Which field of science are you involved in, Snakespirit? Just curious - I presume it doesn’t relate to biology etc or you’d be bringing that up more in your arguments.
You keep saying that others are generating this argument, not you. Well, whoever started it, and wherever it started, it’s a debate now, and I’m sure you have a point of view on the reality / lack of reality of astral projection. Why not post your manifesto on this subject, so to speak, eg “I believe / argue that…”, so we can move this debate along a bit?
<nitpick mode>And in your sig, it should be Batty, not Baty.</nitpick mode>
“No validity in science”–slop talk. Always the same BS. You and other self-labeled skeptics use “anecdote” in a pejorative fasion, which begs the question of how a particular claim or piece of information that you so label should be treated vis-a-vis the scientific method and integrated into a body of widely recognized knowledge.
Psychiatrists recording dialog of mentally ill people and noticing trends in mental states–not anecdotes; gooood science.
Investigators recording EVPs and drawing conclusions about the afterlife: All anecdotes! Baaaaad.
Your logic is invalid, period. And your attitude and manner in this thread has been most poor.
Psychiatrists recording dialog of mentally ill people and noticing trends in mental states-gooood science.
Psychiatrists recording dialog of mentally ill people and believing what they say, even though it flies in the face of reason-baaaad science.
Investigators not making conclusions without sufficient data to back up said conclusions-gooood science.
Investigators jumping to conclusions that are base on spotty data, while throwing everything they learned in college out the window-baaaad science.
We don’t disagree here. But the point about differences in perception based upon prejudice and politics remains. The self-labeled skeptics’ shorthand of saying, “Nya, I call that an anecdote–so it doesn’t count!” is bad logic. We can skip the extra a’s.
Sure. We’re the Government, we’re here to help you… :dubious:
Cultural Anthropology. Very observational, minimally theoretical. It’s kinda a hard soft science…
For my purposes, the ‘debate’ is moving along quite nicely. I’m gathering information, getting references, studies and points of view from an international audience. But, not being one to curb investigation:
The Holy Snakespirit Manifesto on “Astral Projection:”
I believe that I, and others, have had experiences that seem to indicate that there *may be * a transmission of information outside the standard, garden-variety five senses.
Having read various dismissals of the subject, I believe the subject is being dismissed due to some inability to explain it in “scientific terms.” Like, “If it don’t fit our paradigm, it ain’t real.” We see this as ethnocentrism, and realize that while it has value to that particular culture or subculture (like the subculture that calls itself ‘reasonable skeptic’ when under observation it is more like ethnoracist cynic), it has little value as an investigational tool.
ON THE OTHER HAND (left or right?), some explanations seem to come constructed out of whole cloth, i.e., “This is one possible explanation, therefore it holds in all possible cases,” or "Gee, may aunt and I experienced it so in accordance with our religious beliefs it is REAL (as described).
Consequently, as a good social (or anti-social) scientist, I collect ethnographic accounts (pro and con) upon which to base further investigations. And in case you are worried, yes, I am doing it with taxpayer dollars. If you don’t like it, vote Libertarian.
While I recognize the cultural validity of anecdotal evidence, I am interested that there is a cross-cultural perspective, as well. Almost all cultures report anecdotal phenomenon that fits roughly into the space we have designated for “Astral Projection.” The terms are different, but the phenomenon is universal (not almost universal, btw).
Consequently, I look for rigerously-constructed explanations as well as detailed anecdotal evidence. Not dismissals, not airy-fairy embrasures, not even cultural constructs (because we are dealing with cross-cultural phenomenon).
Some here have submitted scientifically-based theorums (yet unproven) to explain the phenomenon. Others have related personal experiences, others have related explanations based on what we Soc.Scient. would call “concentric validation,” others have put in opinions, religious constructs, etc. All of which is valuable to investigate.
(Aren’t you so glad you asked?)
