July 19, 2015 — Greg Bishop and Walter Bosley

[boomerang]

I sense a subtle shift of emphasis on the "phenomenon" (or phenomena) away from attempts to define it as a natural or constructed device, to looking more closely at the witness/experiencer and his or her life as our primary source of evidence. The former approach in decades of searching for smoking gun evidence in the form of irrefutable pics or pieces of "spacecraft" seem to have gotten us precisely nowhere.

Using the UFO phenomenon as an example--but not limited to it--I often picture our search in the form of an upside down branching tree, or information processing flowchart, constructed to categorize not answers, but rather all questions than can be asked. (I even once downloaded a flowchart app and soon realized how difficult a pedigree of all such questions could be.)

If the reader will play my silly game for a moment: Imagine that one of the first forks in this tree will be whether these phenomena originate completely outside of human technology, are a well sequestered product of human technology (the breakaway civilization) , or some blend of the two. Which branch one chooses will, in turn, define the kinds of questions that can be subsequently asked. Or perhaps technology itself is a null concept in our search, in which case a "technology vs non-technology" split should be upstream of these questions.

Is this merely a more elaborate example of the kind of rigid thinking that has so far yielded little? Honestly, I do not know. But it seems there will always be a need to collect, categorize and collate information. Even if such information is not technological in nature.

 

[boomerang]

boomerang wrote:

"I sense a subtle shift of emphasis on the "phenomenon" (or phenomena) away from attempts to define it as a natural or constructed device, to looking more closely at the witness/experiencer and his or her life as our primary source of evidence. The former approach in decades of searching for smoking gun evidence in the form of irrefutable pics or pieces of "spacecraft" seem to have gotten us precisely nowhere. "

Since the emphasis has been almost entirely on objective events -- with anecdotes and hypnotic recall treated as factual evidence -- it seems reasonable to examine the subjective aspects of claims of sightings and contact on order to evaluate the claims.

What is the physical condition of the witness? Are they sleep-deprived? Have they recently experienced sensory deprivation? Have they been on a fast? Are they depressed, or manic? What other anomalous phenomena do they experience? Do they perhaps suffer from any form of epilepsy, which can cause sleep paralysis on a recurring basis, do they have an organic brain disease?

These and other conditions can distort perceptions and even cause solid, three-dimensional hallucinations that move and speak exactly like living beings. I have heard reports from people who had extended conversations with other people who turned out not to have been there!

Of course it's equally important to determine and evaluate objective physical evidence.

All true. Human hallucination is very real and probably more frequent than previously believed. But I want to look beyond garden variety hallucination and confabulation on the assumption that external phenomena, possibly intelligent, are interacting with individuals in ways that cause subtle but permanent changes in personality and world view. One reason why I emphasized the matter of possible "questions asked", is in the hope that asking certain kinds of questions of experiencers of non-imaginary high strangeness events, might yield up answers having something, even seemingly trivial, in common.

 

[Walter Bosley]

Boomerang: I think both are real, i.e. the human filtering product and the phenomena, the latter causing the former according to the individual's psyche etc. I think what Greg is saying, and has said long before I figured it this way, is that to understand the experience, we must inspect both the phenomena and those who experience it from the perspective you discuss. Therefore it is the experience/incident that will serve to further understand the phenomena. That is, we should continue to dissect the 'evidence' of the phenomena as reported and analyze the experiencer but also now dissect the experience -- all without emotion and done respectfully, of course. Does that make sense?

 

[Wade]

sSo @AdventureMan, aside from Sir R.F. Burton and Alistair Crowley is there any other "renaissance" men that you are interested in ?

I've contacted the author George Pendle a couple of times about appearing on the show and talking about John Whiteside Parsons, one of my favorite historical figures. ( along with Burton and Tesla)

He demurred, mostly based on the fact that his excellent book is 10 years old and he'd have some catching up to do.

