Is that God talking?
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@Avshalom Binyamin said
"If that's the case, then suggesting that the experience should prompt a visit to the doctor is... disingenuous..."
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@Avshalom Binyamin said
"If that's the case, then suggesting that the experience should prompt a visit to the doctor is... disingenuous..."
My previous post (the
) was disingenuous. It is not having the experiences that Los discredits (as I stated, I believe he believes he too can "induce" them), it's, as he has stated, the "interpretation" of these experiences he discredits. This is why I am saying that allowing any conversation with him is a moot thing. -
@Avshalom Binyamin said
"I'd like to believe in this objective, extra-mental reality you believe in, Los, but all the evidence I've been able to observe came to me through my mind."
I see I'm going to have to explain this again.
All experiences are "inside the mind" in the sense that an individual perceives with the mind. That's one meaning of "inside the mind."
But a healthy individual is very capable of distinguishing -- within those experiences perceived by the mind -- between things. Two primary categories -- again, within the world perceived through subjective experience -- we call "things in the mind" (such as thoughts or emotions or hallucinations) and "things not in the mind" (such as the couch in front of me).
That's the other (very different) meaning of "inside the mind."
Just because the word "mind" can be used to describe both (1) the vehicle of perception itself and (2) a category of things within perception doesn't mean that the two are identical: they're not. They're totally different things, and mixing them up merely because they can share the same label is precisely confusing the map for the territory.
Here's an example to illustrate what I mean: it's true that every single experience I have is one that I have to perceive with my mind, and it can therefore be said to be "inside the mind." But within that experience my mind perceives, I'm more than capable of distinguishing between a couch and my thoughts about the couch. I know that the couch can be perceived by any impartial observer; my thoughts about the couch can only be perceived by me. Within this world that I perceive, I can easily label the former "something outside my mind" (meaning something that any impartial observer can perceive) and the latter "something inside my mind" (meaning something that only I can perceive).
The mere fact that we can use a single label to describe one of the categories and the vehicle of perception itself in no way means that the distinction between the categories isn't valid.
To the other posters here: discuss ideas, not the people advancing those ideas.
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"Here's an example to illustrate what I mean: it's true that every single experience I have is one that I have to perceive with my mind, and it can therefore be said to be "inside the mind." But within that experience my mind perceives, I'm more than capable of distinguishing between a couch and my thoughts about the couch. I know that the couch can be perceived by any impartial observer; my thoughts about the couch can only be perceived by me. Within this world that I perceive, I can easily label the former "something outside my mind" (meaning something that any impartial observer can perceive) and the latter "something inside my mind" (meaning something that only I can perceive)."
This is a point I been trying and trying to make, and you STILL refuse to understand it! Your claim that this separation of what is perceived and what is "out there" is STILL within the mind, and subject TO the mind itself. What we experience as something is FILTERED and tainted by the mind. Just a real science based example, take color. We may see a "green" couch, yet in "reality" it is EVERY color BUT green! As "green" in light is reflected from the object (the couch) and into the eye where we perceive it as colored green. This is a crude example of how things are tainted and created within the mind. Experience is filled with such illusions. Another example, is simple the simple illusion itself, and how we can see something completely wrong. The mind may be ABLE to perceive aspects of this "outer" or objective thing/world that your mind ALLOWS in some cases. Others, who are not capable, or willing, etc., may NOT be able to perceive these things.
You can NEVER know what is "out there", and perhaps hidden from view. You are locked within your perception and mental belief structures. Take for example people blind from birth, who gain sight; they have to LEARN how to see depth and understand what they see. To say somehow automatically that "thoughts" inside your mind, and the perceived phenomena within the mind, are somehow mutually exclusive, and one cannot effect the other is silly. Once INSIDE the mind, they BOTH are basically "ideas" or mind stuff.
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@Avshalom Binyamin said
"If 70% of the population experiences something, by definition it can't be abnormal."
At one point in time nearly 100% of europe believed that the earth was flat, and that man is cursed with original sin. Similarly, peoples in even more remote times have believed all manner of ridiculous things. The pervasiveness of these ideas in any given culture is no credit to their merit. Sure, possessing the idea may be "normal", if by normal you mean "most people" would agree at that particular momentt. By your standard it was "normal" just 60 years ago to be racist and sexist. Just 10 years ago it was normal to be homophobic and against marriage equality. Just look how many people deny biology, physics, and world history ,just because it doesn't agree with them.
So you see it really doesn't matter how many people believe in ridiculous crap at any given time. In fact, I'd be willing to bet that so many people today buy any of it because we inherited the ideas from our ancestors (who believed in all sorts of crazy things from Jesus to original sin. Including everything in-between from spirits, to demons, to the daily death and rebirth of the sun.)