As to what I believe: Well, I don’t. I know something is happening which goes beyond individual hallucination because of the similarity of the reports. Studies of hallucination, cross-culturally, show a random pattern of manifestation based mostly on cultural beliefs and education. We hallucinate what fits into our world paradigm, if even on the edges. That is, if it’s already in the brain, it tends to come out. Cultures with no concept of “astral projection” still have experiences which correspond roughly to what is called astral projection by Western culture. As another poster here has already aptly pointed out, the Hindu view of astral projection is far more rigid and complex than our Western view, reflecting the long cultural involvement with the phenomenon.
There may be chemical explanations, but so many of those correspond to the “chicken and the egg” question. Is the chemical causing the experience or is the experience causing the chemical? We have a lot to learn about brain, thought, mind, etc., and like I said, it’s not my field. I do know that when you dream your brain generates (or produces, at least) the alpha brain wave frequency. I also know that through consciousness people can generate the alpha brain wave frequency without dreaming and while even wide awake. I don’t know of any brainwave tests on people that cut across fantasy AP, experiental AP and voluntary AP, all of which would be necessary to determine the association with brain electro-chemistry.
This stuff popping up about souls, well, I think it IS related and IS relevent here, though some seem to think that it’s hijacking a discussion. I’ve seen a lot of concentric validation regarding so-called spirit phenomenon. Obviously I know *something * is going on, but we have a dearth of reasonable explanations.
So explanations? They are way premature. Beliefs? They don’t matter. Truth? We got a long way to go, though some here think they’ve reached the end of the highway already, and I guess they have (crash, tinkle). Science has a lot to learn. If you are smug in your knowledge, you will get shot down eventually, though you may refuse to acknowledge it if you wish. The mark of a good scientist, IMHO, is one who admits how much he/she/it doesn’t know, and who leaves room for new discoveries. Those who imagine they know it all already are… well, let’s be charitable and call them misinformed.
I’ll check that out and get back to you. Thanks for your hypervigilance.
You have two theories, one of which is backed up by research and which doesn’t defy reason and logic, the other backed up by anecdotes, wishes and feelings that require the tossing out of a lot of established science. Where in the wide, wide world of sports is the debate? There may be two sides to this story, but one side is undeniably and infinitely stronger than the other.
The phenomenon does not fit the materialist-reductionist worldview, hence the desire to deny it even exists. It’s funny–Freud pulls a whole model of the mind out of his ass and only gets shot down 100 years later. Researchers do serious psi work in the lab at standards close to those of the physical sciences, and they get pissed on. It’s absolutely amazing. But slowly people are coming around.
Oh, but watch out. Once a phenomenon can no longer be denied casually, it will be given a scientific-sounding name and cognitively divorced from the worldview war now in progress. Take the “placebo effect”–here, if anything, is a phenomenon that seems “paranormal”: a person just thinks s/he’s going to get better, so s/he does. But no: now that it can’t be denied, it’s treated as the most ordinary thing in the world. Then, the height of irony, if someone actually is able to heal in a holistic/nonstandard/paranormal fashion, then that healing is just dismissed as the “placebo” effect at work. Hilarious!
So if the materialists are forced to recognize that what one might term AP is taking place across cultures, they will just say, “Oh yeah, that thing the brain does–no biggie,” and try to ignore the implications as best they can.
Our knowledge of how consciousness works is such that we don’t even know what we don’t know. We’ve come to this brilliant discovery that the “brain does it,” and any discussion of consciousness just floats off on non-information-bearing jargon. At this point, I don’t think we’re even at the phlogiston level.
This is not very good even as an abbreviation of the problem. You make it sound as though, in order for psi and related phenomena to be proved true, other tenets of “established science” (whatever that means) would have to be thrown out totally.
Wrong.
Acknowledging the truth of Relativity did not require a wholesale dumping of Newtonian physics, even though now everything Newton ever wrote was “wrong” in the details. Acknowledging psi phenomena will require a more sophisticated theory of Reality. If the thought that this hard work lies ahead displeases you, then perhaps the scientific method really isn’t for you.
If you want to convince anyone who doesn’t already believe in it, you are going to have to come up with verifiable and repeatable evidence that a part of the human body that is invisible and unmeasurable can walk through walls and defy gravity, see without optic nerves, move without muscles or any other known means of transportation, live without a physical heart, hear without a working set of ears and think without a physical brain.
