Are psychedelics spirituality?

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Athiest-420
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Are psychedelics spirituality?

Post #1

Post by Athiest-420 »

I believe psychedelics give one a glimpse into the spiritual realm, for lack of a better term, although there are other ways to reach it, such as meditation.

Dimethyltryptamine is endogenous, and is reported to be the cause of near death experiences, alien encounters, and possibly the afterlife. It is produced within us all the time, and larger amounts are made during the REM cycle of our sleep, and stressful situations, i.e. death.

DMT:The Spirit Molecule & Inner Paths to Outer Space by Rick Strassman, M.D.

Rick Strassman also stated in an interview that while trying to become a Buddhist monk, he found out that about 80-90% of the monks he asked admitted that they used LSD and that it was the most influential experience in them deciding to become and devote their life to being a Buddhist monk.




Mushrooms have been used for thousands of years. Terence McKenna's Stoned Ape theory addresses the possibility of magic mushrooms initiating the creation of language and culture. In 100,000 years BC, Cubensis mushrooms could finally grow due to the change in climate which caused the rainforest to recede. Monkeys left the forest, and ate mushrooms and bugs found on animal dung. Mushrooms are reported to increase visual acuity, promote community bonding, and were the first spiritual experience for these primates.

Food for The Gods by Terence McKenna

I have also read a lot about mushrooms and their presence in the bible. Christ in Sumerian apparently means "a mushroom covered in gods semen". Early people understood how seeds worked, but not spores, as they were too small. Mushrooms would grow hours after the rain, from nothing visible, so they'd attribute it to being god's semen that fall from the sky. The people of these times were also very into fertility, animal fertility for food and human fertility for other obvious reasons. They were very curious about mushrooms because of their penis/vagina like appearance and mysterious/unknown growth after rainfall.

John Allegro shows how the Bible, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the etymology of various Mesopotamian languages all have mushroom and sexual puns/terms interwoven. This is due to the prominence in the pre-Christian world of mushroom and fertility cults. Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic, the languages of the Bible, all ultimately derive from ancient Sumerian, where many original meanings had been long lost. For instance, the gods of the Greeks and Hebrews, Zeus and Yahweh (Jehovah) have names derived from Sumerian words meaning “seed of life� and “juice of fecundity.� The name Herod, as in King Herod, “ardeola� in Latin, serves as a wordplay on the Semitic “ardilia� which means “mushroom.� The name Jesus, in Hebrew “yehoshiia� comes from the Sumerian “JA U ShiJ A� which means “semen which saves, restores, heals.� This is comparable to the fertility god Dionysus, whose cult emblem was an erect phallus, and whose Sumerian name “IA-U-Nu-ShUSh� also means “semen, seed that saves.�

The Sacred Mushroom by John Allegra

Interesting reads/videos



http://shroomn8r.tripod.com/legendsoftheshroom/id7.html










Are psychedelics spirituality? Can all mystical experiences be explained by psychedelic drugs?

Christians used to burn people for being witches, it is now known that some of these "witches" were poor people, that had no where to live, besides caves. These caves were full of intoxicating fumes thats caused them to hallucinate. Other times, girls accused of witchcraft simply ate shrooms they found in the forest. When they were found dancing naked, people claimed they were witches. Are there not many more cases like this?

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Re: Are psychedelics spirituality?

Post #21

Post by hoghead1 »

[Replying to post 18 by catnip]

Yes, but you see, the Bible never speaks about drugs. That was not an issue in Hebrew culture. The only "drug" it speaks about is alcohol, which it praises, its only concern being overindulgence.

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Re: Are psychedelics spirituality?

Post #22

Post by catnip »

hoghead1 wrote: [Replying to post 18 by catnip]

Yes, but you see, the Bible never speaks about drugs. That was not an issue in Hebrew culture. The only "drug" it speaks about is alcohol, which it praises, its only concern being overindulgence.
The Bible doesn't have to refer to "drugs" if it has actually referred to specific drugs such as gall or wormwood, how it is taken and its use. Christ was offered vinegar and gall on the cross, in short, he was offered a drug to ease the pain.

What was significant about the article that I posted was that it proved that Jews (Hebrews) and Christians do not use drugs for mystical experience and such use is actually attributed as the cause of false prophets in the scriptures and that answers the OP question.

