one! . . . but right now I'm occupied building a cloudbuster:

Cloudbuster Construction Details

 

[smcder]

217. Jeffrey Kripal, with Dana Sawyer - Buddha at the Gas Pump

@Constance
@Tyger

I've mentioned Kripal in our discussions, Constance I think we discussed Authors of the Impossible which looks at Myers, Fort, Vallee and sociologist Mehuest . . .

Kripal grounds his study in the work of four major figures in the history of paranormal research: psychical researcher Frederic Myers; writer and humorist Charles Fort; astronomer, computer scientist, and ufologist Jacques Vallee; and philosopher and sociologist Bertrand Méheust. Through incisive analyses of these thinkers, Kripal ushers the reader into a beguiling world somewhere between fact, fiction, and fraud. The cultural history of telepathy, teleportation, and UFOs; a ghostly love story; the occult dimensions of science fiction; cold war psychic espionage; galactic colonialism; and the intimate relationship between consciousness and culture all come together in Authors of the Impossible, a dazzling and profound look at how the paranormal bridges the sacred and the scientific.

Kripal's been a guest on several podcasts and is always a good interviewee.

Jeff is the author of seven books, including Comparing Religions: Coming to Terms, Mutants and Mystics: Science Fiction, Superhero Comics, and the Paranormal, and Authors of the Impossible: The Paranormal and the Sacred. He specializes in the comparative study and analysis of extreme religious states from the ancient world to today. His full body of work can be seen at Rice University | Jeffrey J. Kripal - Home.

 

[smcder]

@Constance - you mentioned your interest in mediumship recently:

238. Why Skeptics Are Wrong… About Psychics & Mediums | Skeptiko - Science at the Tipping Point

Join host Alex Tsakiris for a look back his many interviews exploring psychic medium communication. Tsakiris also discusses his plans for a book exploring why skeptical arguments often stand in contrast to the best available research:

"Alex Tsakiris: One of the questions I get asked a lot is, am I going to write a book based on what I’ve learned while doing Skeptiko. I’ve always said no, but recently I’ve started to change my mind. Maybe a book that chronicles my journey thru all the craziness I’ve encountered with Skeptics, Atheists, wacky scientism believers and fundamentalist religious types would be a good idea. I’ve always approached Skeptiko as my personal journey of discovery, shared with others, but I’ve also come to realize that by sharing these interviews with you I’ve created a feedback loop that is just as much a part of what Skeptiko is about as the shows themselves. So, I hoping this book, will give you and I a chance to re-examine what we’ve discovered and what it means."

I'm just downloading this now, so may be a day or two before I can listen, but I'll let you know - the previous shows on mediumship that I can remember were good.

Ordinarily there is a transcript but it's going to be delayed this time, but it's taken from previous shows (which should all have transcripts) found here:

Shows -- Psychics & Mediums | Skeptiko - Science at the Tipping Point

 

[Tyger]

I've mentioned Kripal in our discussions, Constance I think we discussed Authors of the Impossible which looks at Myers, Fort, Vallee and sociologist Mehuest . . .

Kripal grounds his study in the work of four major figures in the history of paranormal research: psychical researcher Frederic Myers; writer and humorist Charles Fort; astronomer, computer scientist, and ufologist Jacques Vallee; and philosopher and sociologist Bertrand Méheust. Through incisive analyses of these thinkers, Kripal ushers the reader into a beguiling world somewhere between fact, fiction, and fraud. The cultural history of telepathy, teleportation, and UFOs; a ghostly love story; the occult dimensions of science fiction; cold war psychic espionage; galactic colonialism; and the intimate relationship between consciousness and culture all come together in Authors of the Impossible, a dazzling and profound look at how the paranormal bridges the sacred and the scientific.

Ooooh - looks like yummy stuff! Not enough time in the day! Fooey!