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@McMiller said
"At one point in time nearly 100% of europe believed that the earth was flat, and that man is cursed with original sin."
The difference in this case is that the article under discussion is about how people experience the event, and the circumstances under which they have such experiences. According to a couple of published studies, about 70% of people say that they have the type of experience described. There isn't any claim that it is or isn't this thing or that - just that they report that they have the type of experience described.
"Sure, possessing the idea may be "normal", if by normal you mean "most people" would agree at that particular momentt."
Yes, that IS what normal means - that it applies to the norm, the actual general level or typical. Normal isn't necessarily optimal (nor its opposite), not necessarily natural - but it's the norm.
"By your standard it was "normal" just 60 years ago to be racist and sexist."
Exactly. (At least, in this country and within certain majority ethnic groups.)
"So you see it really doesn't matter how many people believe in ridiculous crap at any given time."
That depends on the question. I think you're arguing over whether a particular interpretation is right or wrong, whether a particular suspected causation is true or false. That's not what the article was about... except for the conclusion at the en,d that prayer [and implicitly, I think, prayer-similar practices] is a powerful instrument, and that *prayer as a skill"
changes how we use our minds. It says more about us than about any target of those prayers. -
One potato, two potato, three potato, four...
Psychological normality is statistically derived, "fo' shore."
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Even the author of the article says they would not personally attribute the experience to god or anything spiritual.
It has been well known for many thousands of years that various practices can induce these experiences. Everything from yoga, to music, to drugs, to sex, to ritual. In the absence of modern science our ancestors made up all sorts of silly explanations for why things happen.
You don't have to be completely crazy to have had some sort of experience with what the article is talking about. Even without prayer or intense meditation some people have overly active imaginations. In the end it all comes down to what a person believes about what they are experiencing.
Churches and forums like this one can act as a support group for people to reinforce and share each others delusions. Maybe some level of indulgence in this is healthy for some people, and can keep people from going "over the edge". Sadly however I still feel the potential for harm is greater than good.
Just look at all the cases of people who hear god's voice tell them to kill abortion doctors, or drown their infant child. Look at all the crazy occultists who have delusions of being the "chosen one" and all that. People who take their conspiracy delusions to the level of paranoid schizophrenia. Our society is riddled with this stuff.
Not to mention all the wars and fighting for supremacy of ideology.
There are many different levels of crazy and sane. Everyone knows what a crazy crackhead bum looks like. And yet plenty of people who consider themselves perfectly sane will buy into homeopathic or magical cures that are totally bunk. I think that's crazy.
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@McMiller said
"Even the author of the article says they would not personally attribute the experience to god or anything spiritual."
It seems to me that you're trying to create an argument where nobody is arguing.
As the OP, I'm certainly not saying that the contents of the article speak one way or the other to a cause or explanation, only to description of the phenomena (which is my greater area of interest anyway). The only position reflected in the original post is my conclusion that "people who practice substantially the methods recommended by Abramelin will obtain results substantially the same as those predicted by Abramelin."
"Sadly however I still feel the potential for harm is greater than good."
Understood, with appreciation for your concern.
"Just look at all the cases of people who hear god's voice tell them to kill abortion doctors, or drown their infant child."
Those are schizophrenics. The article clearly distinguishes between characteristics of the "hearing the voice of God" by the 1% of the populace that is schizophrenic, from "hearing the voice of God" by the 70% of non-schiz people. The experiences are dramatically different. (Well, I have to admit that some of the latter might well think God wants them to torch a clinic. But, hey, if they're the kind of person who would do that, then they could just as easily do that because their neighbor told them to.)
"Not to mention all the wars and fighting for supremacy of ideology."
Of course, if religion weren't the excuse, there would still be wars and fighting for the supremacy of ideology. It just wouldn't be religious ideology. (The same nonrational centers of the brain are hyperactive during political argument as during religious argument; or, for that matter, arguments over commercial product superiority.)
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From the highly suggestible to the psychologically unsound,
If ever I have bound thee, be by these words unbound.Just in a rhyming mood, I guess. Ignore it if you wish.
I've all the moods, and flare, and the opinions of a fish.Is poesizing crazy? It's abnormal; that's fo shore.
But every one in twelve's abnormal to eleven more.Functional's the crazy question, and functioning, I am,
And being right's the right of all who on opinion stand.By gum! You're right!
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@Los said
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@Avshalom Binyamin said
"I'd like to believe in this objective, extra-mental reality you believe in, Los, but all the evidence I've been able to observe came to me through my mind."I see I'm going to have to explain this again...."
Why didn't you just say, "I'm a metaphysical realist"? Those five words would've said the same thing and taken up a lot less space.