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Post #23

Post by Blastcat »

[Replying to post 19 by dio9]





[center]We're getting a little bit vague for my taste.
Part 2
[/center]

dio9 wrote:
I am describing a fact.
Then I challenge you to prove it that your fact is a true one.
And you MIGHT want to make yourself a little bit clearer to me if you accept the challenge.

Otherwise, you are going to have to admit that you won't, or can't.
It would save all of us some time if you told us which.

Prove your "fact" or drop the claim.

dio9 wrote:
You say you must be always having a mystical experience lucky you.
Yeah.. wow.. look at the pretty colors.
All very "mystical".

Again, I have questions for you if I want to understand what you're talking about:
  • 1. Do you describe EVERY experience that humans have as a mystical experience?
    2. Or are there mystical and non-mystical experiences, in your opinion?
    3. If there are differences between the mundane and the mystical experience, could you explain those differences?
    4. Why would one be considered "lucky" to have a mystical experience, are all mystical experiences desirable?
dio9 wrote:
I can't describe my mystical experience for you , 'cause its mine.

So, how on earth would you be able to PROVE that you're having one, if you can't even DESCRIBE the phenomenon? I refer you to question ( 1. ) above. Are all of your experiences "mystical"?

What's the difference between a mundane experience and a mystical one?
I don't think you have said.

dio9 wrote:
You have your own mystical experience. I don't doubt you're having them.
Thanks.
Likewise, you seem to have your own mystical experience. I also do not doubt your word. But if you can't even describe what you are trying to prove... your word is rather un-described.

You might like to try some hallucinogenic drug.
You might like to describe the EFFECTS as a "mystical experience".

I think that you DO have a description of "mystical experience", and that it is "taking really good dope, man"

I'm joking, of course.
But I could actually arrive at that conclusion.

dio9 wrote:
For the record, The classic mystical experience is oneness with all things internal and external.
Yeah.
Well great.

All THAT kind of experience takes to get is "a little bit of imagination, and a willingness to feel the feel".

( that's what I use, after all )

Nobody needs to take a drug to use their imagination. But alas, perhaps not all of us are as imaginative as the Blastcat.

Some people MIGHT need drugs to get that feeling of "oneness" .
Some people also might think that taking drugs is fun.

I agree.
Sometimes, taking drugs is fun.
Sometimes, people want to justify having fun ( feeling the feel ) by making a big religious hoopla around it. Ok, fine. Smoke and music...



All the hoopla probably enhances the fun.
I sometimes use "Pink Floyd" real loud.

Is Pink Floyd and imagination spirituality?

Some people prefer Gloria Estefan:

"Turn the beat around
Love to hear percussion
Turn it upside down
Love to hear percussion
Love to hear it"

- Written by Gerald Jackson, Peter Jackson, Peter Jackson Jr. • Copyright © Warner/Chappell Music, Inc



:)

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Post #24

Post by dio9 »

[Replying to post 23 by Blastcat]

feel the feeling . I like that , self reflective but can't be described , describe the taste of an orange for me. I tried once but lost the feeling.

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Post #25

Post by Blastcat »

[Replying to post 24 by dio9]




[center]Mystical experience:
Feel the feel[/center]

dio9 wrote:
feel the feeling . I like that , self reflective but can't be described , describe the taste of an orange for me. I tried once but lost the feeling.

Right, I think some philosophers refer to the taste of an orange as references to "qualia".

I agree that my subjective experience of eating an orange might not be identical to yours. But I would say that, due to the fact that we are of the same SPECIES, and that our taste apparatus are very SIMILAR, and that most of us can at least distinguish lemons from oranges, that it would be safe for me to say that our TASTES are similar.

I might not know PRECISELY what your experience may be. But I assume that my experience is similar to yours. At least, generally so.

So, I would say that a "mystical experience" has a certain kind of "qualia" that we can't explain to each other. I would say that for ANY subjective experience that can be said to have qualia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualia

But I think we can do better than to throw up our hands about describing an orange or a mystical experience because we can't explain the qualia of those two to one another.

