"We have nothing with the outcast"
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@Froclown said
"First I am not claiming that Atoms as we measure them and are aware of them are "things-in-them-selves"
Ok now let us say that all we are aware of is the thoughts of a greater over-mind such as Berkley's idealism. Well the first thing we must realize is that in this case our personal local mind would be part of the over-mind, a better term would be meta-mind and thus this higher mind would be an extension of ones own mind. But a side from this, the over-mind has to be a something, and every THING is a physical thing. That this mind contains parts and element, means that it is a thing with parts, thus the transfer or information from the general to the particular occurs causally and in space-time showing it has physical properties. Therefore the definition of an external physical world even in idealism includes existing extra-ego objects and event, with properties. To have properties means to exist, to exist means to be physical. The over-mind them must actually be an OVER-BRAIN. "
I kinda like this idea. But then I would say that you are not a militant materialist in the typical sense of the term. Personally I have irrefutable evidence that let's say for example "emotional energy" can work "at a distance" (having been careful to avoid such common errors as the Forer effect, suggestion, confirmation bias etc). If you want to say this is evidence that Reality is "mind" or you want to attribute it to Electo-magnetism or call it "factor X", it's really just semantics.
The method of science...yes I agree on the skeptical approach but I have experience which indicates that militant materialism in the typical sense has many missing facets in it's hypothesis and I'm careful to buy into such dogmas (but I'm also careful to avoid the New Agey lack of critical analysis too). Any model by it's nature must be imperfect, so for me personally I keep an open mind but I guard it with a good dose of skepticism.
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If "emotional energy" by which I assume you mean that others either recognize or harmonize their emotions with some one else without visual or auditory cues, is possible there must be a factor X, which I doubt could possibly be EMF radiation, but is more likely to be something like pheromones. However it would have to have a rational physical explanation.
You claim to have evidence than such a thing happens, then I will need to scrutinize your procedural methods and statistical analysis, because it could very well be that your personal biases accept a lower than statistically valid correlation for causation. Which is why we must have very strict controls and use math not personal feeling or intuitions or even direct personal experience as there are very susceptible to such problems as the gambler's fallacy, cognitive dissonance, many times of priming, among others.
Even with the strictest controls it is not completely certain than the causal mechanism will be found, but lack of evidence in not evidence of a lack. The curies originally believed that Radium produced a strange action at a distance with no interactions. Just as people one believed load stones exerted a magical attraction to lron and Newtons stellar orbits were based on what he considered Gravitational action at a distance with no material cause, rather it was the Divine law of God compelling the bodies to remain in orbit.
Each of there claims to a non-physical cause was one by one disproved as the physical cause was found, radioactivity, magnetic fields and the warp of space-time by massive bodies.
There is no reason to proclaim than anything exists outside the physical world. Rather the effects of magick are found to alter the workings of the physical brain, to play on the before mentioned cognitive dissonance, biases and priming of the nervous system, the semantic memory and processing of the temporal lobe, to name just a few. The physical brain creates the phenomenas awareness, thus acts of the physical body that effect the brain, distort and alter the way in which it creates the awareness of phenomena. The way personal mechanism by which the brain constructs meaning and awareness is what has been called the Paradigm, semantic map, or reality tunnel.
With one semantic map we can think of physical substance like water like all things are continuous and all the parts blur together, with another semantic map we can thin k about the physical particles or parts of the substance like the individual H20 molecules. We can take in between sized aggregates as well, like a fish is part of the whole continuous ocean, but is not a single particle nor is it the whole ocean. where we draw the lines in our perceptual reality is a matter of our internal mapping system, we can call the whole universe one continuous thing like Parmenedies and the Adventists school, we can claim it is made of innumeral atoms like the Demcratus school, we can emphasize change and say the world is like fire as Heraclitus and Buddha, or we can emphasize stability and say the world is like Earth and change is an illusion as the Hindus. Put here we are just playing with our brains and adjusting our semantic maps, if I change from the Parmenedies Unity of all substance to the Demacratus division of all into parts, I merely change by model of perspective, I change the workings and chemistry of by brain, the world out there did not change at all.
