Perceptions of Reality

Sorry if I only hit the highlights ... Yes, telepathy and precognition are both classic extrasensory perception {classifications\types\concepts}, and no, they have not been scientifically confirmed (science never 'proves' although it can disprove), but neither has it disproven it being possible.If there were a theory of how it works, tests might be more productive. I know I was a test subject at the Dept of Psychology at Duke in the late '60's - and a lousy subject (not asked to come back). Many such have been done (many funded by the CIA for some strange reason eh?) and none - to my knowledge - ever showed any remarkable effect (ie results above random guessing).The other effects you talked about would be classified as being an "empath" - sensing the emotive states of others with some extra sense of empathy. It's more of a "just not sure" coupled with "it could be" and "if so, what kind" issue.Another indicator for me is saints and prophets: people with extra spiritual character, perhaps with precognition of some kind. They exist in all religions. Buddha, Ghandi, Mother Teresa, etcetera. The only thing I know is my out-of-body experience, where I could look at myself sitting in a chair and then {walk?\drift?} out of the room and into another, watching the people in that room. Having no physical ability (it's still in the chair) but also no physical restrictions. Or, was it all hallucination?What we "see" may be based more on our preconceptions of reality. Then why not {mutual\equal} assistance? I think no two people can NOT have a different view of the reality. (ain't no double negatives not there). I disagree that it is a fact. I think it is a myth based on selected criteria. Show me a man that can {have\bear} or (as you say) nurse a child eh?The average values on certain abilities may give one sex a seeming superiority above the other, but when you look at the whole picture you see so many abilities that they all average out, PLUS the spread of ability within each sex is much greater than the apparent difference between the sexes, AND it is still possible for one out of normal ability range in either sex to exceed the ability of all in the other sex even though the average is less. This is cultural bias. Men and women are raised to fill those roles rather than letting them occur naturally. There have been societies that are matriarchies, where the basic assumption is a superiority of women over men. The most extreme I know of is the Na in china, where women own all the property and rule the households, and where men live in their {family\sister} homes with something of a phantom existence. Of course, speaking from an evolutionary standpoint, we rise from an organic background where emotions were simple means to control reactions in normally beneficial directions: emotions are our heritage. This doesn't mean that emotions always rule or even need to.We've reached a point of consciousness that allows us to use alternate means of controlling reactions\perceptions. Using logic and scientific means we have substantially altered our perception of reality based on reproducible experiences: these are not based on emotions but on consciousness.Do we throw out emotions as a result? I think the proper reaction is {skepticism + curiosity} as noted above (re nighttrain post) Never had to. The worst we had to impose was "time-outs" sitting in the hall with no toys, books etc. Yes it breaks your heart to discipline a (loved of course) child, but you counter that with knowledge of the results either way, and knowing that the child is not (yet) fully formed (and science now tells us that the brain area, the "conscious seat" that governs responsibility for actions is not fully developed until the 20's ...). He's an eagle scout and finishing college with a degree that will furnish him many creatively rewarding hours working in a lucrative profession. It is wonderful to see him blossoming these last years into such a unique and caring person (no emotional bias at all ). I have also seen {parents that spank} fail to provide a consistent level of discipline so that the child never learns what to expect.But this is off topic and has no bearing on perceptions of reality OTHER than to suggest that perceived realities ARE different for different people. An 'emotional response' I'm sorry to say, but this kind of thing gives me (methane) gas ... ... there are just too many successful societies that have varied from total matriarchies to total patriarchies, and where none have shown any superiority over the other, for this to be the case. This is refuted by other experiences. Anyone that assumes that some people are necessarily subservient to other people is doing a grave dis-service to all people. Anyone who claims that other people "don't know their place" is likewise expressing prejudice and bias. Personally I find this kind of thinking small minded and inconsiderate.A truly enlightened society is based on equality, liberty, freedom, respect of basic human rights (stop me when it sounds familiar eh?), and this means between sexes, not just on the books but in the minds. Enforced by {physical\mental\cultural} abuse? There's a good model society! Or the man WILL listen if he wants to get lucky eh? Again I find a cultural bias that is not based on facts or on behavior seen in other societies. To me the existence of multiple means of co-existence says that no one model is necessarily better than the others. Personally I prefer serial monogamy, but that's just my opinion, based on my perceived reality of behaviors of people, but I don't see why a {polygamy+polyandry} family wouldn't work ... Not only is there no such evidence there (logically) can be no such evidence, the default minimalist position being the deist one of starting the whole shebang and letting it run along predefined general 'trendencies' that govern everything from the behavior of planets and stars to the formation and evolution of life on any (and all) properly set up celestial body ... and we happen to be one such.What can be addressed is issues of perceived reality based on certain interpretations of religions. The sun does not orbit the earth. This has become such common knowledge that some people argue that it was never a real position of a certain religion that it did. Likewise whether or not the earth is old can be addressed by looking at the evidence of extreme age of the earth. On the other hand, proving that the earth is older than any YEC model can possibly allow does not mean that a certain carpenter never lived and died.But we also have the existence of all other saints, prophets, ascetics and visionaries that also need to be included. Pickering the wheat out of the chaff eh?Enjoy.Edited by RAZD, : added in pink