I want to AT least have a description of what we are trying to talk about.
If by "mystical experience" you mean " Belief that union with or absorption into the Deity or the absolute, or the spiritual apprehension of knowledge inaccessible to the intellect, may be attained through contemplation and self-surrender.", or if you mean " Vague or ill-defined religious or spiritual belief, especially as associated with a belief in the occult.", it would be important to know.

In fact, are those two the only POSSIBLE uses for the term "mystical experience"?
Because I can think of some else.

For example, I think that I might have described what could be called my "Agnostic Atheist Skeptical Taoist ( lite, reformed ) " kind of mystical experience.

I look up into a night sky for more than 10 seconds, and I'm there.
I listen to the Floyd, and I'm there... love the guitar. Love the rhythms.

I look at my kids for more than 3 seconds and I'm really there.

I like birds, flowers and well.. most of nature, actually.
They give me that "feel the feel" feeling.

To me, when I hear the term "mystical experience" I think to myself " A not well defined complex of feelings ", which to me happens to us all.

I have LOTS of feelings that I have trouble describing.. Some of them more mixed than others.

What do YOU mean by "mystical experience"?
We should define our terms before discussing them.

I don't have to include ANY religious thinking into my "mystical experience". ( I know.. I'd have to describe my Taoism. That just MAY be a religion of ONE )

Hey, Taoism is a way.
Neat stuff, eh?

I have to wonder if all of this "mystical experience" hoopla is a big to do over "I have a strong, fun feeling that I can't describe very well".

:)

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Post #26

Post by hoghead1 »

[Replying to post 23 by Blastcat]

I don't know if this will help or not, but my position is that mystical experiences represent our attempts to expand our consciousness so as to embrace the deeper, unconscious, purely affective dimensions of our experience. Mystical experiences represent a return to a deeper, more primal level of awareness that that represented by thought or intellect, sense or sensation, or the specialized forms of conscious knowing, such as science. Reason, logic, intellect, and the world of the senses are fine things, but belong only to the superficialities of experience. Our most primary level is unconscious feeling or emotion. Normal, waking consciousness, dominated as it is by sensory experience, is not our most primary level of experience. Consciousness is only the tip if the ice berg. our conscious, sensory perceptions are but a late derivation, an abstraction, coming from zillions of miniscule noncognitive, nonsensory, purely affective events taking place in our subconscious minds. We tend to say that we see green and leave it go at that. But such thinking is way overly simplistic. We first of all felt greenly, then later see green. I know that sounds awkward, but there is no other way I can think to put it. Direct, immediate experience is not thinking or analyzing, nor is it the ream of sensation, the senses. Direct, immediate experience is pure feeling. We can feel more deeply than we can ever think or sense. Therefore, it can be very difficult for a person to describe his or her mystical experiences.

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Post #27

Post by Blastcat »

[Replying to post 26 by hoghead1]




[center]hoghead's views concerning mystical experiences,
Part 1: Return to primary consciousness
[/center]

hoghead1 wrote:
I don't know if this will help or not,
I can assure you that your thoughts were VERY helpful, indeed !!
Blastcat approves.

hoghead1 wrote:
but my position is that mystical experiences represent our attempts to expand our consciousness so as to embrace the deeper, unconscious, purely affective dimensions of our experience.
Your thoughts are very helpful to me in the sense that they have engendered a whole lot of questions and thoughts of my own. I might not agree with everything that you wrote, but it was very thought provoking.

I'm going to ask you many questions because I do not agree with most of what you wrote.

Hope you don't mind.

Here goes:

A mystical experience might often be the attempt to "go deeper". But I can't see how a mystical experience is different from a complex of affections ( or as I put it "feel the feel" ) .

The question is:

Are mystical experiences more than a complex of feelings that we have trouble explaining to one another?


hoghead1 wrote:
Mystical experiences represent a return to a deeper, more primal level of awareness that that represented by thought or intellect, sense or sensation, or the specialized forms of conscious knowing, such as science.
That statement sounds like a claim to me.
I can't automatically agree with it, so I challenge it, of course.

A mystical experience is a "return" to other mental states?
To what.. human historical superstitions and ignorance?

Why would we want to go back to THAT?
I prefer clear thinking and knowledge, myself.

hoghead1 wrote:
Reason, logic, intellect, and the world of the senses are fine things, but belong only to the superficialities of experience.
"The superficialities of experience."