Since the brains awareness or the world is not the world it self, we are justified to use Crowley's 0=2 ontology, for the ontology the physical world itself transcends all our minds models of it. However it does remain what it is, and some models are closer to reality than others, and often we can't use just one model, one model reveals something useful and hides some other truth. The next model reveals what the other hides, but also hides what the first reveals. In all of this it is important to remember than these are models and they really are based on a solid external physical reality. Otherwise ANY MODEL is as good as any other and the Lunatic as any other. This is not the case because the lunatic has a model that is divorced from physical reality.
One might claim As Foucault does, that the lunatic is only divorced from our shared inter-subjective models and that his personal model is as good as ours, only we supress the lunatic for political reason. Which I agree in some cases may be true, such than a lone republican might be locked up as a loon in an all democratic nation. However, the man who is terrified than he might accidentally lick an envelope shut with himself inside and believes strongly that Micky Mouse is sending him death threats from the moon in a secret gnostic code only he can decipher from the new york times, is not merely socially and politically unpopular, he actually holds beliefs that are very far from Physical Reality itself.
Likewise I would add any sort of Platonism as being a mixed up understanding of ideas preceding material form, as if first an otherworldly thought appears and this then take on physical world form by reflection or harmonization. Since thought is a physical product of the one and only one world than exists. We must realize than the process starts with Physical matter, and events on the Physical world that become the physical brain. (Birth is in no way a miracle its the accumulation of food stuff by the mother that is constructed into a child in her womb, all physical) The brain then does not have thoughts in a vacuum, ideas don't just appear in the brain, nor do the come from space or another spiritual reality. The brain can not thing until some Physical object or event triggers the sense organs, and this sends physical signals to the brain making it alter its bio-chemical properties. These changes in the brain send back signals that move the body in relation to the input, Over a long period of trial and error, the events in the brain than produce not productive responses to the world die off and the ones than are productive become stronger. Thus the brain and the surrounding world via a feed back to each other, slowly start to grow, and the re-enforced activity in the brain becomes the semantic map or paradigm that models the interaction of the brain with a certain environment. The brain will eventually learn to switch between different maps as the physical environment or the goal in than environment changes.
Normally these shifts in the brain are not conscious they happen automatically and one feels as if one is Always a single mind with a single schema of awareness with one Self. But with certain practices one can became aware of the shifting schemas and that each one has its own sense of self or ego fragment, and each presents a different personality to the world. This realization I consider to be "lunar" as the moon changes phases and presents different appearances at different times. (if I'm not mistaken this in the realization that relates to Yesode and marks a Neophytes readiness to be initiated into the Grade of Zolator).
The movement of the self from the collage of schemas and appearances to the unchanging, the unknown knower that selects and tailors the schemas or moon phases, to purposely achieve its WILL then would be the Solar awareness. The point than one is aware of this inner Solar self being Knowledge and Conversation. That is awareness of the higher aspect of the brain, rooted in the unconscious that picks which schema and self to use in which situation. This being Tiphereth.
The point where one can fully merge conscious mind with the Solar Self, and engage in "Meta-programming the human bio-computer" would be the attainment of Binna, the third order. This is were one basically merges with the HGA and dissociates from the Lunar collage of identities and schemas, and chooses completely in what way to manifest oneself and what sort of perceptual schema to use.
That is about as detailed as I can express my understanding here
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"Ok now let us say that all we are aware of is the thoughts of a greater over-mind such as Berkley's idealism. Well the first thing we must realize is that in this case our personal local mind would be part of the over-mind, a better term would be meta-mind and thus this higher mind would be an extension of ones own mind. But a side from this, the over-mind has to be a something, and every THING is a physical thing. That this mind contains parts and element, means that it is a thing with parts, thus the transfer or information from the general to the particular occurs causally and in space-time showing it has physical properties. Therefore the definition of an external physical world even in idealism includes existing extra-ego objects and event, with properties. To have properties means to exist, to exist means to be physical. The over-mind them must actually be an OVER-BRAIN.
To use the Matrix example, if you are out of the matrix the physical world exists as the input to your brain, if you are in the matrix the Physical computer exists which pipes input into your brain.
To exist, have properties, limits, be bound by interactions between things with other limits, description, and expression in space-time is to be physical.
"
One Had. One Nu. The Star Sponge...