There is one picture in the book that has me fascinated The Occult Rocket Scientist Who Conjured Spirits with L. Ron Hubbard | Motherboard I am still trying to find out where EXACTLY that picture was taken. the wash runs right through the JPL campus, but I don't know if the spot is on the campus. the next open house will be at JPL in October, I've gone a couple of times. if you have never been there during one of those periods, it's pretty cool you can walk just about anywhere unmolested but you can't take anything in. No backpacks etc. you'll have to turn it over or take it back to the car

Open House

 

[dmanister]

boomerang wrote:

"I sense a subtle shift of emphasis on the "phenomenon" (or phenomena) away from attempts to define it as a natural or constructed device, to looking more closely at the witness/experiencer and his or her life as our primary source of evidence. The former approach in decades of searching for smoking gun evidence in the form of irrefutable pics or pieces of "spacecraft" seem to have gotten us precisely nowhere. "

Since the emphasis has been almost entirely on objective events -- with anecdotes and hypnotic recall treated as factual evidence -- it seems reasonable to examine the subjective aspects of claims of sightings and contact on order to evaluate the claims.

What is the physical condition of the witness? Are they sleep-deprived? Have they recently experienced sensory deprivation? Have they been on a fast? Are they depressed, or manic? What other anomalous phenomena do they experience? Do they perhaps suffer from any form of epilepsy, which can cause sleep paralysis on a recurring basis, do they have an organic brain disease?

These and other conditions can distort perceptions and even cause solid, three-dimensional hallucinations that move and speak exactly like living beings. I have heard reports from people who had extended conversations with other people who turned out not to have been there!

Of course it's equally important to determine and evaluate objective physical evidence.

 

[DissectionStalker]

Well Jonathan would you disagree with my suggestion that sightings of unidentifiable phenomena very often give rise to belief systems that are essentially religious?

Beliefs about inexplicable phenomena that are shared by groups fall into the category of organized religion.

It seems to me what Greg Bishop suggests as a reboot is simply a return to what we know about the phenomena, and the careful development of patterns that emerge from reliable data, avoiding the religious wars among factions whose speculations about the phenomena differ from each other.

Talk about "group think" and religious beliefs you should listen to the C2C show I linked to recently. Do you think these people will shape the outcome they're looking for, or are they really academically neutral to produce a fair study? Here is my link about it:

July 5, 2015 — Ray Hernandez | Page 3 | The Paracast Community Forums

Note how he said they have to shape the study, so it avoids any outcomes showing significant mental heath issues or illness may be associated with this condition. I wonder how well they'll cover some of the questions you and I have posed [elsewhere], as you do below?

boomerang wrote:

"I sense a subtle shift of emphasis on the "phenomenon" (or phenomena) away from attempts to define it as a natural or constructed device, to looking more closely at the witness/experiencer and his or her life as our primary source of evidence. The former approach in decades of searching for smoking gun evidence in the form of irrefutable pics or pieces of "spacecraft" seem to have gotten us precisely nowhere. "

Since the emphasis has been almost entirely on objective events -- with anecdotes and hypnotic recall treated as factual evidence -- it seems reasonable to examine the subjective aspects of claims of sightings and contact on order to evaluate the claims.

What is the physical condition of the witness? Are they sleep-deprived? Have they recently experienced sensory deprivation? Have they been on a fast? Are they depressed, or manic? What other anomalous phenomena do they experience? Do they perhaps suffer from any form of epilepsy, which can cause sleep paralysis on a recurring basis, do they have an organic brain disease?

These and other conditions can distort perceptions and even cause solid, three-dimensional hallucinations that move and speak exactly like living beings. I have heard reports from people who had extended conversations with other people who turned out not to have been there!

Of course it's equally important to determine and evaluate objective physical evidence.

 

[ALPHA ROMEO UNIFORM]

The interview was a keeper of this year and agree this field has batshit crazy event which science cannot explain and the use of sleep paralysis,hallucinations are element which is thrown at eyewitness who open up about there encounters with the unknown!. Yes science does answers some aspects on energy and it actions . However, when science actually becomes open minded they might find a element of this type of unknown structures which seems to be able to change natures actions of energy. The bubble / trapdoor / shutter which interfere with human sense notice smell was still active and motion . However , time and light is effected as a aspect which envelops the eyewitness could planets , water and soil able harnesst a force or deceptive hidden /cloaked pre civilisation organic creature which able to move in and out of space/time? Walter the draing of energy is very interesting like humans have electrons following within our blood cells energy eating parasite? Wonder if the insects around the bubble or cloak are effected at this time and is water always a element?

 

[Walter Bosley]

sSo @AdventureMan, aside from Sir R.F. Burton and Alistair Crowley is there any other "renaissance" men that you are interested in ?

I've contacted the author George Pendle a couple of times about appearing on the show and talking about John Whiteside Parsons, one of my favorite historical figures. ( along with Burton and Tesla)

He demurred, mostly based on the fact that his excellent book is 10 years old and he'd have some catching up to do.