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From: Out of Body Experience induced

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But, according to recent work by neuroscientists, delivering mild electric current to specific spots in the brain can induce them. In one woman, for example, a zap to a brain region called the angular gyrus resulted in a sensation that she was hanging from the ceiling, looking down at her body. In another woman, electrical current delivered to the angular gyrus produced an uncanny feeling that someone was behind her, intent on interfering with her actions.

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The two women were being evaluated for epilepsy surgery at University Hospital in Geneva, where doctors implanted dozens of electrodes into their brains to pinpoint the abnormal tissue causing the seizures and to identify adjacent areas involved in language, hearing or other essential functions that should be avoided in the surgery.

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There is nothing mystical about these ghostly experiences, said Peter Brugger, a neuroscientist at University Hospital in Zurich, who was not involved in the experiments but is an expert on phantom limbs, the sensation of still feeling a limb that has been amputated, and other mind-bending phenomena.

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"The research shows that the self can be detached from the body and can live a phantom existence on its own, as in an out-of-body experience, or it can be felt outside of personal space, as in a sense of a presence," Brugger said.

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Vision, hearing and touch are initially processed in the primary sensory regions. But then they flow together, like tributaries into a river, to create the wholeness of a person's perceptions. A dog is visually recognized far more quickly if it is simultaneously accompanied by the sound of its bark.

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These multisensory processing regions also build up perceptions of the body as it moves through the world, Blanke said.

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Cue that great little movie ... eh?or is it?Enjoy.

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--If there is evidence to disprove God then we should certainly look in to it.--There is evidence that the Bible is erronous, and if only Fundamentlists would see or hear those errors, I think we would make more progress in education at the least, and great scientists at the most.It is too bad we can't all just agree that God is just a concept, and a potentially harmful concept at that. If we made it a law to show every fundy the museum of natural history every year. Maybe there would be less intensity among them to be against what they can plainly see.Thoughts?

Welcome to the fray foxjoe,Just a quick headsup:
type [qs]quote boxes are easy[/qs] and it becomes:This is from warners post that I replied to ... But that does not prove that god does not exist. It just proves that there are perceived errors in the bible.It's all in the interpretation eh? Very few fundamentalists claim that the earth is the center of the universe and everything revolves around it, yet this used to be a common interpretation. You'd be surprised what they can plainly see. This thread is about perceptions of reality, and the way people see museum evidence is different.Enjoy.

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The issue of facts came up on another thread (How is Evolution a fact?), particularly the question of what constitutes a fact.A basic starting point has to be what we can sense objectively: Without this fundamental basis of agreement on {fact} versus {illusion\hypothesis} there is nothing to build on for any {world view}.We trip over obstructions in the dark when they are not sensed before hand, get smacked in the back of the head by things blown in the wind, jump when loud bangs occur behind us.Likewise we can agree that the burner on the stove is hot, that the color on it is red.These are sensations that can be shared and discussed and compared as element of reality of the world around us.We may attribute these to natural causes now rather than to the work of demons or ghosts and the like: our perception of cause is different but the experience is considered fact.Enjoy.

