Are thoughts transcendant?

One definition is that thoughts are electrical activity in the brain. We can observe different areas of the brain "lighting up" when different thought processes are occurring. When you think about the things that electricity is capable of doing, and how it can interact the environment; and particularly what we still don't understand about it, things get interesting. We know pretty well how electricity behaves when it runs through a cable. But how it functions at low levels in the human body-? Largely a mystery still, to science, though those who do e.g. reiki or acupuncture would say they know one or two things.Some people believe that one's thoughts help to create the very reality that one lives in. If you are full of negativity then you draw negative events into your life, and the converse is true for positive thoughts. I think this idea has some validity, though of course it's difficult to prove in any way with science. If it is valid, it would suggest that our thoughts are indeed transcendent of ourselves in some way, and can interact with the universe in some way, as yet not understood.Telepathy may be some good evidence of this. It's likely that many of us here have had experiences where we've been thinking about a certain person, maybe someone we haven't thought about in a long time, and suddenly the phone rings and we find we are talking to them. Some people have dreams or visions of friends or loved ones when they are in a crisis or are dying. Can we send our thoughts out in such a way that others can pick up on them? I think there is evidence that yes, we can.Does this mean that thoughts are spiritual in nature? Or does it mean that some mechanism is at work in the physical world which science is currently at a loss to understand?

Is this not becoming a question of "Who am I" rather than "What are thoughts"? Am I a soul which can be transcendent of the body before and after death? Or am I that which is created by my body and brain? As you state Paul, we know that when damage to the brain occurs, the personality can change, sometimes drastically. I've also read stories about people who have little brain material left due to injury or disease; one of them still went on to achieve a degree in mathematics. The fact of the matter is that science still knows very little about the brain, so perhaps all we can really do is speculate about the nature of consciousness. I believe that philosophy and religion have more to say about this than science at this time.By the way, I've been reading the Faith and Belief thread. (Could someone please explain how I can add a link to it? Thanks.) It talks about the Law of Attraction. Perhaps I was touching on it in my previous post, but only in a very basic way. I know from experience that people who are very negative and always look for the worst case scenario, often find it. I do not, however, think that rich people get that way because they know how to "want it" or how to "be positive," and people who are poor or ill are that way because they just don't know how to focus their energies. I was recommended a book on the Law of Attractions but the person who recommended it is one who is wealthy and believes she attracted it all to herself. Definitely not what I'd consider to be evidence of what our thoughts can do, unless it's that they can justify for us anything we want, including our deservedness of material wealth.

Sorry to go off topic here but although your info is quite clear, this is what I'm ending up with: Message 1Can't find the "linking to . . . " topics either, or any general "help" topic. Am I missing something obvious?