You seem to imply that deep, deep feelings of something that we really can't express but seem to LIKE are preferable somehow, to reason, logic and intellect. If so, why?

Do you think that the Higgs Boson experiments or discovering the Cosmic microwave background, the theory of evolution or the recent discoveries in neurology concerning our consciousness are superficialities of our human experience?

I'd say they are very "deep" ones.
I don't think that historical thinkers ever got so deep into our actual reality or deep into what human consciousness actually is.

I usually prefer reality to fantasy... fantasy can be FUN.. and it also can lead to FURTHER deep knowledge, but only AFTER using our logic, reason, senses, intellect.

Fantasy that isn't checked out with those.. can only BE entertaining, in my point of view. I enjoy fantasy just as much as the other guy.

What do you say?

hoghead1 wrote:
Our most primary level is unconscious feeling or emotion.
I'm not sure of that, either.
Sorry.

You may be right. But there may be deeper levels than emotions ( affects ).
I guess it depends on what you consider to be "primary" or "feelings" or "emotions"".

Here's a dissenting view that you may want to consider:

"Primary consciousness is a term the American biologist Gerald Edelman coined to describe the ability, found in humans and some animals, to integrate observed events with memory to create an awareness of the present and immediate past of the world around them. This form of consciousness is also sometimes called "sensory consciousness". Put another way, primary consciousness is the presence of various subjective sensory contents of consciousness such as sensations, perceptions, and mental images."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primary_consciousness

hoghead1 wrote:
Normal, waking consciousness, dominated as it is by sensory experience, is not our most primary level of experience. Consciousness is only the tip if the ice berg. our conscious, sensory perceptions are but a late derivation, an abstraction, coming from zillions of miniscule noncognitive, nonsensory, purely affective events taking place in our subconscious minds.
I mostly agree with that.. with perhaps, only one reservation:

I'm just not too sure that when you use the term "affective" that it represents our most "basic level" of consciousness.

We may SENSE reality before we have FEELINGS about reality.
Discussing consciousness is one of the philosophical HARD questions.. and I won't attempt to solve it here.

I could agree with your ideas about consciousness for the sake of the argument you want to build about the mystical experience. But right now, that would be quite a stretch of my imaginative powers. I would urge you to reconsider what you think as the most basic part of our consciousness. Basic consciousness sounds like a worthy topic of research. I'm not too sure that it's been resolved, so there is lots of territory yet to explore. In any case, I will reserve my judgement on that until I have further data.

I appreciate your opinions.

hoghead1 wrote:
We tend to say that we see green and leave it go at that. But such thinking is way overly simplistic. We first of all felt greenly, then later see green.
I do not agree that "felt greenly" is the most basic kind of consciousness concerning the color of the leaf. I think that we first of all had to "SENSE" a color. I don't think that feelings are primary experiences, but derivative of some other kind of experience.

I think that we MUST perceive something green before we attach the concept or label of a feeling to the perception, and NOT the other way around.

Unless, of course, we are hard wired in advance to "FEEL" greenly.
It may be the case.. we ARE hard wired to experience the environment that we live in. We can only see the colors that our senses allow us to see, if we are unaided by instruments. So, perhaps our most BASIC "consciousness" are our senses, without which, perhaps, we would not have much of a consciousness at all.. what would we be thinking or feeling ABOUT if we didn't experience anything by our senses?

I don't remember thinking or feeling much before I had senses.. you know... as a fetus or when I'm unconscious.

hoghead1 wrote:
I know that sounds awkward, but there is no other way I can think to put it.
Talking about consciousness is always very awkward. It's hard to put our thinking about our thinking into coherent statements. I liked your "think greenly".

It seems to go very well with my own "feel the feel".

It sounds like a fine meme for environmental studies: "Feel the feel, think greenly". This might be the genesis of a poem.. we shall see.

It's difficult to talk about consciousness.. but unless I got you all wrong, ( feel free to correct me if I did ) I think that the expression "feel greenly" made sense to me. Maybe "feel greenly" comes after "sensing greenly" and maybe even after "thinking greenly", to use your terminology.

hoghead1 wrote:
Direct, immediate experience is not thinking or analyzing, nor is it the ream of sensation, the senses.
If I'm still looking at a leaf... how am I not using my senses?
How is "feeling greenly" not a feeling about the sensation of a leaf?