Is it really so hard to imagine? -
@Froclown said
"If "emotional energy" by which I assume you mean that others either recognize or harmonize their emotions with some one else without visual or auditory cues, is possible there must be a factor X, which I doubt could possibly be EMF radiation, but is more likely to be something like pheromones."
Only if pheromones can travel over many kilometers. I'm not sure they can without serious dilution into the atmosphere.
@Froclown said
"However it would have to have a rational physical explanation. "
Perhaps it does. Why does it matter?
@Froclown said
" You claim to have evidence than such a thing happens, then I will need to scrutinize your procedural methods and statistical analysis, because it could very well be that your personal biases accept a lower than statistically valid correlation for causation. Which is why we must have very strict controls and use math not personal feeling or intuitions or even direct personal experience as there are very susceptible to such problems as the gambler's fallacy, cognitive dissonance, many times of priming, among others. "
No you don't need to. I've already been through that exercise, which lasted several years in fact. Bear in mind that I have spent years researching psi claims and scientific methodologies, and at one point was a complete skeptic, so I'm well aware of the roles that the Forer effect, confirmation bias, auto suggestion, the file-drawer effect etc play in the role of psi experiments. My own personal evidence is not up for scrutiny - firstly, it's too personal and secondly although I haven't implemented a completely water-tight triple blind methodology per se, being aware of the problems associated with psi methodologies mentioned above I'm able to analyse their influence in my day-to-day "psi" experiences and have satisfactorily over the years managed to rule them out.
I even have for example evidence that knowledge of the "physical plane" can be attained through OBEs. Now certainly the experiment was not performed many many times to calculate a statistical mean, however the statistical significance of the one that one single event is incalculable....for example guessing the details of a highly specific conversation held by two people right down to the very words used. Even that highly improbable statistic did not convince me initially, it was a gradual wearing down over the years where psi events just became undeniable and as I said they're too personal to mention here.
If you want to scrutinize methodologies then look at the most promising experiment done in recent years within the parapsychology fraternity which was the role of "experimenter belief" in determining the outcome of psi experiments. Unfortunately it has not yet been replicated (with little funding for psi thee days, other than the charlatans who try to sell books and use popular mediums for their publicity stunts) but the paper is available here and as you will read the methodology is water-tight. In fact parapsychological sciences are breaking methodological ground because of their past criticisms. Check the section called "experimenter effects". The paper is available at the bottom of the page in pdf:
www.koestler-parapsychology.psy.ed.ac.uk/Psi.html
You know, Lionel Snell (OTO and IOT) mentions in an article that coming from a scientific background he always had issues with certain psychic phenomenon that, unlike in the magickal lives of his brethren, were not manifesting in his magical career. His conclusion was a "blockage" due to his skeptical nature. Now yes, I see the problem with confirmation bias when one changes or opens one's belief system, but the above Koestler study affirms his conclusions with the backing of a a water-tight methodology. He actually has a course at the online Arconorium College that explores this very idea - developing psychic ability for the skeptic.
Either way at the end of the day, there is little point in arguing. I've pointed out the problems associated with materialism's metaphysical assumptions and you're equally aware of the assumptions of ANY other metaphysical hypothesis. There's no intellectual way around it. I respect your knowledge of the Magickal arts and sciences and I'm certainly not here to convince you, it's no skin off my teeth.
One of the most valuable exercises I performed when I was of a New Agey kind of mindset was to psychologically evaluate WHY I believed what I did, what deep psychological need did I have to believe in God, life after death, psychic ability etc....and this process led me to materialism and skepticism, which in turn was eroded over the years as I have explained. I have noticed that materialists too have a psychological need to believe what they believe, from the gay guy that was damned by the church (and his parents) to eternal damnation to the person that needs the solidity of physicality to feel "earthed" or "secure". I'm not saying either of those apply to you (or any other materialist for that matter), but it's a well worth introspective exercise to undertake. The thing to ask is WHY one is trying to argue one's belief system - are you arguing with others, or is that simply a reflection of an internal conflict? I'm sure most of us are guilty of this, and like I said before, since our differing world views are intellectually based on metaphysical assumption, it's rather pointless arguing the subject.