The more I hear about this, the more I agree, as I said above. It sounds like the sort of idealism that people who live in a well-off country might be tempted to engage in. It's a version of the American Dream really, isn't it? I'm not so sure there. I call myself an agnostic rather than an atheist because atheism implies, to me, the belief that the universe consists of concrete reality and what we glean from our 5 senses. I do firmly believe that there is much we don't understand, much that is still left to learn, and it is the height of hubris to suppose otherwise. Now when we consider so-called paranormal phenomena, my guess is that things we label as being spiritual, ghostly, godly, etc might well be explicable one day by scientific processes that at the moment we have little or no understanding of. When that happens I'll want to be first in line to hear all about it. However, I think we dismiss some of these things as "bunk" a bit too readily because we think we know they must be made up, delusions, hallucinations, lies, misunderstandings, and so forth. I could mention poltergeist phenomena here because this is something I know a little about and have studied. Some well-documented cases include instances where the poltergeist acquired a voice and said things about people in the room that no one else but those people knew. I can give more specifics on this if anyone wants.I have to admit that I'd never heard of James Randi before now. If I read that they have convincingly "debunked" various people I've heard of, then I'm certainly open to that. I heard a lot, for example, about a woman called Nina Kulagina who is said to have performed feats of psychokinesis in front of Russian scientists, but James Randi subjects the test conditions to quite a lot of criticism. I find myself asking, though, what James Randi's objectives are, and why they have an interest in this. It can be easy to take any sort of paranoral or religious phenomenon and dismiss it as "bunk." Granted, much of it probably is, but you risk throwing the baby out with the bathwater.You may be aware of an organisation called Quakcwatch, which claims to "debunk" practitioners of alternative medicine. Anyone who is a critic of allopathic medicine seems to be fair game. I'm sure there are indeed plenty of quacks out there, but not all of them practice alternative medicine, and not all alternative medicine is "bunk."I'm finding this a tricky issue to discuss here actually. I came here because I wanted to learn more about evolution and the many areas of science it touches, because I was amazed at some of the claims I'd heard creationists make on another forum. Yet here I find myself saying that I believe science has its boundaries, at least for now, and that there are some things it has so far failed to explain. Maybe one day everything we consider "spiritual" will be explicable through known scientific laws, and processes in the brain. But I do think that there's more in heaven and earth than are dreamt of. There are plenty of evolutionists who are also theists and they presumably think this as well.Maybe part of the reason that various paranormal phenomena are so poorly understood is because many scientists fear for their reputations. Weird things happen though, and I for one would like to understand how and why. Maybe there really is nothing spiritual or transcendent about thought, but I also think that if we label it as being chemical processes in the brain and nothing more, we shut the door on a world of possibilities.

It depends on what you mean by "a great deal."We're learning more all the time, yes. Where I'm coming from here, though, is thinking about psychiatry, and what psychiatrists have done to "treat" what they have labelled as mental illnesses, in the 20th century alone. Without knowing a lot about what they were doing, they practised lobotomy and electroshock. ECT is still offered as a "therapy" today. They have prescribed psychotropic drugs for decades without a thorough understanding of how they actually work in the body and what they do to the brain. Either the people who are responsible for these "treatments" think they know more than they actually do about how the brain works, or they disregard the fact of their ignorance and go ahead and risk damaging people anyway. Ouch. As many times as I've seen the argument from ignorance applied to creationists, I hadn't expected to be accused of the same. I see what you're saying here I think -- that I'm ascribing something supernatural to a process that we simply do not understand now, but may understand in the future. Well, possibly. The jury's out with me until we learn more. And I do want to learn more. I may be a layperson where science is concerned, but I enjoy reading about new discoveries where and when I can, and I'm willing to change my views of the world and of reality if new knowledge comes along. I will have a look at your link on electrophysiology. Have you ever done anything to work with or raise your chi? I suspect not, as you don't seem to think it exists. Why don't you give it a try sometime. I do tai chi. I can feel my hands tingling when I am done. When I am in a natural place like a park or a forest, I swear to you that I can feel the chi. Trees have a lot of chi. Maybe this sounds like religious nonsense to you. Chi is central to many Eastern philosophies and to Chinese medicine; many people accept its existence just as they accept that the sun shines and the tides come and go. Maybe no one will ever be able to prove that a god, or gods, exist, but I think it's possible that science might be able to gain an understanding of chi one day. I don't know that anyone has tried to study it in that way before. OK, I can't deny the logic here. How about synchronicity then? Do you think Carl Jung was mistaken about meaningful coincidences?

Thanks for the affectionate nickname; quite a warm welcome to the forum.I wouldn't argue with any of the things you quoted about paranormal claims being debunked. You guys are probably used to talking to others here who stridently stick to their beliefs no matter how obviously they fly in the face of reality. I am no such person, and no I don't "have a problem with" Houdini.I am very familiar with the Quackwatch website and I do not dismiss it wholesale. How familiar are you with it, its authors, and its particular claims? I will say a bit more about this in a post to Nator here but as you say, discussion does belong in another thread. I will check out the one you linked to.BTW before you call allopathic medicine "bunk," you ought to know that allopathic medicine refers to mainstream Western medicine -- the doctors and drugs we are all familiar with, and the practices that the authors of Quackwatch advocate wholeheartedly.