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dogrelata in Message 225 says: Welcome to the fray dogrelata.I think this idea is important, for very little of what we individually "know" comes from personal experience knowledge: we rely a great deal on imparted knowledge. The imparted knowledge can be tested, but rarely does an individual take this effort, instead relying on sources that are trusted to present reality as they experienced it.We can call this primary knowledge and secondary knowledge, where primary is individually experienced, and secondary is derived from reports of others who {have\had} individual knowledge. This gives us primary knowledge, secondary knowledge and alternate knowledge. The problem is to judge the validity of this "alternate knowledge" when there is no experience that it can be compared with.We need to rely then on secondary knowledge based on the evidence of those who experience this "alternate knowledge" - but this is not really any different from having to rely on secondary knowledge for any experience outside of our personal experience. The more removed the experience is from any in our personal experience the harder it is to accept. We are certainly all entitled to employ just a smidgeon of scepticism when faced with something foreign to our experience.There is also the problem of contradictory knowledge - the hand shadow becomes a wolf head and then an eagle: the reality cannot be all three in one {perceived being\reality}.Will the person that (claims to) actually see the rabbit also see the wolf and the eagle? Or claim that it is still a rabbit and that our perception of the wolf and eagle is faulty do to an erroneous point of view?This takes me to the other thread I would like to pull in to this discussion.See part 2.Enjoy.

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This follow from part 1 above on the issue of primary, secondary and alternative knowledge.

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This gives us primary knowledge, secondary knowledge and alternate knowledge. The problem is to judge the validity of this "alternate knowledge" when there is no experience that it can be compared with.

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In one sense everything that is outside our personal experience - primary knowledge - is alternate knowledge.Modulous in Message 63 says: There seems to me to be a contradiction here in what is "fact" and what is "evidence":(1) Things I can touch and see etc are evidences. From the evidence I can infer the facts.(2) The jury's primary role is to determine the facts based on an evaluation of all the evidence the judge rules admissible.Or is it circular - facts derived from evidence and evidence derived from facts.Or they are both two sides of the same coin.From the definitions:Fact Definition & Meaning | Dictionary.com

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Fact -noun
1. something that actually exists; reality; truth: Your fears have no basis in fact.
2. something known to exist or to have happened: Space travel is now a fact.
3. a truth known by actual experience or observation; something known to be true: Scientists gather facts about plant growth.
4. something said to be true or supposed to have happened: The facts given by the witness are highly questionable.
5. Law. Often, facts. an actual or alleged event or circumstance, as distinguished from its legal effect or consequence.

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Definition 5, by including "Often, facts." thereby includes all the other definitions of facts, including truths known by actual experience, sensed.Evidence Definition & Meaning | Dictionary.com

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Evidence -noun
1. that which tends to prove or disprove something; ground for belief; proof.
2. something that makes plain or clear; an indication or sign: His flushed look was visible evidence of his fever.
3. Law. data presented to a court or jury in proof of the facts in issue and which may include the testimony of witnesses, records, documents, or objects.

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Thus "facts" includes things sensed by personal experience AND things "said to be true or supposed to have happened" and evidence is something that proves the facts. Evidence can be facts and facts can be evidence.But there are still different kinds of facts, different levels of evidence, different relations to reality.Thus when we consider Modulous' comment: What WE can sense is the evidence given by people who DID taste, smell, touch, hear or see that these things actually occurred - the evidence that they actually sensed these facts.Secondary knowledge of personal experiences of people with primary knowledge.If one of these pieces of evidence had NOT been experienced by someone, then it would be fantasy, lies, delusion or something of that ilk. Facts at some level relate to actual experience by some person or persons.What I had said before was: Not that all facts were sensed directly, just that some are.We also tend to give a lot of credence to facts gained by personal experience, primary knowledge, thus we are very sure of the actual existence of objects that we have stubbed our toes on, but are less sure of those objects that other people have stubbed toes on but that we have no personal knowledge of.We do use our personal knowledge of toe-stubbing to evaluate whether the evidence other people are likely to have stubbed their toes based on the evidence they give for toe-stubbing.Were we do not have personal knowledge, we cannot use anything but secondary knowledge to evaluate whether the evidence other people present of experiences they claim to have personal knowledge of is true or not.It is much more difficult to give something in this category the same {level\credibility} of fact as those where we do have personal experience.In this regard, something that is "fact" for person {A} may not be "fact" for person {B}.And again, I bring up the issue of contradictions: where evidence (primary or secondary knowledge) contradicts claims of alternate evidence (secondary or alternative knowledge) we can safely say that one or the other (or both) of the contradictory sets {evidence\facts\knowledge} is false.Our perception of the reality of experiences of others is based on our perceptions of reality based on our personal experiences - and the resolution of contradictions.Enjoy.Edited by RAZD, : poyt