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@modernPrimitive said
"
I even have for example evidence that knowledge of the "physical plane" can be attained through OBEs. Now certainly the experiment was not performed many many times to calculate a statistical mean, however the statistical significance of the one that one single event is incalculable....for example guessing the details of a highly specific conversation held by two people right down to the very words used. Even that highly improbable statistic did not convince me initially, it was a gradual wearing down over the years where psi events just became undeniable and as I said they're too personal to mention here."Interesting post - at the risk of derailing and already-well-derailed thread even more, do you know about Susan Blakemore's case? She was a psi/OOBE researcher who kind of went from believer to skeptic over the years, but she's still kind of "friendly" to the whole thing.
The other thing is, you should work on it more re. the physical case - after all, there's a million dollar prize waiting from James Randi for the first person to demonstrate it to sceptical satisfaction!
I'm pretty sceptical, but there's still wiggle room in that psi/occult phenomena may just be very, very rare, and the kinds of experiments done so far (mostly using random people I believe) have been useless because you either have to have a (very rare) talent for it, or have occult training. It's still possible - the fat lady hasn't *quite *sung yet, wrt closing of the scientific doors to all this stuff (although she is perilously close, hovering there on the wings
). -
@gurugeorge said
"
@modernPrimitive said
"
I even have for example evidence that knowledge of the "physical plane" can be attained through OBEs. Now certainly the experiment was not performed many many times to calculate a statistical mean, however the statistical significance of the one that one single event is incalculable....for example guessing the details of a highly specific conversation held by two people right down to the very words used. Even that highly improbable statistic did not convince me initially, it was a gradual wearing down over the years where psi events just became undeniable and as I said they're too personal to mention here."Interesting post - at the risk of derailing and already-well-derailed thread even more, do you know about Susan Blakemore's case? She was a psi/OOBE researcher who kind of went from believer to skeptic over the years, but she's still kind of "friendly" to the whole thing.
The other thing is, you should work on it more re. the physical case - after all, there's a million dollar prize waiting from James Randi for the first person to demonstrate it to sceptical satisfaction!
I'm pretty sceptical, but there's still wiggle room in that psi/occult phenomena may just be very, very rare, and the kinds of experiments done so far (mostly using random people I believe) have been useless because you either have to have a (very rare) talent for it, or have occult training. It's still possible - the fat lady hasn't *quite *sung yet, wrt closing of the scientific doors to all this stuff (although she is perilously close, hovering there on the wings
)."Yes apologies for the derails...I suppose this topic deerves it's own thread.
Hey gurugeorge. Are you the same gurugeorge from IIDB / "freeratio dot org"
Well if you are, you will know that I have spent at least several years discussing these topics on that particular forum. As I said, that was my personal journey into skepticism and it was highly valuable to me.Yes I know of Susan Blackmore. People have their opinions are always will and they're welcome to them. I actually contacted James Randi's man Jeff Wagg several years ago to discuss methodologies and there are posts on "freeratio dot org" discussing these particular methodologies. In discussions with my "partner" in the matter however, developing the methodology is rather difficult. Repeatability becomes difficult due to exertion. For example we found that an etheric projection was the best method for obtaining accurate "physical clairvoyance" however not every time one OBE's is one exactly on the "lowest frequency" of the etheric. Often the physical becomes distorted for example, a cupboard is in the wrong place - it's those times that the etheric is a true representation of the physical that we score. This is exceedingly difficult to control and moreover having to perform this say 20 times in a 12 hour period is just not viable.
Also, people forget that psychic events are usually of importance to some life situation, in other words there is the factor of emotional or psychological significance....a sense of ugency or an emotional need for clairvoyant knowledge. Just look at the efficacy of a ritual void of emotional content versus that which is full of emotional content - BIG difference in result. These are the very factors that the scientific method tries to eliminate, which is a bit of a problem because in the long term if we are to get anywhere we need to find a way to **account ** for them rather than **eliminate **them - in other words our current scientific method just offers us **part **of the picture. We create a "fake, sterile" environment that does not reflect the way reality is and then we are saying that psychism is not a part of reality. Yet the sterile conditions for the scientific method are not an accurate reflection of a reality in the first place. I understand that we probably do not yet have the tools to do this. We need a new scientific method that can **account **for these factors rather than eliminate them.....and I think that time is way off in the future although brain imaging shows that we are getting there. And I agree, parapsychologists need to work with hardcore occultists rather than popular mediums. But as we know even occultists and mystics don't always develop psychic ability.