Nator I found your posts fascinating, though they're going to take a while to reply to, and it's going to require wandering off topic in places. I will try to be succinct. First I would simply like to thank you for making me think. It's quite possible that I will leave this discussion with some changes in my views. I am perhaps too quick to believe, too slow to question at times. That does not mean, however, that I believe everything I have mentioned here can be invalidated.Maybe I should start by clarifying my own stance. I don't like using the "P" word (paranormal) myself because of all its wacky connotations. I do not believe there are supernatural explanations for the following: alien "abductions", UFO sightings, crop circles, the Bermuda Triangle, cryptozoology, and many others. I believe that people experience things that they don't understand, or misinterpret, and conclude that they've witnessed a paranormal event. I believe that people's expectations and pre-existing beliefs can determine what they think they see. And then yes, sometimes there is outright forgery or fraud. My interest in anything paranormal would be voided if I weren't willing to do my best to consider all possible explanations -- to use Occam's razor, as you mentioned. I also think that there is a scientific explanation to be found for many events that are currently a mystery to us.You said: When you say "tested properly," I assume you mean in a laboratory or similar controlled environment, with independent witnesses. I wouldn't presume to argue that this is a tried and true scientific method to use. But let me again mention one topic I know a little about: poltergeist phenomena. How do you "test it properly?" Some good research exists that was conducted by people with some scientific knowledge and backgrounds -- the Enfield case, for instance. Because the research was conducted at the house, does that invalidate it? No one seems to have thought of dragging the focus of the activity off to a lab to run tests. By the way, when I mention a poltergeist, I'm talking about the documented phenomena; I make no assumptions about what actually causes it.You asked me to start a thread. I'm happy to discuss the Enfield case there, as well as what happened to my husband's family in years past. That the events happened, is fact. What causes them, no one really knows. This is what I was thinking when I said that scientists don't want to research these things and fear losing their reputations. I've participated myself in attempts over the years to take a scientific approach to investigating the phenomena. I just really want to know what's causing it. I would also like to know what's going on with a longtime friend who claims to be a psychic. She believes it herself. She says she can see things that I can't and she claims to be in touch with spirits. I've seen her do channelling in front of me. I suspect that what she believes is happening may not actually be what is in truth occurring, and there may be nothing spiritual or supernatural about it. But something's happening there, in her own mind if nothing else. I'm curious and I want to understand.Do I need to go propose this in the New Topics thread then? Where is it going to go on a creation vs. evolution forum?I'd like to learn a bit more about James Randi. I have no problem with him investigating paranormal claims. Many of them are no doubt scams to part the gullible with their money. I would also be inclined to take him with a grain of salt though; he has an obvious agenda. At one point in the Enfield poltergeist case a magician came in to try to do a similar debunking job, and it ended up being a bit of a fiasco, as I'll be happy to explain in another thread.OK, Quackwatch. I'd be careful about seeing this as a beacon of knowledge in the face of the superstition and psudoscience of alternative medicine. No doubt he's picked up on a few genuine frauds. But Mr. Barrett also has an agenda, and I hope you will not accuse me of an ad hominem attack because I think this info is very relevant to the content of his site and its ideology. He has made a lot of money from the pharmaceutical and chemical industries, and has close ties to them still. Also he was de-licensed in the 1990s, and is not a Medical Board Certified psychiatrist because he failed the certification exam. He has also been forced to concede in a court case that he has ties to the AMA, Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Food & Drug Administration (FDA). These are all organisations with an interest in promoting allopathic (mainstream Western) medicine -- a gravy train which makes them a lot of money -- over alternative medicine, which promotes things like vitamins and herbs that don't have a patent.Surfing through Quackwatch is a bit like strolling through Answers in Genesis at times. One is bad science, the other is bad medicine. Barrett can parrot the mainstream position on things but is very quick to condemn other ideas, some of which have growing support within the medical community. He also has people like Peter Breggin and Linus Pauling on his "avoid" list. These are/were not practitioners of alternative medicine, but they are people who have challenged the establishment that Barrett is a voice for. Breggin is a psychiatrist who is critical of the biological approach which favours psychotropic