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@Los said
"But a healthy individual is very capable of distinguishing -- within those experiences perceived by the mind -- between things. Two primary categories -- again, within the world perceived through subjective experience -- we call "things in the mind" (such as thoughts or emotions or hallucinations) and "things not in the mind" (such as the couch in front of me)."
What defines the couch outside of your mind?
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@Uni_Verse said
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@Los said
"But a healthy individual is very capable of distinguishing -- within those experiences perceived by the mind -- between things. Two primary categories -- again, within the world perceived through subjective experience -- we call "things in the mind" (such as thoughts or emotions or hallucinations) and "things not in the mind" (such as the couch in front of me)."What defines the couch outside of your mind?"
The couch is something that any impartial observer can detect. My thoughts about the couch can only be detected by me.
Further, my thoughts about the couch have no impact on what the couch actually is. For example, I may misremember the couch as being darker than it actually is, and I can later discover that my thought doesn't match the actual state of affairs with regards to the couch's color.
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@Los said
"The couch is something that any impartial observer can detect."
Are you sure about that? I mean, have you asked them all?
I just can't think of a single way you could be sure about that without presupposition. I don't understand the mechanics (etc.) of how you could confirm that anything whatsoever existed outside of your mind. (Even having other people tell you they saw it isn't good enough unless you have already established that they exist independent of your thoughts about them.)
You'd have to be out of your mind to observe that the couch existed out of your mind
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Yeah, who here hasn't had a dream where the other characters "independently confirmed" an "objective fact"?
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@Jim Eshelman said
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@Los said
"The couch is something that any impartial observer can detect."Are you sure about that? I mean, have you asked them all?
I just can't think of a single way you could be sure about that without presupposition. I don't understand the mechanics (etc.) of how you could confirm that anything whatsoever existed outside of your mind. (Even having other people tell you they saw it isn't good enough unless you have already established that they exist independent of your thoughts about them.)
You'd have to be out of your mind to observe that the couch existed out of your mind"
If Los understood the Observer Effect (and the Copenhagen Interpretation) he'd know that observations are never impartial.
"But I will go so far as to suggest that no two brain-mind states are ever perfectly identical."
J. Allan Hobson, The Chemistry of Conscious States, Part 1, Defining the Brain-Mind, Ch. 2, "Brain-Mind Schizophrenia," section, "Why a New Paradigm?" (p. 29).
Thanks to Frater 639 for bringing this author to my attention.
"In the province of the mind, what is believed to be true is true or becomes within the limits to be learned by experience and experiment."
John C. Lilly, Programming and Metaprogramming in the Human Biocomputer.
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@Jim Eshelman said
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@Los said
"The couch is something that any impartial observer can detect."Are you sure about that? I mean, have you asked them all?
I just can't think of a single way you could be sure about that without presupposition."
That's because you seem to be using "sure" in the sense of absolute certainty, which is both impossible to have and completely irrelevant. All a person needs is to be reasonably convinced that it's likely to be true, based on the evidence, that the couch is something that other people can detect and interact with, in distinction to other types of things, like thoughts in my head.
"I don't understand the mechanics (etc.) of how you could confirm that anything whatsoever existed outside of your mind."
Of course you don't understand it: because you insist on disingenuously using "mind" to refer both to the vehicle of perception and one of the categories that we're capable of distinguishing within those perceptions, based on evidence gathered within those perceptions.
This isn't the first time you've conflated words and tried to draw conclusions on the back of labels, rather than the things to which the labels refer.
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@Avshalom Binyamin said
"Yeah, who here hasn't had a dream where the other characters "independently confirmed" an "objective fact"?"
And you seem to have since determined -- based on evidence -- that it was a dream and thus only available to you, unlike, say, this message, which is perfectly available for any person with an internet connection to read.
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I behave as if that's the case, but I'm not absolutely certain, sure, or without a doubt, that I'm not dreaming or deluded about the objective nature of thus forum.
In other words, I try not to conflate the concepts of certainty and assumptions about reality.
Btw, I didn't see you mention it in this thread, but have you any personal experience hearing the voice of God?
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The relationship between perception and reality may be more subtle that we suspect, and calling all perception hallucinatory may make a valid metaphysical point, but it casts too wide a net for ordinary conversation. It makes sense to distinguish ordinary perception from hallucination, or else the word hallucination is not useful.
Or to take a different tack, and allude again to Sach's book, there are various types of hallucination. So if it makes you happy to call the ordinary waking perception of a couch hallucination, then fine, but you have to recognize that it is of a different kind -- it has distinct characteristics and a different neurological cause -- from, say, the hallucinations caused by macular degeneration, those we call hypnogogic imagery, those associated with schizophrenia, the boring ear-ringing called tinnitus, etc.