Interestingly, the topic came up yesterday with my old "psi partner", as we have just confirmed our telepathic link yet again with some new events that occurred (again of a highly personal nature). His concern with Randi is firstly the emotional pressure to perform which affects concentration, secondly he doesn't want to be a guinea pig or become famous etc...ie: It's not his will and I don't think it is mine either. Moreover Randi now only challenges famous people. He's also apparently been caught lying and cheating to secure his own ends, which considering that he has bought into his belief system so strongly, is not surprising. The man is not a scientist, he's a stage magician and I'm not certain he is trustworthy regardless of his supposed good intentions.
However, Crowley does mention scientific testing as the future "method" of the A.'.A.'. and I think there will be value if Thelemites and the other highly experienced occultists could get together perform these experiments....whether secular society should know about it or not, is another matter.....
To me, it's not particularly important whether people believe it or not.
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"Also, people forget that psychic events are usually of importance to some life situation, in other words there is the factor of emotional or psychological significance....a sense of ugency or an emotional need for clairvoyant knowledge. Just look at the efficacy of a ritual void of emotional content versus that which is full of emotional content - BIG difference in result. These are the very factors that the scientific method tries to eliminate, which is a bit of a problem because in the long term if we are to get anywhere we need to find a way to account for them rather than eliminate them - in other words our current scientific method just offers us part of the picture. We create a "fake, sterile" environment that does not reflect the way reality is and then we are saying that psychism is not a part of reality. Yet the sterile conditions for the scientific method are not an accurate reflection of a reality in the first place. I understand that we probably do not yet have the tools to do this. We need a new scientific method that can account for these factors rather than eliminate them.....and I think that time is way off in the future although brain imaging shows that we are getting there. And I agree, parapsychologists need to work with hardcore occultists rather than popular mediums. But as we know even occultists and mystics don't always develop psychic ability. "
Yes. Precisely.
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@modernPrimitive said
"
@gurugeorge said
"
@modernPrimitive said
"
I even have for example evidence that knowledge of the "physical plane" can be attained through OBEs. Now certainly the experiment was not performed many many times to calculate a statistical mean, however the statistical significance of the one that one single event is incalculable....for example guessing the details of a highly specific conversation held by two people right down to the very words used. Even that highly improbable statistic did not convince me initially, it was a gradual wearing down over the years where psi events just became undeniable and as I said they're too personal to mention here."Interesting post - at the risk of derailing and already-well-derailed thread even more, do you know about Susan Blakemore's case? She was a psi/OOBE researcher who kind of went from believer to skeptic over the years, but she's still kind of "friendly" to the whole thing.
The other thing is, you should work on it more re. the physical case - after all, there's a million dollar prize waiting from James Randi for the first person to demonstrate it to sceptical satisfaction!
I'm pretty sceptical, but there's still wiggle room in that psi/occult phenomena may just be very, very rare, and the kinds of experiments done so far (mostly using random people I believe) have been useless because you either have to have a (very rare) talent for it, or have occult training. It's still possible - the fat lady hasn't *quite *sung yet, wrt closing of the scientific doors to all this stuff (although she is perilously close, hovering there on the wings
)."Yes apologies for the derails...I suppose this topic deerves it's own thread.
Hey gurugeorge. Are you the same gurugeorge from IIDB / freeratio.org?
Well if you are, you will know that I have spent at least several years discussing these topics on that particular forum. As I said, that was my personal journey into skepticism and it was highly valuable to me.Yes I know of Susan Blackmore. People have their opinions are always will and they're welcome to them. I actually contacted James Randi's man Jeff Wagg several years ago to discuss methodologies and there are posts on freeratio.org discussing these particular methodologies. In discussions with my "partner" in the matter however, developing the methodology is rather difficult. Repeatability becomes difficult due to exertion. For example we found that an etheric projection was the best method for obtaining accurate "physical clairvoyance" however not every time one OBE's is one exactly on the "lowest frequency" of the etheric. Often the physical becomes distorted for example, a cupboard is in the wrong place - it's those times that the etheric is a true representation of the physical that we score. This is exceedingly difficult to control and moreover having to perform this say 20 times in a 12 hour period is just not viable.