drugs; Pauling won a Nobel Prize for his research on the uses of vitamin C. Barret's attempts to discredit him are laughable. I could go into more detail on any of these things but it would have to be in another topic, maybe the one that Molbiogirl linked to.I feel I need to add, though, that alternative medicine has helped me to heal from damage caused by medicine that my mainstream doctor gave me. What do I mean by alternative medicine in my case? Diet, nutritonal supplements, herbs, and Bach Flower remedies. I could cite a lot of personal evidence for all of these things having a noticeable healing effect on me. Don't knock it til you've tried it, all right? Just what does allopathic medicine heal with anything other than antibiotics? And if you don't consider diet and vitamins to be alternative medicine, when was the last time you went to your doctor and he/she asked you what you were eating and whether you were taking any nutritional supplements? By the way, this regime was prescribed for me by a naturopath who is also an MD.Moving on, you said: According to your definition, I really am a true agnostic. Deep down I feel "We don't know." If something is currently not explicable by science, it interests me because we don't know. We also don't know if there truly is a transcendent or a divine. You might say that you won't buy it until it can be empirically proved. I say we don't know, and so we need to study and learn and try to find out what we can.I'm curious though. Let's say a day comes when we think that science has explained everything. No one can believe in the supernatural, or anything religious, with any validity. Where does that leave us? I was very interested in reading that link you gave to P. Kurtz. He said that when he finally let go of his hopes that he'd be able to scientifically prove paranormal phenomena, he had to face the reality that we are simply creatures of physicality, here on earth evolving, and that's that. Nothing to hang on to. I know what that feels like because I was facing it, too, when I stopped being Catholic. I still am feeling it, to an extent. Religion feeds a hunger, and satisfies in a way that cold rational atheism does not. I'm not making an argument here for people to get religious. What I would say is that spirituality and religion seem to have been part of our evolution. Even Neanderthals buried their dead. Presumably there's a thread here that discusses the evolution of religion and what purpose it may have served. Perhaps we can now decide that we want to move on from that, that we are wiser now. But what does that do to us exactly? Weren't we "meant," by virtue of who we are, to have some form of spirituality in our lives? Maybe this answers your question of why people seem to want to "ascribe magical properties" to things. Again, I'm not saying we ought to. But maybe there's some genuine spirituality to be found in life, and maybe our brains are actually programmed to need it.You maintain that we "do know a great deal about the brain." I don't think I'm qualified to dispute that further, other than to say that some people seem to think we know more than we actually do. I am not an expert obviously, but I would hazard a guess and say that we're pretty boggled still as to how synapses firing, and areas of the brain being more active than others, translate into consciousness, thoughts, or selfhood. About all we can say regarding religiously devout nuns in prayer is that certain areas of the brain are very active. More please? The way I feel. You've forced me to admit to myself, as well as you, that I'm not 100% certain that the explanation for what I feel is chi. What I do actually feel, is there as a fact. Interpretation is always open to question. I like to believe that it is chi and that makes sense to me. It could be something else. I don't know what. I do feel in my bones that all life is connected on some fundamental level. Why not call it chi? That doesn't mean I believe in a chi master being able to knock a row of students down with one hand or anything. It's my way of trying to understand what I am experiencing personally, and what other people have told me they experience. I find it hard to imagine how this sort of thing could be empirically tested in a lab though I'd be interested in seeing it attempted.Interesting opinion of Jung there. I think his ideas about the collective unconscious are fascinating. I think synchronicity is interesting too, though it's been hijacked by a lot of wacky people, including the Celestine Prophecy movement (that book was a waste of my money if there ever was one; someone had recommended it to me). Again, you seem to want quantifiable empirical evidence. Certain areas of psychology seem to elude this though, and perhaps operate more along the lines of philosophy than science. How do you quantify or test the idea of collective unconscious? How do you get "results" on synchronicity in a lab when by definition it includes unexpected events happening at unexpected times? I'm not claiming that these things are supernatural in origin mind you; only that I believe they are plausible phenomena.(wipes forehead) Sorry about the long post but there seem to be a lot of points under discussion. If we reach some kind of resolution here I'll be happy to try joining or opening some other threads. Edited by AdminPD, : Warning