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You'll have to explain the contradiction.1) I see some evidence. I use the evidence to determine a fact.2) The jury is shown some evidence. They use that evidence to determine a fact.Seems the same to me. Yes - obviously someone has to have seen the evidence to draw a conclusion. I can see a dinosaur fossil, but I cannot see that dinosaurs used to be living animals.

_________________________________________________________________________ Whilst I’m not entirely sure I agree wholly with the term ”very little’, I broadly agree with this sentiment, and it’s certainly the case that in this age of information technology, a much higher percentage of what we “know” comes from imparted knowledge than would have been the case for our cave-dwelling ancestors, for instance.But to some extent what we “know” through imparted knowledge can be expanded to say, “what we choose to know through imparted knowledge”. That is to say, we choose which sources we feel we can trust from the many that exist, in some cases each presenting very different slants on the nature of events or reality they are reporting on or observing. Further, when we do receive imparted knowledge, I believe we have the tendency to “pre-process” it before filing it away in order that it best fits the model of reality stored within each of our heads. Indeed I believe we do the very same thing with all knowledge, whether it is primary, secondary or “alternate”.Which brings us to the problem with the potential discrepancies between what might be described as objective, definitive reality and the subjective model of such we each of us walk around with in our head. How can we really know how closely these models approximate definitive reality, either collectively or as individuals?Which kind of leads us to: I don’t think the problems alluded to here, those associated with evaluating claims for knowledge attributed to faith-based ”insight’, are solely the preserve of sceptical third parties. I mean, how are the first hand recipients of such knowledge to evaluate it?Yesterday afternoon, after posting my last contribution, I came across this fascinating little exchange between members crashfrog and, coincidentally, iano, taken from the topic ”Would you want to know?’ in ”Faith and Belief’: I think this ably demonstrates the problems in trying to evaluate faith-based knowledge.Going back to my toe, if when I stub it I experience a sharp burst of pain, I can attribute that pain to the stubbing with a very high degree of certainty. But as far as I can understand it, faith-based knowledge of the type alluded to by iano emanates from within the individual and, as such, is so much more difficult to pinpoint in terms of origin or cause.As can be seen by the fact that a believer in such phenomena is readily prepared to accept the principle of false positives.

I consider the websites and books I've read, the TV shows and movies I've seen, and my education to be imparted, or secondary, knowledge, with some experimental exercises to show the validity of what is by and large imparted. This includes the fantasies as well as the facts. Certainly more primitive peoples without access to the massive amounts of stored information in libraries and schools do not have as much, but still their culture is imparted by teachers, elders, parents. Everything is filtered by the accumulated primary and secondary knowledge, and that which passes the filter is accepted into the growing world view. Anything that does not fit this filter is rejected as false.With the internet we have a new problem in vetting the credibility of evidence, as anyone with a computer can set up a website and post on it whatever fantasy they want and claim it as truth, and it can be difficult for an ingénue to see the errors on those sites, particularly when they fit their preconceptions of their world view filter.An example of this is Some_one_who_cares with his "essay" at:
Page Not Found - Webs
(which is currently being dissected by anglagard on A Critique of the "Evolution Essay" A GREAT DEBATE S1WC and anglagard ONLY).To say nothing of sites with cures for diseases and male impotence ... etcetera.Users will need to have some way of filtering the plethora of false information out of the mix if they hope to find valid useful information. It seems to me that first hand recipients would treat this as primary knowledge in much the same way that the severely deluded - if not completely insane - feel they receive primary knowledge of instructions to kill others. The brain seems to process information in a way that forces us into this kind of pattern. Yes it is a problem, but is it really different than trying to evaluate some scientific theory or some technology which is completely beyond your field and depth of knowledge? You are presented something that your world view has no tools for handling. To quote Isaac Asimov "any technology sufficiently in advance of your own is indistinquishable from magic." We can compare experiences: those who have stubbed toes will have similar experiences, feelings, yelps, limps, etc. Thus we can say there is a high degree of concordance with these experiences and very similar secondary knowledge of these experiences.We can also see that there is a high degree of concordance of religious experiences, but not just within a religion - but common to all of them. From this I can conclude that there is some common experience, and that it is not necessarily related to any specific religion.Whether it relates to reality is an open question. A bigger problem imh(ysa)o is the denial of contradictory evidence. Denial of evidence is not a matter of faith so much as it is a matter of delusion. Compare:

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faith -noun
1. confidence or trust in a person or thing: faith in another's ability.
2. belief that is not based on proof: He had faith that the hypothesis would be substantiated by fact.
3 belief in God or in the doctrines or teachings of religion: the firm faith of the Pilgrims.

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versus

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delusion -noun
1. an act or instance of deluding.
2. the state of being deluded.
3. a false belief or opinion: delusions of grandeur.
4. Psychiatry. a fixed false belief that is resistant to reason or confrontation with actual fact: a paranoid delusion.

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(color for empHASis)It is easy to find evidence of young rocks and formation, it is much harder to ignore the evidence for very old rocks and formations without some mechanism for denial.That mechanism can be their personal world view filter that acts on all incoming information and sorts it into categories of relative validity.My personal view is that the level of denial that is needed to maintain a world view is inversely related to it's relation to reality.Enjoy.Edited by RAZD, : formating

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Cheers RAZD.Having seen the BBC Horizon programme featuring Michael Persinger, I’ve been scouring the web to little avail in an attempt to find some details of these experiments and research, so was delighted to find the links you set up on message #70.I’m gradually working my way through this thread, but am a very slow reader with limited amounts of available time. I’ve just passed halfway and finding very little to take issue with what is being posted . which is great for consensus, but not for lively debate.But I would like to add a couple of thoughts of my own to your views on validation by ”commonality’. I think there’s a very fine line between validation and reinforcement. By this I mean that to me validation implies a sense of being prepared to accept that lack of support may indicate a weakness in the case for something, whilst reinforcement only counts positive evidence, ignoring or discounting the negative.Leading on from this is the notion of denial, or at least the notion of denying contrary evidence or experiences for no better reason than they are contrary and should therefore not be considered. In addition to what might be called active denial, the previously mentioned discounting, I believe there’s a much more subtle denial, which might be described as passive denial. This entails the avoidance of anything that might lead an individual to come into contact with views or ideas that might contradict, and therefore threaten, their sense of reality.Mmm. I’ve just given the above a quick read through before pressing ”Submit’, and it has become apparent how insipid a contribution it is. There must be something more interesting to say.So I guess I want to go back to ”commonality’. What should we make of the ”commonality’ of experience in an area where the interpretation of those experiences is as contentious as the experiences themselves? Which pretty much brings us back to Persinger and his research.One of the more interesting aspects of this was the participation of Richard Dawkins in one of the experiments, and the conclusion that, “Although Dawkins reported some strange experiences and tinglings during the experiment, no visions were forthcoming. It seems that Dawkins was not a likely subject for this experiment. He had previously scored low on a psychological test which measures proneness to temporal lobe sensitivity.”I’m not entirely sure what is meant by, “He had previously scored low on a psychological test which measures proneness to temporal lobe sensitivity.” Is the psychological test measuring the neurological structure of his brain, or a predisposition away from the sensitivity mentioned, based on his belief structure, or a combination of both?So the next question becomes, to what extent can a predisposition ”condition’ or ”train’ the neurological structure of our brains to heighten or dampen our sensitivity towards certain experiences? Which brings things back to where I started on the original ”Faith and Belief’ thread, with this thought from iano: If faith brings about predisposition, does it also lead to ”conditioning’ or ”training’ of the brain’s neurological structure to heighten sensitivity to certain types of neural activity? Finally, does faith predispose those who experience ”alternate’ knowledge to interpret it as coming from an external spiritual or supernatural source?In conclusion, is faith a self-fulfilling prophecy? Does taking that initial ”leap of faith’ lead to a ”conditioning’ of neural sensitivity, which leads in turn to a conclusion that subsequent experiences must emanate from the source in which the faith has been placed, given what may appear to be a ”cause and effect’ correlation?Edited by dogrelata, : No reason given.