It does sound to me that how you describe a mystical experience is a derivative feeling of some sort that we have considerable trouble explaining to one another. These might be "deep" feelings that come from a non-verbal part of our consciousness. We can call those "unconscious" parts of our minds.

It might be fun to "go there" or to at least attempt to, as you say.
Maybe, after all, we are just IMAGINING that we "got there" at all... human minds are VERY creative, after all. I'm thinking of the dream I had last night where I actually WON this debate. Now, THAT was imaginative, I assure you !!

And the fact that we don't know everything that is happening in our brain or consciousness might explain why we can't articulate the "mystical" feelings very well. You know, the fact that some of our brain, mind or consciousness seems to be inaccessible to us normally. That's why that part of the mind is sometimes referred to as the "UNCONSCIOUS" level.

I'd agree that there seems to be parts of our brains that we don't have conscious access to. Drugs or prayer or some kind of meditation might just be able to tap into those.. but that's hard to prove.

I don't think that it HAS been proved yet .. do you?

In any case, I think that you might be thinking that a "mystical experience" actually DOES "go there", and doesn't tap into our CREATIVE side. To which, if you claim it, I would say:

Demonstrate the claim to be true.

hoghead1 wrote:
Direct, immediate experience is pure feeling.
No, I don't agree.
I am very SKEPTICAL of that idea.

And in fact, I am NOT exactly sure what it means.

"Pure feeling"?
"Immediate experience"?

I have no idea what those terms represent.

When I FEEL something, it's usually in relation TO something.
I consider feelings to be reactions to and derivative of events ( sense experiences ).

I am not too sure that I can have a FEELING about "nothing".
I usually think that feelings are secondary experiences, or even at times, even further up the consciousness ladder.

We can have feelings about our thoughts about events.
First, we sense the event, then we think about the event, and then we can have feelings about our thoughts.

But I don't know what a direct experience or pure feeling might be.
You might want to elaborate what you mean by those two terms.

Now, when we have feelings about an event, this can be an INTERNAL event.. I had a heart attack.. That was an internal event. I had feelings about it. Most of them were negative, but Blastcat, being imaginative, figured out some way to put a positive spin on the big event too... Then I had feelings about the spin. I'd say that feelings come after an experience, and not before.

I think that I can even have FEELINGS about my FEELINGS.
You know, like when I feel angry and then feel a little big sheepish for feeling angry.

I would say that sometimes, it's possible that feelings are very superficial kinds of consciousness, indeed. When I use a phrase like "lets go deep into this problem" I usually mean more than feel about it.

Yeah, poverty is horrible. I feel deeply about world poverty.
Now.. is that the deepest way that I can use my consciousness about world poverty?

I don't think so.
I think I can go WAY deeper than emoting, or having some "mystical experience" about world poverty. Way, way deeper, in a much more MEANINGFUL way.

And in a much much more HELPFUL way.

At least, that's my opinion for now.
I haven't thought about it much, or done any research into consciousness.
That kind of thing is "above my pay grade".

I'm more interested in epistemology, anyway, for the time being.

hoghead1 wrote:
We can feel more deeply than we can ever think or sense.
"feel more deeply".

I'm not too sure what that means, exactly.
If we are NOT feeling, but thinking or sensing, ANY feeling would be "deeper" than zero. We don't FEEL deeply or shallowly when we are NOT feeling at all.

In any case, I don't think you've expressed yourself very clearly there.
And it doesn't make much sense to me.

I would even go so far as to characterize the statement as a superficial equivocation which only seems to be profound

hoghead1 wrote:
Therefore, it can be very difficult for a person to describe his or her mystical experiences.
Well, so far, we seem to agree on one thing:
It's very difficult for us to describe just what mystical experience actually is or how it feels to us.

It all seems so very "mysterious".

One way to describe what is "mystical" is to change some of the letters so that the words reads: "Mysterious".

Oddly enough, both words share the same ROOT.
I wonder why that is?