Here’s an exercise for the rest of you: How much science has to be totally cast aside for astral projection to be possible?
Except for the heart and brain part, the proof is in: dreaming. You’re doing all these things without the “required” organs.
The only question is how good the concordance is between what is experienced in the AP state and physical reality. This is testable. Difficult perhaps, but not undoable.
If the phenomenon itself is proven to exist, then we can worry about the mechanism.
Here’s a clue for you.
Just because you imagine or dream(same damn thing) that a unicorn was in your garden, you really shouldn’t waste your time looking for magic dung in the begonias.
Well, if you already believe you have proof (and I have to point out that attempts to do such simplistic experiments under controlled conditions have failed) then provide a testable hypothesis of the mechanism. Until you do that all you have is anecdote (see sig.).
Some of you underestimate altered states of consciousness. Humans haven’t been eating magic mushrooms for tens of thousands of years because they taste good…
“We do not possess imagination enough to sense what we are missing.” - Jean Toomer
And since you’re a moderator I guess we can’t call this a hijack…
None.
Verifiable, established energy, through wave patterns, holograpic matrices and hard scientists know what else can already do each and every one of those things.
We already know the human body produces immense amounts of various types of energy (I’d call you ‘coppertop’ here for reference, but you’d probably ban me, so I’ll bite my tongue ).
So, if this so-called ‘AP’ or ‘soul’ or ‘spirit’ is an energetic phenomenon, we don’t have to toss out anything. It all fits quite neatly.
Now, the problem of transferring consciousness to it…
Where does consciousness reside? In the brain, or in the energetic holograpic matrices associated with the brain? If you physically affect the brain, consciouness changes. If energy fields disrupt the energy patterns, consciousness changes (ever visit a LORAN station?)
Fact is, we don’t know yet. Or at least to my knowledge there has been no definitive study.
If the consciousness is in the energy field, and the energy field can do all those things you proposed, then consciouness would be able to travel approaching the speed of light across immense distances, etc.
Even materialistic science could stay, it’d just have to keep it’s nose where it belongs.
Sure, that’s a lot of ‘ifs,’ but you asked for a poll.
All I know about the “Boundary Institute” is what I see on that web site. It appears they are abysmally ignorant of probability, confirmation bias, the post hoc fallacy, selective thinking, self-deception, and subjective validation. And they are guilty of being in California, just to name the obvious.
But no matter. I’m sure they could put US$1,000,000 to good use in their lab on their pet projects. The day that they accept Randi’s generous offer and add that sum to their budget is the day I’ll believe they have some good research to offer.
ANY PSI that can be “universally experienced and verified in the lab” is eligible for this windfall. ANY group that doesn’t rush to grab it, or at least apply for it, is open to suspicion.
First of all James Randi is a showman, and he’s got tons of people snowed with his “offer.” It’s a publicity gimmick to make himself look good, and if he ever gave the prize out he’d lose face. IMO he’d lie, cheat and steal to keep his paws on that $1M. Not to mention, he’d lose a million bucks.
Most scientific studies on the fringe not only don’t have the time to jump through Randi’s hoops, they wouldn’t want the negative publicity that would come from playing poker with a card shark.
Randi knows enough deceptive tricks to spoil any positive outcome, an anyone who thinks he wouldn’t (or hasn’t) use(d) them is being naieve.
Let me spell it out:
James Randi is a deceiver, an admitted deceiver. He does things that are good for James Randi, not science. He revels in making people who are self-deceived look like the deceiver he is. It’s called misdirection.
On the flip side, he has likely exposed a few frauds as well. In fact, if anything, I would say the opposite of what you posit: that ANY group or individual that rushes out to grab it, or at least apply for it, is open to suspicion.
He teaches the blind to lead the blind, and has no place in this discussion.
Well,
There has to be a way to see without eyes.
There has to be a way to have consciousness without a brain.
There has to be a way to defy the laws of gravity.
There has to be a way to go through matter.
There has to be a way to form memories without a brain.
).