Also, people forget that psychic events are usually of importance to some life situation, in other words there is the factor of emotional or psychological significance....a sense of ugency or an emotional need for clairvoyant knowledge. Just look at the efficacy of a ritual void of emotional content versus that which is full of emotional content - BIG difference in result. These are the very factors that the scientific method tries to eliminate, which is a bit of a problem because in the long term if we are to get anywhere we need to find a way to **account ** for them rather than **eliminate **them - in other words our current scientific method just offers us **part **of the picture. We create a "fake, sterile" environment that does not reflect the way reality is and then we are saying that psychism is not a part of reality. Yet the sterile conditions for the scientific method are not an accurate reflection of a reality in the first place. I understand that we probably do not yet have the tools to do this. We need a new scientific method that can **account **for these factors rather than eliminate them.....and I think that time is way off in the future although brain imaging shows that we are getting there. And I agree, parapsychologists need to work with hardcore occultists rather than popular mediums. But as we know even occultists and mystics don't always develop psychic ability.
Interestingly, the topic came up yesterday with my old "psi partner", as we have just confirmed our telepathic link yet again with some new events that occurred (again of a highly personal nature). His concern with Randi is firstly the emotional pressure to perform which affects concentration, secondly he doesn't want to be a guinea pig or become famous etc...ie: It's not his will and I don't think it is mine either. Moreover Randi now only challenges famous people. He's also apparently been caught lying and cheating to secure his own ends, which considering that he has bought into his belief system so strongly, is not surprising. The man is not a scientist, he's a stage magician and I'm not certain he is trustworthy regardless of his supposed good intentions.
However, Crowley does mention scientific testing as the future "method" of the A.'.A.'. and I think there will be value if Thelemites and the other highly experienced occultists could get together perform these experiments....whether secular society should know about it or not, is another matter.....
To me, it's not particularly important whether people believe it or not."
Great post. Re. experiments - perhaps virtual reality (game engines) could be used to simulate, in a controlled way, the emotional charge, in experiments?
Recently I played a great CRPG called Dragon Age: Origins. That's the first game that I've reacted to like a great film (i.e. cried in a weepy bit). These things are getting better and better. Perhaps at some point they could be used as initiation tools, on the one hand, and as experimental tools, on the other. You could create a "mod" (modification of the game using the game's tools, made by fans) for this sort of experiment in a game like Dragon Age (or other games like Oblivion and Fallout 3, which are also moddable).
As a tool of initiation, it would, curiously enough, be a return to the truly ancient way of doing this - real rituals that are secret to the aspirant, that evoke strong feelings in being lived-through.
But even before that, which I think still has a bit of time to come, you could use game engines in the kinds of experiments you are talking about.
Thinking further on this: imagine you are in a 6-person virtual "party" of dragon-slayers (i.e. 6 of you are controlling fighting avatars, and you can communicate with each other), and another experimenter is the GM (game master). You've fought your way through some monsters, so your adrenaline is up. To get past the final "seal" on the door to the dragon's lair, you all have to guess the correct symbol out of a bunch of proferred symbols (this correct symbol is the one the GM is thinking about). Each time you get it wrong, a bit of your health diminishes, and you have less chance of beating the game. (Winning in-game could be tied to a sizeable "treat" irl.)
That might get the juices flowing enough to charge the psychic meter up; yet it's still all totally controlled in a scientific manner.
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There is nothing in the scientific method that prevents the participants in the ritual from experiencing intense emotions, however impartiality is necessary on the part of the observer, and the instruments used must not be influenced or interpreted falsely via emotional biases.
If you are trying to demonstrate than a particular ritual has the ability to stir emotions in a particular way that effects the biases and psychology producing inaccurate observations, which may include the stimulation of the sense of meaning, profundity, and other such feelings and psychological states that create the illusion of certainty, then I will agree 100% that this is possible. It is also falsifiable and can be experimentally verified.
That ritual creates these distortions of psychology that effect general perception and cognition, not just in the interpretation of experimental data but is life experience in general, and especially the illusion of certainty can and does have an effect on beliefs and behavior. That when these sorts of psychological states are active it is very hard to dissuade the individual that their personal feelings are accurate.