There is one picture in the book that has me fascinated The Occult Rocket Scientist Who Conjured Spirits with L. Ron Hubbard | Motherboard I am still trying to find out where EXACTLY that picture was taken. the wash runs right through the JPL campus, but I don't know if the spot is on the campus. the next open house will be at JPL in October, I've gone a couple of times. if you have never been there during one of those periods, it's pretty cool you can walk just about anywhere unmolested but you can't take anything in. No backpacks etc. you'll have to turn it over or take it back to the car

Open House

Parsons was most interesting guy, obviously flawed. But aren't we all? I am presently researching a particular guy who is turning out to be a man I can greatly respect. He should be the subject of Secret Missions 3, if the research continues in the direction it's headed. I never reveal my subjects until ready to publish, but you'll like this one, I think.

 

[Walter Bosley]

Walter the draing of energy is very interesting like humans have electrons following within our blood cells energy eating parasite?

I think it was just a case of my having gone to the negative end of a system/negative gridpoint and then subsequently went to the positive end.

 

[DissectionStalker]

Parsons was most interesting guy, obviously flawed. But aren't we all? I am presently researching a particular guy who is turning out to be a man I can greatly respect. He should be the subject of Secret Missions 3, if the research continues in the direction it's headed. I never reveal my subjects until ready to publish, but you'll like this one, I think.

WVB?

 

[boomerang]

I am taking Greg's term "reboot" to mean setting aside decades of accumulated baggage in the form of unsupported assumptions, fostered mostly by well-meaning group consensus and a handful of high profile true believers, and starting with what we can say with some degree of confidence about strange phenomena. Granted that what we can say is limited, but better than tenets based on false extrapolation. I also like his coining of the term "UFO porno", because so much group discussion of ufology winds up as a kind of endless recitation of well known past cases--titillating but not of much informational value.

This is just my take and Greg will hopefully clarify, or correct me if I have misunderstood.

And yes, this interview is most definitely a keeper !

 

[Wade]

WVB?

Are those supposed to be the initials of the person you think Walter is researching ?

 

[Ravensfee]

Are those supposed to be the initials of the person you think Walter is researching ?

I assumed it stood for Wernher von Braun. If it does Walter can put me down for a copy as the little I know about him suggests it'll be fascinating...

 

[Wade]

That would be a good guess by DS as i think there was a cloak of mystery surrounding WVB, wasn't there some vague warnings about NASAs "real intent" by him?

At any rate though I think Walter MAY have hinted at this person earlier *elsewhere* He also "popped in" in EOTW, either way it's all good.

Knowing my interest in Parsons this man would certainly peak my interest.

And until I read Strange Angel I pretty much bought the whole thing about him (Parsons) being one of the unsung heros of rocketry, sure he was an element but he wouldn't have gotten anywhere without Malina and von Karmen. Jack was more the visionary type like Tesla and also like Tesla showed pretty bad business acumen, and lousy judgement, witness his "borrowing" secret documents from one of his later employers (Hughes Aircraft) and i think his misjudgment had a lot to do with his death.

I guess his flaws are what made me more interested in him, as is the same with Tesla.

 

[spacebrother]

I am taking Greg's term "reboot" to mean setting aside decades of accumulated baggage in the form of unsupported assumptions, fostered mostly by well-meaning group consensus and a handful of high profile true believers, and starting with what we can say with some degree of confidence about strange phenomena. Granted that what we can say is limited, but better than tenets based on false extrapolation. I also like his coining of the term "UFO porno", because so much group discussion of ufology winds up as a kind of endless recitation of well known past cases--titillating but not of much informational value.

This is just my take and Greg will hopefully clarify, or correct me if I have misunderstood.

And yes, this interview is most definitely a keeper !

Thank you, and yes, I do pretty much mean that you said.

Once again, I must apologize if I ever used the term "reboot." I did call for the elimination of large UFO groups a few years back in a talk that was not well-received. Along with the fact that I haven't written any books in a few years, this probably contributed to never being invited to speak public again after that.

I stand by that statement with one caveat: if MUFON and CUFOs can preside over a number of many small groups working independently without dictating what they should find or how they should go about it, then great. I don't think that will happen. However, the vast amounts of somewhat useful data they have collected over many years could be a valuable resource, if looked at in new ways by running the information through many iterations and filters, The more counterintuitive, the better.

