--- In [email protected], "authfriend" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >
> > I haven't proposed any "mystical explanation," Ruth. > I'm just pointing out that the "human fallibility" > explanation isn't consistent with the facts of the > reporting (as opposed to factual basis of the reports, > which is unknown). And I disagree. > > Again, I didn't *give* a "mystical explanation." What I > said was, "We don't know what's responsible; we > don't know what's going on. We can't connect this to > ordinary reality"--meaning reality that we know about. The > choice is between insisting on a stretched explanation > and a willingness to entertain the possibility that there > is no explanation consistent with what we know of reality. Ordinary reality is that people's minds can make incredible cognitive errors as I have said over and over again. Hardly a stretched explanation. Could it feel stretched in your mind because you want to believe in something more? After all, you have said that you have had incredible experiences in group meditation. I imagine you do not want to think that it might possibly be creations of your own fallible mind? > In many cases the accounts are far more detailed than > anything found in popular culture, and these details > are very similar from one account to another. And so are common dreams people have. And don't forget the power of suggestibility. What about the fact that people who have these experiences tend toward making errors of memory? Tend to be suggestible? > > > There is a framework for the mind to spin up a nice story. > > Just like the old stories from the middle ages about getting > > raped by the devil. > > Many of the stories aren't "nice" at all, they're > horrible, painful, scary, and don't make any kind of > sense. And for all we know, the "raped by the devil" > stories from the Middle Ages were accounts of the same > category of experiences, just using a more archaic > vocabulary to describe them. We disagree. There is no way you are going to convince me. And I am not going to convince you. So let's call it quits before we no longer can have a civil discussion about anything. I am not ready to burn that bridge. > > > No more mystical that the common experience of people who > > have college educations to repeatedly dream that they are > > not prepared for final exams. > > "Mystical" really isn't the appropriate term here. > Mystical experiences have very different characteristics, > as do the reporting circumstances. > > And the abduction accounts are so different in nature > and, again, reporting circumstances that they really > can't be put in the same bucket as final-exam dreams. > > Just for one thing, I don't think anybody who has > such dreams maintains after the fact that they really > happened; they're always recognized as dreams. > > And for another, other than the basic concept, the > details differ widely from person to person, often > even from dream to dream with the same person. I've > had such dreams from time to time, and each dream is > vastly different as to the specifics. > > Plus which, they're all fundamentally realistic--the > basic situation is something that could easily happen > in "real life." > > Nor do people tend to seek therapy because the dreams > are so vivid, frightening, and surreal that they're > afraid they're going crazy. > > And these are just the *superficial* differences. > > With abduction reports, I'd be willing to consider an > explanation along the lines of Jung's "collective > unconscious," maybe even with a genetic component > involving particular brain structures--in other words, > a reality that we don't yet know about. > > > Another example of serious thinking errors are the kids in > > daycare suddenly believing that they were part of satanic > > rituals and were sexually abused. > > Some of those seem to me equally strange. I wouldn't be > surprised to find, again, that they have some underlying > relationship to abduction reports (beyond the "cognitive > error/human fallibility" explanation). > > Interesting that the child > > sex abuse claims regarding daycare facilities came to a huge > > peak, then died. > > Or perhaps are no longer being reported due to lack of > receptivity. > > There's a tendency with anecdotal accounts of just about > any kind of unverifiable strangeness to assume that if > a few accounts are shown to have been false, it means > that all of them must be false. This ain't necessarily > so. > > > What might be interesting is to see if these alien abduction > > accounts peaked around the mid to late 20th century when the > > myths of little men with big head, big eyes and flying saucers > > were so prevalent. > > I'd have to do some research, but I don't think historically > that this is the case. Not sure what the current status is. > > > Plus, the fact that Mack was hypnotizing his patients/subjects > > leads to a greater likelihood that accounts will be similar > > and be false. > > He also had patients that were able to recall the > experiences without hypnosis. > > > There is some good research on this. You might want to read > > The Construction of Space Alien Abduction Memories by Steven > > E. Clark and Elizabeth F. Loftus at http://www.questia.com/PM.qst? > a=o&d=77026015 > > This is just an abstract. How might I obtain the article? > > > You might want to read: > > http://neurophilosophy.wordpress.com/2007/04/11/alien-abduction- > reincarnation-memory-errors > > http://tinyurl.com/5qx3hp > > (It would be helpful for these long URLs if you took > advantage of tinyURL so one doesn't have to cut and > paste.) > > I don't find the above article very convincing. I'm not > at all sure that the memory quirks revealed by the test > it describes can be extrapolated to abduction accounts > (or past-life memories, for that matter). > > As noted, the theory that people are repeating what > they've heard elsewhere doesn't apply to many of the > abduction accounts. > > And it's been pretty clearly established that by no > means all of the people reporting such experiences > have any significant psychopathology (especially not > schizophrenia!), other than anxiety *generated by the > experience*. > > And finally, Mack, for one, took considerable pains > *not* to suggest anything to his hypnotic subjects (and > as noted, some of his subjects were able to recall the > experience without hypnosis). > > / and > > http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~dsweb/pdfs/02_05_SAC_RJM_DLS_etal.pdf > > (evidence that people who make implausible claims have a > > propensity for memory errors, and discussion of implanted > > memories). > > Again, it isn't at all clear to me that memory problems > revealed by word-list types of tests can be extrapolated > to abduction accounts. And the "implanted memories" > discussion here is pretty sparse and highly speculative. > > The accounts from the recovered-memory subjects in this > study appear to all be of the abductions having taken > place upon awakening from sleep with paralysis. But there > are also significant numbers of accounts of people who > claim they were abducted while going about their normal > activities, which tend to be "missing time" accounts-- > in some of which the person is reported to have "vanished" > by others with whom he or she would normally have been in > contact during the "missing time" period. > > It's easy enough to conclude that waking-from-sleep-in- > paralysis abduction reports are simply hypnopompic > hallucinations, since the latter is a known phenomenon > (although most hypnopompic hallucinations aren't anywhere > near as elaborate or prolonged). > > Doesn't work so well for the "missing time" type of > report. Plus which, this study didn't test such > individuals. > > And further, the experimenters assumed a priori that > the abduction reports were false. It would be > interesting to have researchers who are at the very > least open-minded about the possibility that > abduction experiences are in some sense real to attempt > to replicate this experiment. > > So, interesting but by no means conclusive, as far as > I'm concerned. >