Take the Gambler who has never learned statistics, he will believe die hard and dead on that after 20 loses on the same bet, the odds are finally in his favor and ups the ante. No matter how hard you try to tell him, the odds are the same every round, he will not believe. Show him the evidence and he will either refuse to accept it, or will believe the evidence but back on the casino floor will continue his bad habits despite the evidence. This is because just knowing the information, is not enough for it to really sink in, the brain is hard wired for the gamblers fallacy, and it takes work to change it. You have to actually write down what bets to make win, and do the math, if you rely on your gut, you will always make the fallacy.
The same is true with rituals but where as a casino if a ritual environment designed to manipulate and profit form the Gamblers fallacy and others like this, the magick ritual stimulates other perceptual and cognitive fallacies and errors to produce illusions, and incorrect conclusions, and other unusual mental phenomena. The effects of magick can be amazing, can stimulate feelings of meaning and certainty, etc. But it is best to think of the ritual trance state as an intoxication, and just as you would not believe in the pink elephants of a drunk, so too should one be highly skeptical of the anecdotal evidence provided by magicians.
Unless the ritual is closely observed by an observer with instruments that are not aroused by the emotions and states stimulated by the ritual behavior, one can not take anything gleaned by the participants for fact.
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@Froclown said
"There is nothing in the scientific method that prevents the participants in the ritual from experiencing intense emotions, however impartiality is necessary on the part of the observer, and the instruments used must not be influenced or interpreted falsely via emotional biases.
"For the most part the controls create an emotionally / psychically sterile environment for the subjects. Those based on emotional content, such as one study which analysed the ECG's of people who were shown images that induced an emotional response have been more successful than the "guess the picture on the card" type of experiments. Failure of parapsychologists and the general public to understand psi as having a strong emotional component is to blame for this. I know in my own personal experience that it is far easier to sense emotions than guess a symbol or number. (Kabalistically we want something as close to Assiah as possible, "thoughts" are too fleeting, emotions are far more viable a test).
Moreover, how do you remove the belief system of the experimenter? Methodologists are assuming that because the necessary controls are in place, the experimenter's / judge's, sponsor's and even public's beliefs cannot influence the outcome of the experiment - and that's based on blind acceptance of materialistic assumption. This is a form of confirmation bias and that is not proper science / skepticism.
This is why we have to create control groups to account for the placebo effect, which scientists have made little headway in explaining. Why is the placebo effect even there in the first place if the proper controls are in place...well obviously belief has something to do with it.
Did you even read the paper I posted?
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@gurugeorge said
"Great post. Re. experiments - perhaps virtual reality (game engines) could be used to simulate, in a controlled way, the emotional charge, in experiments?
Recently I played a great CRPG called Dragon Age: Origins. That's the first game that I've reacted to like a great film (i.e. cried in a weepy bit). These things are getting better and better. Perhaps at some point they could be used as initiation tools, on the one hand, and as experimental tools, on the other. You could create a "mod" (modification of the game using the game's tools, made by fans) for this sort of experiment in a game like Dragon Age (or other games like Oblivion and Fallout 3, which are also moddable).
As a tool of initiation, it would, curiously enough, be a return to the truly ancient way of doing this - real rituals that are secret to the aspirant, that evoke strong feelings in being lived-through.
But even before that, which I think still has a bit of time to come, you could use game engines in the kinds of experiments you are talking about.
Thinking further on this: imagine you are in a 6-person virtual "party" of dragon-slayers (i.e. 6 of you are controlling fighting avatars, and you can communicate with each other), and another experimenter is the GM (game master). You've fought your way through some monsters, so your adrenaline is up. To get past the final "seal" on the door to the dragon's lair, you all have to guess the correct symbol out of a bunch of proferred symbols (this correct symbol is the one the GM is thinking about). Each time you get it wrong, a bit of your health diminishes, and you have less chance of beating the game. (Winning in-game could be tied to a sizeable "treat" irl.)
That might get the juices flowing enough to charge the psychic meter up; yet it's still all totally controlled in a scientific manner."
Interesting ideas!
I was thinking more along the lines, for starters, of measuring the correlation of brain activity (MRIs) with psi "hits" vs "misses".