Might it mean that what people consider to be a "mystical experience" is also very mysterious in nature?


:)

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Post #28

Post by hoghead1 »

[Replying to Blastcat]

You raised some good questions. I'll try and keep my answers short and sweet, and then elaborate more, if needs be.

I am not talking about returning to superstitions. I am talking about getting better in touch with the unconscious levels of our experience that underlie our consciousness. It is a long, commonly held myth in our society, that all experience, all mental life, is necessarily conscious. That is not anywhere near true. Normal, waking consciousness is the mere end product of zillions of unconscious experiences or mental events taking place, experiences far beneath the normal threshold of our consciousness. Certainly, the field of modern psychology has made that plain enough.

Science, as well as other highly cognitive enterprises, are certainly important. I don't deny that. I just think they scratch the surface. there are far more factors in our experiences that we are ever capable of analyzing at the moment or really at any time. Our experience goes by too fast for that. Indeed, when you stop and try and think and analyze your experiences of reality, you lost them.

It seems most arbitrary to limit our experiences of reality to the five senses. Many organisms, for example, with no real sensory apparatus still evidence a responsiveness to the environment, unconscious though it may be. Emotions just aren't things stirring around in our heads and no place else. Also, the brain is continuous with the body, and the body with the rest of the world. Information ours into us through many channels other than the senses. Matter of fact, our identification with the senses is purely affective. How do we know we see with our eyes? We don't see our eyes make us see, but we do feel our eyes make us see. The same is true with causality. We do not see the puff of air make the eye blink, we feel it do so. Our connectedness with the rest of the world is via emotion. Emotions just aren't purely subjective things stirring around in our heads and no place else. They transform the what's out there into the what's in here. Our primary level of experience is empathy, feeling the feelings in another.

Because our rational society tends to unduly downgrade emotion, we tend to separate emotion from the world of sensation, viewing emotion as a mere byproduct of our sensations, something just in us and no place else. We tend to look at the color green, for example, just as a blank sensation, think that's all the data that was given to us. We are inclined to write off remarks such as "pink feels more passionate than green, which is a softer mood" as just referring to something in us, not really out there. But in point of fact, the opposite is the case. Our sensations are mere byproducts of a deeper, more immediate emotional response. When we see green, what happens first is that our body cells, minus sense organs and any capacity for cognition, empathize with these feeling tones, these emotions transmitted to us by a particular color. And then, at a much later stage, does the visual world of green emerge from these earlier, more direct emotive experiences.

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Post #29

Post by Blastcat »

[Replying to post 28 by hoghead1]



[center]hoghead's views concerning mystical experiences,
Part 2: The ladder of consciousness[/center]

hoghead1 wrote:
I am not talking about returning to superstitions.
I was presenting the worst case, not the best.
I don't think anyone wants to go "back" to those bad old days.

hoghead1 wrote:
I am talking about getting better in touch with the unconscious levels of our experience that underlie our consciousness.
"In touch with the unconscious".

That seems to be a contradiction.
Allow me to explain:

I sometimes think that I have been in touch somewhat with my unconscious when I remember dreams. How does one decide that one is "in touch" with the subconscious.. or is consciously IMAGINING being in touch with it?

I sometimes think that I'm always "in touch" with the subconscious parts of my brain... because they are always working for me in the background.. maybe. It's just that I am not conscious of the work.

I don't know how one is supposed to be conscious or what is not conscious.
That sounds like a logical contradiction to me. If I become consciously aware of a part of my thinking, it's not unconscious any more.
  • When ice melts, its not ice anymore.
    When it's hot outside, it's no longer "cold".
    When I can get in touch with my unconscious, it's no longer unconscious.
So, I have trouble with your notion on logical grounds.
Your idea doesn't make "sense" to me, logically. It almost seems to be that you are saying that you are saying that what is unconscious is also conscious.

Your idea is confusing me.
Could you clear it up?

hoghead1 wrote:
It is a long, commonly held myth in our society, that all experience, all mental life, is necessarily conscious.
And then along came Freud, and all those psychologists.
And of course, we should not forget the neuroscientists that are currently hard at work trying to figure out how the brain works.
hoghead1 wrote:
That is not anywhere near true.
Agreed !!
I think that's the modern scientific consensus, yeah.

hoghead1 wrote:
Normal, waking consciousness is the mere end product of zillions of unconscious experiences or mental events taking place, experiences far beneath the normal threshold of our consciousness.
A lot of philosophers and scientists agree.
I don't have any problem with that, either.
But I'm not sure it's a FACT ... I think that it's a very good theory and hypothesis.

