“And yet you still feel there is a non-material aspect to consciousness? Why is that?” – SM
Because I am not talking about ‘spiritual’ sensations nor basing my comments on feelings alone (“And yet you still FEEL…[caps mine]”). Nowhere in my comments did I mention spirit, did I? If so, I don’t remember doing so. My guess is that many just assume that one is talking about theology/spirituality when one does not drink the current Scientific meme Kool-Aid and suggests that science, as it is mostly used today, will not be able to fully understand consciousness. Many other atheist friends of mine go bananas over such heresy! I find that those who appear to deify thinking hold beliefs along the nature of “Some day (and pretty soon for sure!) we will know all there is to know.”. Yes, this is a bit of hyperbole. No, it is not too far off track from the thoughts of many of such ilk. I find such thinking to be common. I, many decades ago, held similar beliefs too. So, as I see it, no harm, no foul. This does not preclude me from pointing out closed box thinking. The most common analogy I use is that of the old book “Flatland…”. Back to your question, which I do appreciate. . . greatly…it being all open ended and all. While I am sure it would be much better to wait until I had more time to spend more time and patience on a response, I will have to only present some rambling stream of consciousness stuff for now. So, please do not expect it to be cogent nor all ‘cleaned up’ in a cohesive way, OK? Thanks. The ‘why?’ question is enormous! To do it full justice, I would have to share many years of my life with you which is clearly impractical. So…in lieu of doing so…here goes. While in no way being an expert, I have studied many of the ancient philosophers, both east and west. I have studied ‘mind’ as it is apprehended in Tibetan Buddhism. I have read and studied to some extent many who, for lack of a better word, can be called theosophists. While some of the latter still appears to be woo to me, much does not. As a kid, I explored a few theologies, differing forms of Christianity…some Judaism, psychology, a bit of philosophy and, not finding good ‘answers’ to my own questions readily, I continued to pursue such topics well into middle and late life. I have spent countless hours in university medical libraries studying. I have been treated by some of the worlds best acupuncturists and homeopaths…as well as Tibetan physicians. I have studied with HHDL, other leaders of the yellow hat school. As stated elsewhere, I have dabbled with feedback mechanisms, also, you mentioned some entheogens, which I have studied in detail. I have studied Acupuncture, Tibetan Medicine, Chinese Medicine, a little homeopathy, read about emanationism, read Christian Science, studied the maths of the ancients and of today including non-Euclidian geometry. Read some of the Vedas. I have met many Yogis, attended Ananda events, …I have meditated for about 40 years now, sometimes over 3-4 hours per day. I like Plotinus. I have access to the ancient Academy as well as some of the mystery schools. I have dabbled with string theory, read at least one of Albert Einstein’s books from cover to cover around 1960, used to read Scientific American all the time, on occasion read Science online. Scan what scientific articles I come by…etc. No, my intent is not to overwhelm you with information, more to attempt to present a bit of a holographic view of some of the influences upon how my thinking has progressed. After taking Gautama’s adage of not accepting anything on faith because someone said so, but exploring on one’s own until fully satisfied of the truth of anything…. deeply to heart, I use all three of William James’ suggested methods to study mind rather than just two. Also, when you talk about materiality, using science itself to examine material the results one finds are mostly space and energy…nothing physical at all…just things that to us appear to be stable, real and stuff we can feel (this even though, due to the nature of atomic structures and associated electromagnetism, we never do touch anything). So, epistemologically, even using analysis and empiricism as well as contemplation, I find that we are living in a world of appearances. Here I go with some of the greatest philosophers of all time…mostly Hindu and Buddhist. I do not find that what I see and believe I see/feel/touch/taste/hear etc. are as they commonly appear. Yes, I do know the more cynical comebacks to such a view. Forging ahead, I do adapt to the world around me as well as possible, treating appearances as being as real as need be to get by in life. Truth be told, I still forget the above now and then, even though it is at the core of my ontological views too. Normally I wouldn’t go into such a self-disclosing mode nor be so unorganized. Sorry…but, perhaps it will give you a small flavor of the type of consciousness you are dealing with…hope so anyway. On Sep 5, 4:10 pm, sjewins <[email protected]> wrote: > On Sep 5, 11:52 am, ornamentalmind <[email protected]> wrote: > > > "Are you aware of Dr. Michael Persinger's experiments wherein he > > subjects the brain to focused electro-magnetic force and creates > > "spiritual" sensations in the subject? " - SE > > > Yes. > > And yet you still feel there is a non-material aspect to > consciousness? Why is that? --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups ""Minds Eye"" group. 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