Whew, thanks guys. I'm having heavy discussions on a couple of forums and my eyes are just about falling out from all the computer time. I'm making a list of links that people here have suggested I look at, so I will add "Google 'synapse' and 'consciousness'" to it. I am learning about Buddhism and I like its philosophy of consciousness, but I am also interested in learning about it at a scientific level -- well, as much as I can, given that I don't have a scientific background and am unlikely to make much of academic papers.You've beaten me to the Poltergeist topic so I'll get over there next. Keep in mind that while I am 100% convinced that these phenomena actually happen, I don't pretend to understand how. Personally I lean toward the possibility that it is caused somehow by a person, and that opens all sorts of intriguing possibilities of what the brain might be capable of.I can't say I had intended to discuss these things when I first came here. Initially I was trying to learn about science relating to evolution because I found myself as the lone voice trying to debunk creationist claims on another forum. Then I decided to stick around and find someplace to talk. Well it's interesting, I have to say, though I wish I had the scientific expertise of some others here and could more actively debate in those topics. Guess I'll stick with poltergeists for now

Ah, another skeptic. I've been in quite a few conversations since I last wrote in this topic and I think I probably would change some of the things I said here. I do believe that positive and negative thinking have a big impact on a person's life. I entertain the possibility of synchronicity, which I believe involves getting in touch with the life force, the chi, or whatever it is that permeates the universe and connects all life. This may sound like mumbo-jumbo to you, but I will say at least that I do think the Law of Attraction is a bunch of nonsense dreamed up to get money out of people, and to give some form of validation to those who are rich. ("See, it's because I really do deserve it!!")I accept that maybe I'm generalising about energy and the nervous system without knowing what I'm talking about. Well actually . . . yes I am. I wasn't aware of the knowledge that exists. Do you know of any sources I might look into that take a layperson's approach to the subject? I would be interested.You said: I don't know that it necessarily is. And it will be less and less mysterious, the more we learn about the body and brain.In the Poltergeist thread, Nator picked out something I said and held it up as a reason for why I'm even interested in the topic in the first place, when science has little to say about it. I said "These things make life interesting." Why do I not want to take a 100% skeptical approach to everything in my life? Because I don't think rigorous skepticism can appropriately be applied to everything in life. I feel that certain forms of evidence that skepticism rejects, like personal testimony, can be valid sometimes.I also just have a very deep need to believe that there's more to life than what we see. That is probably what interests me in the transcendent in the first place, and in spirituality. If I took the attitude, "I won't believe it until proof exists," I would find life to be cold and empty. Every fibre of my being says no, there's more to life than that. I listen to that voice. I believe it's right. I have no proof of course, but sometimes I think that's OK.Edited by LindaLou, : No reason given.

Next time I'm in a school, I'll see if I can find a biology textbook to borrow. I'm on a course right now, not currently teaching."The need to believe" applies, in my case, to spirituality. I would be perpetually depressed if I thought that all there is to the world, is what we perceive. I love learning new things about physical reality, but I need the spiritual as well. But even there I do try to apply some skepticism. I stopped being a Catholic when I learned about other religions, and that the Bible is a historical work by a past culture and not the holy book of God that I'd been taught. I now consider myself an agnostic.Skepticism is needed in a court of law. It is needed in any scientific or logical discipline. I feel that to apply it across the board in one's life, however, means that you stand to miss out on some otherwise unobtainable truths.Are there not evolutionists here who are also theists? What do they say about applying skepticism?