I find his experiments interesting. Glad you liked the links. Dawkins is not the only one. I also suspect that the experiment in this case was prejudiced by his knowing the expected outcome and his very strong anti-theistic views (not just atheist). The reporter of one of the stories was another. As have other subjects that did not see visions. What this may mean is a difference in degree of brain {connectivity\processing} ability as well as a basic difference in preconceptions based on world views (and those world views may be due, in part at least, to that difference in degree of brain ability). Or is it a chicken and egg proposition: those mentally predisposed by their {connectivity\processing} ability become faithful in whatever religion is convenient (culturally and individually)? Certainly there are differences in degree of faith - I don't think it is off\on switch so much as a reostat that can power up. People have been reasoned out of faiths, although the faithful usually discount this as their not being truly faithful (something like a no true Scotsman fallacy?). The other problem is that this is not specifically true only of christianity, it is generally true of all religions: therefore christianity is not the key, nor necessarily the answer. To me this tends to argue for brain predisposition to be (relatively) faithful and susceptible to influences acquired over life that fit the {world view} and that this is what influences the specific choice.It would be interesting to see how a more general education in all the world religions would affect the results. Perhaps the only way to evaluate this is to compare nations with different approaches. Excellent points. I've run into the concept of "false positive" evidence on other threads, where only evidence that can in any way be used as positive reinforcement for belief is used, and contrary and contradictory evidence is rejected.I agree that there are levels of "commonality" that need to be addressed in evaluating the apparent validity of claims and that one of those is contradictory information and another is the degree of commitment to finding reality or to enforcing a world view.I'm off to do Turkeyday with family. Have a good feast.Enjoy.

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I trust you had a good Thanksgiving. We have nothing comparable in Scotland - but we do get to see all three NFL games live on TV!But the above is probably a bit OT. So let’s try and get things back on track.I think I previously described myself as a sceptic . a sceptic who believes in probabilities rather than certainties. To this sceptic, the probability that man created his god(s) seems a lot more likely than that the god(s) created mankind (or anything else). However, being an evolutionist, more or less, I could not discount the probability that something approximating a god may evolve sometime in the future, or may even be doing so in some far-flung corner of the universe at this very moment.Neither can I discount the possibility that I have figured the odds incorrectly and am just plain wrong. But if a supernatural being were to exist, I just don’t buy the idea that it would be undetectable to science forever. If those who believe they ”know’ their god are experiencing something ”real’ as opposed to imaginary, that experience must be measurable. Put crudely, if the individual is a receiving device, then what they are receiving must be some kind of signal, albeit of a type we are currently unable to understand (or measure). And if the signal can be detected, it opens up the possibility of being able in turn to detect the source of that signal.I appreciate that the above will be anathema to many, but it does suggest a tantalising paradox. How would those who believe their god tells them he is ”unknowable’ react if science were ever to detect him? Would they reject the evidence because they believed he had told them about the impossibility of this eventuality, and for their faith to be meaningful, knowledge of him had necessarily to be a matter of faith rather than observation?

There were games? (What's a TV?) It's not over yet -- have to visit the in-laws tommorrow. (and leftovers will be served). Logically I can only deduct agnosticism. Personally I believe in a Deist creation, where {?}'s departing words were "surprise me" ...It could be that the end of the universe then has your evolved "approximating a god" - a conservation of energy that balances entropy with "spirit essence"? - that knows the end is near and what will\can come? Would not this also apply to a previous universe? That seems logical to me -- certainly we can see that the same kind of signal can influence different people different ways due to their particular world views. Likewise some may be more sensitive than others (as happens with all known senses). Given that there are several physical "signals" we have yet to detect (gravitons or gravity waves?), that is possible. But it could also be like background radiation from the big bang - pervasive and with a very low signal strength.Enjoyps - why "dogrelata" with an icon of "Bagheera"?

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