 

[spacebrother]

Boomerang: I think both are real, i.e. the human filtering product and the phenomena, the latter causing the former according to the individual's psyche etc. I think what Greg is saying, and has said long before I figured it this way, is that to understand the experience, we must inspect both the phenomena and those who experience it from the perspective you discuss. Therefore it is the experience/incident that will serve to further understand the phenomena. That is, we should continue to dissect the 'evidence' of the phenomena as reported and analyze the experiencer but also now dissect the experience -- all without emotion and done respectfully, of course. Does that make sense?

Pretty much right.

Too much emphasis has been placed on supposedly "objective" evidence. I suppose the only arguably "objective" information about a sighting/ encounter would be the time and place of the occurrence. That's about it. Then we quickly move into issues of perception, set and setting, cultural factors, personality factors, physiological states, and many other non-material things. Questions about color, movement, duration of sighting etc. are perceptions.

I am not sure where that leaves us. I think maybe UFO researchers may need to stop worrying about UFOs and start looking at updating their knowledge of psychology, theoretical physics since the 1920s, and maybe information theory. We need to get out of our own way because the phenomenon offers us so many ways to hide itself, and I'm not talking from its point of view.

 

[Constance]

Since the emphasis has been almost entirely on objective events -- with anecdotes and hypnotic recall treated as factual evidence -- it seems reasonable to examine the subjective aspects of claims of sightings and contact on order to evaluate the claims.

I agree, so long as the open-ended interdependence of consciousness {subjectivity} and physical being {objectivity] is understood. This phenomenological interdependence of consciousnsess/mind and world has not been recognized over the several recent centuries of materialist/reductivist science, operating on the presupposition that 'reality' is 'objective' and we stand somewhere off to the side of it having irrelevant or inscrutable experiences in and of the sensible, palpable world we exist in.

A major focus of interest in internet ufo discussion these days concerns what can be speculated to be 'pre-loaded' in the mind [conscious and subconscious] of the observer and thus to compromise the observer's ability to report accurately about something seen in the environment. Also playing into the muddle of thinking about consciousness and mind is the ‘matrix’ meme and the push toward AI, supported in spirit by the (fortunately fading) dominance of computational neuroscience and the fuzzy idea that ‘information’ and not experience in the world grounds consciousness and mind as the means through which we explore the world we live in.

As John Davey wrote in commenting at a recent edition of the cognitive entities blog,

“I think that the problem of a lot of consciousness analysis is the obsession with ‘information’. It’s a huge smokescreen/sideshow, call it what you will. A piece of rock is a material object with a host of phenomenal characteristics. I can attribute the rock with metrics (weight,colour,constituency) and decide the rock is ‘information’, or has informational attributes. But the rock is clearly not a lump of scalar attributes : it is a phenomenal object with real causal attributes. A set of metrics won’t hurt your head. but a rock will if you drop it on your foot. It might seem a blatantly obvious distinction but it’s one that goes west immediately anybody starts talking about consciousness.

Consciousness is a phenomenon brought about by the material, causal properties of the brain [edit to add: and of the world outside the brain]. It is not an information state, but a physical state. That is why blue is not a number : consciousness is not a collection of passive observer-relative computational attributes, it is a real, physical phenomenon. Thinking is a physical act, and there is as big a distinction between the objects of conscious thought (that train is coming for me)- and consciousness itself as there is between a rock and its observer-relative metrics such as weight, colour, chemical composition etc. The output or input nature of the information flows connected to consciousness shed maybe a little light on the function of consciousness, but that is all. They shed no light, and are not capable of shedding any light, on the causes or processes underlying the phenomenon."


Conscious Entities » Blog Archive » Output consciousness


In another edition of consciousentities.com concerning the reductive hypotheses of M. Graziano, a discussant named “Sci” wrote:

“Seems like Graziano is confused about what he means when using the words “consciousness”, “awareness”, and “attention”?

Beyond that I agree with John Davey -> computationalists got some push from Dennet who at times seems more interested in advancing New Atheist politics than good philosophy.

But really the person who might deserve the most blame for computationalism being taken too seriously is actually Chalmers. Both Tallis(1) and EJ Lowe(2) have interesting arguments asserting [that] Chalmers’ separation of the Hard & Easy Problems amounts to functionalism+qualia, thus missing the complex intertwining of experience, intentionality, and human behavior.