No, you were doing it just right. This is what happens to everyone when they meditate. What I find it helpful to do is to let myself be a bystander, to note the coming and going of my thoughts or emotions without following them. In Buddhism this is called mindfulness. And after a while you might just find that you get a few moments of stillness without looking for them.

I think even people who are religious in some way would qualify under your definition of "woo." Because there is little or no empirical proof of it. I suppose if you are a skeptic through and through, then you would consider these people to be deluded.What happens is that you keep your inner skeptic alert and functioning, but you open yourself to admitting certain possibilities even if there is no proof from the 5 senses.Who actually decided that all there is to reality is what we can learn with the 5 senses, and that everything else is bunk? There is so much more to the universe than this. Can I prove it empirically? No. Can I explain it to your satisfaction? No. People have a lot of fun here arguing with others who do not subscribe to this view of the world, and it's easy and no doubt satisfying to win debate points with them. That doesn't necessarily mean that the truth has been arrived at.If someone tells me they have had moments of telepathy, I say "cool." Where is the harm in it, as long as they're not trying to scam anyone? They might just be right.

I'm not intellectually lazy.What seems to be the underlying issue here is people's idea of "the truth" and how it's arrived at. Many people here believe that it can only be done through empirical physical evidence which is quantifiable, and studies in prestigious journals. Maybe other ways aren't so trustworthy. You therefore always rule them out. I don't. You call it bad science. I call it being open-minded. After all, I am not trying to publish a research paper; and if I were, I would employ skepticism where necessary.How do you know a mother's love is real if you cannot quantify it? What if there's more to the world than science can describe? Why does anything unscientific automatically qualify as a delusion?

Why don't you ask Petrophysics how he believes his gift works? I gather that these things aren't always at people's beck and call. They see or know things when they don't expect to; but when they try hard, maybe it just doesn't happen sometimes. What if some of those people who Randi what's-his-name tested really do have some kind of gift, just not one that functions on demand? There are all the skeptics crowing that they've debunked another fraud.Anyway, do you think there are police forces or other organisations that actively seek out this kind of help? I've heard of psychics sometimes helping with missing person or murder investigations. But on the whole I would have thought most people would run a mile from this for fear of damage to their reputations.I don't believe in "any old thing." But I try to keep an open mind. There are a lot of people around who aren't 100% skeptics and perhaps their lives are the richer for it.Where else can evidence come from, if not the 5 senses? Meditation. The subconscious. The collective unconscious. The universe. Entities, ghosts, gods, I don't know. Where do ideas and inspiration really come from? What patterns might the world be working within, that we are not at all aware of? Don't know. Of course you won't take any of this seriously, you're a skeptic. But not being 100% skeptical doesn't necessarily make me deluded.How's things in the corn belt BTW? I lived in Omaha for a while and went to college in Hastings.

You and Nator seem to be asking why, if I choose to have an open mind, I don't just take the door off of its hinges. I accept that I could make some guesses and be wrong. No big deal. If it's a major life decision involving my family, money, etc, then I'm very careful about the choices I make.Creationists choose to suspend their skepticism where the Bible is concerned. I believe they are wrong. Most of them aren't going to believe it through being told by you; they will have to come to that conclusion themselves. If some of them had a better education in science in the first place, they might not have decided to suspend their skepticism in that particular way.And yes, you see some of them making some pretty amazing claims here, and those too are obviously wrong a lot of the time. But I've got to give them credit for their open minds, as long as they aren't too gullible or vulnerable to people who want to scam them.You must talk to people daily who are not 100% skeptics. Do all of them seem unhinged? They just have a bit of a different way of looking at the world. Skepticism may be important if you are a professional scientist, but as I said a while back I don't see why it has to be so rigorously applied to the rest of one's life. It's a bit like a Christian saying that if you are an atheist, you must also have no moral code, because morals come from religion. I am not a hardline skeptic, but that doesn't mean I'm a nutcase and that I believe everything I'm told.