Baselines of emotional states of participants, are they anxious today, preoccupied etc, and how has that affected their performance? -
just as the answer to a math problem does not change with the emotional state of the person who solves the problem, a properly set up experiment has no interference form the experimenter, if the procedure is done correct the result is tallied by un-biasable method. If the experimented in her bias was to misread an instrument, the photo will show her error, if she tweaked the myth by rounding up or not solving the problem right, it will show in her work.
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@Froclown said
"just as the answer to a math problem does not change with the emotional state of the person who solves the problem, a properly set up experiment has no interference form the experimenter, if the procedure is done correct the result is tallied by un-biasable method."
I'm not talking about the experimenter's / particiapnt's bias directing the outcome via "normal, physical" means. If we hypothesize that psi exists then there would be "mental" ways of affecting the experiment by belief - and apparently you still have not read the paper to which I linked. You see, the fault is in assuming materialism in the methodology (that the mind cannot affect matter indirectly) which is bias which is not good science.
It's the same reason we have to set up control groups to account for the "Placebo effect". Why does the placebo effect even exist if our methodologies are supposedly so perfect? Well we do know that it has something to do with people's beliefs. AHA! Now, just think about that carefully for a second, then tie that back up with my first paragraph.
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"Great post. Re. experiments - perhaps virtual reality (game engines) could be used to simulate, in a controlled way, the emotional charge, in experiments?
Recently I played a great CRPG called Dragon Age: Origins. That's the first game that I've reacted to like a great film (i.e. cried in a weepy bit). These things are getting better and better. Perhaps at some point they could be used as initiation tools, on the one hand, and as experimental tools, on the other. You could create a "mod" (modification of the game using the game's tools, made by fans) for this sort of experiment in a game like Dragon Age (or other games like Oblivion and Fallout 3, which are also moddable).
As a tool of initiation, it would, curiously enough, be a return to the truly ancient way of doing this - real rituals that are secret to the aspirant, that evoke strong feelings in being lived-through.
But even before that, which I think still has a bit of time to come, you could use game engines in the kinds of experiments you are talking about.
Thinking further on this: imagine you are in a 6-person virtual "party" of dragon-slayers (i.e. 6 of you are controlling fighting avatars, and you can communicate with each other), and another experimenter is the GM (game master). You've fought your way through some monsters, so your adrenaline is up. To get past the final "seal" on the door to the dragon's lair, you all have to guess the correct symbol out of a bunch of proferred symbols (this correct symbol is the one the GM is thinking about). Each time you get it wrong, a bit of your health diminishes, and you have less chance of beating the game. (Winning in-game could be tied to a sizeable "treat" irl.)
That might get the juices flowing enough to charge the psychic meter up; yet it's still all totally controlled in a scientific manner.
"These are all very worthwhile ideas and subject of some research I am doing. Specifically, when I get my hands on this little item, I plan to grab raw EEG/brainwave data during various rituals, consciousness frequencies, entheogens, and even while sleeping and dreaming. This device was also developed with the use of games and virtual worlds and game engines in mind. This adds new dimensions of data to such experiments.
img194 dot imageshack.us/img194/1865/emotiv2.jpg
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There is an SDK which exposes collection APIs:
"A high resolution, neuro-signal acquisition and processing wireless neuroheadset and our proprietary software toolkit that exposes our APIs and detection libraries.
Real-time display of the Emotiv headset data stream, including EEG, contact quality, FFT, gyro (if fitted â custom option), wireless packet acquisition/loss display, marker events, headset battery level.
"
https://www.emotiv.com/ResearchPlus.html
I dont' have it yet, so not sure how well it works or if its crap. Certainly a 1st generation model..
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@vortex666 said
"These are all very worthwhile ideas and subject of some research I am doing. Specifically, when I get my hands on this little item, I plan to grab raw EEG/brainwave data during various rituals, consciousness frequencies, entheogens, and even while sleeping and dreaming. This device was also developed with the use of games and virtual worlds and game engines in mind. This adds new dimensions of data to such experiments."
Holy Shit! I suppose now would not be a good time to mention that I'm in the visual effects and production / post production industry, which means I can produce 3D / video content.
looks around suspiciously