Now those two might in turn be wrong about materialism being unable to explain mind, but I think their criticisms do a good job of challenging computationalism as it’s usually presented.

(1) What Consciousness Is Not:

What Consciousness Is Not - The New Atlantis

(2) There Are No Easy Problems of Consciousness:

http://anti-matters.org/articles/46/public/46-41-1-PB.pdf

Conscious Entities » Blog Archive » Are we really conscious?

 

[Walter Bosley]

WVB?

I had to read some following posts to see that you meant VonBraun.
Nope, I'm actually not that interested in him. The subject of what will probably be Secret Missions 3 is someone whom I've not mentioned in any interview or previous book. I tend to hold it close to vest until it's written and released. At present I find myself immersed in stuff very few to zero people are writing about (or reading about, lol). I honestly come across the subjects either in research for a different book or while looking into something else entirely. For instance, I would never write a Secret Missions book on Amelia Earhart, going into it looking for a 'secret mission'. I write these particular books as a result of finding something that sticks out and as a result of pulling threads that lead somewhere substantial enough to speculate upon. The current new subject is a guy I knew of but not a whole lot about -- and it's the about that I'm admiring very much (not to mention so far so good on being worthy of a book). Ultimately, I see a tapestry of a 19th Century prologue to the 20th Century Occult/Nazi/UFO/Roswell/Breakaway Civilization milieu. The third Secret Missions book (if it pans out) will fit nicely with the forgotten civilization/lost technology stuff of my previous works in the series. If you haven't read the new one yet, one bit is that there would have been no Colonel Fawcett mystery had he not been following up on what I propose Burton did first. FWIW

 

[ALPHA ROMEO UNIFORM]

I think it was just a case of my having gone to the negative end of a system/negative gridpoint and then subsequently went to the positive end.

Walter ,
Agree with the negative energy / feelings which can effect everyone differently and no explanation when they encounter unknown force.

 

[dmanister]

Pretty much right.
I think maybe UFO researchers may need to stop worrying about UFOs and start looking at updating their knowledge of psychology, theoretical physics since the 1920s, and maybe information theory. We need to get out of our own way because the phenomenon offers us so many ways to hide itself, and I'm not talking from its point of view.

And also, Constance wrote:

"Consciousness is a phenomenon brought about by the material, causal properties of the brain [edit to add: and of the world outside the brain]. It is not an information state, but a physical state. That is why blue is not a number : consciousness is not a collection of passive observer-relative computational attributes, it is a real, physical phenomenon. Thinking is a physical act, and there is as big a distinction between the objects of conscious thought (that train is coming for me)- and consciousness itself as there is between a rock and its observer-relative metrics such as weight, colour, chemical composition etc."

Yes, but. It's crucial for any research into sightings and contacts claims to investigate the particular brains involved in light of their differences. All brains are not identical.

Perceptions can be distorted by physical conditions that have nothing to do with psychology.

The visual cortex is subject to a range of minor and major disorders, some of which produce entirely believable, animated and fully dimensional creatures that simply are not there, as in Charles Bonnet syndrome. This has been demonstrated with MRIs and electrical stimulation of the area of the brain responsible for eyesight.

"People with Charles Bonnet syndrome can vouch for the cliché that things aren't always as they seem. This syndrome, named for the eighteenth-century philosopher who first described it, is characterized by visual hallucinations. People may see anything from abstract patterns to birds and babies and white sandy beaches. These hallucinations tend to occur during down time--say, while getting a haircut or waiting in line at the dollar store.

Symptoms
Charles Bonnet syndrome has one principal symptom: the periodic occurrence of hallucinatory visions. Sometimes the hallucinations are very animated and detailed.

Cause
The cause of this disorder is thought to be a misfire in the brain similar to the neurological mixup that occurs in patients with phantom limb syndrome. As vision wanes, the brain continues to interpret visual imagery in the absence of corresponding visual input, just as it sometimes continues to process pain signals from a limb that's no longer there."

Lighthouse International - Charles Bonnet Syndrome

In addition to Charles Bonnet syndrome, temporal lobe epilepsy or lesions can produce not only visual hallucinations but also auditory hallucinations and even phantom tastes. Physical disorders of the amygdylla produce feelings of impending danger, dread and doom.

Note that these conditions occur in persons who are completely sane. They are not psychological disorders, but are physical conditions.