I would even go so far as to say that it's the best theory we have.
So far.

hoghead1 wrote:
Certainly, the field of modern psychology has made that plain enough.
Yep.
We have achieved agreement once again !!

hoghead1 wrote:
Science, as well as other highly cognitive enterprises, are certainly important. I don't deny that. I just think they scratch the surface.
Yep.
There is a LOT of information that we don't have yet. I think that we partly agree here, I'm not too sure I reflected the exact point you were trying to make.

I would say...when it comes to consciousness, let's invest in neuroscience and psychology. We are just scratching the surface.

But it's very hard for me to catch up with advances in neurosciences.
I'd say... "try my best to keep up with that".

hoghead1 wrote:
there are far more factors in our experiences that we are ever capable of analyzing at the moment or really at any time.
Agreed !!
We don't currently know everything.
But we seem to be learning by leaps and bounds these days.

hoghead1 wrote:
Our experience goes by too fast for that. Indeed, when you stop and try and think and analyze your experiences of reality, you lost them.
That's why the science has to be GOOD, CAREFUL science.
I say that we should invest more in science, to make sure that it is.
If you are talking about the virtues of science, you make a very good case for it.

hoghead1 wrote:
It seems most arbitrary to limit our experiences of reality to the five senses.
"Most arbitrary to limit"

Well, they are the most obvious senses.
We DO seem to have sense organs. like "eyes" and "skin" and "ears" and so on.... You know, the common 5.

I'm not too sure what sense organ we might be referring to when we are "sensing" mystical experiences.

Do you have a suggestion?
The imagination?
Emotions?

Are you calling these "senses"?

hoghead1 wrote:
Many organisms, for example, with no real sensory apparatus still evidence a responsiveness to the environment, unconscious though it may be.
"no real sensory apparatus"

I'd like an example.

I found one, but I'm not too sure it proves your point:

"Phototropism is the growth of an organism which responds to a light stimulus. It is most often observed in plants, but can also occur in other organisms such as fungi. The cells on the plant that are farthest from the light have a chemical called auxin that reacts when phototropism occurs. This causes the plant to have elongated cells on the farthest side from the light. Phototropism is one of the many plant tropisms or movements which respond to external stimuli. "
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phototropism

Maybe we can't call phototropism "sensory apparatus", I'm not too sure.
Any thoughts or better examples?

hoghead1 wrote:
Emotions just aren't things stirring around in our heads and no place else.
How does the location of the emotions matter?

hoghead1 wrote:
Also, the brain is continuous with the body, and the body with the rest of the world.
Agree !!
I'm not too sure what you're getting at.
If we take the theory of evolution as true, we have adapted to our environment.

hoghead1 wrote:
Information ours into us through many channels other than the senses.

"Many channels"

You would need to give me those examples.
I have no idea what you mean.

hoghead1 wrote:
Matter of fact, our identification with the senses is purely affective. How do we know we see with our eyes?
I'd ask a person with blindfolds on to look at a leaf.

hoghead1 wrote:
We don't see our eyes make us see, but we do feel our eyes make us see.
hoghead1 wrote:
When I close my eyes, I "feel" that I don't see.
You might be confusing "feel" for "think".
Are you saying that our senses are unreliable as sensory devices?
Well.. I'd say they aren't perfect, and should be verified.

We do make errors.
Our senses can fool us.
That's where scientific rigor comes into the picture.

Do you agree?

hoghead1 wrote:
The same is true with causality. We do not see the puff of air make the eye blink, we feel it do so. Our connectedness with the rest of the world is via emotion.
I have to ask you for a clarification.
Is emotion the ONLY connectedness with the rest of the world?

Are you advocating some kind of radical romanticism?

Here is what Wikipedia says about romanticism:

"Romanticism was characterized by its emphasis on emotion and individualism as well as glorification of all the past and nature, preferring the medieval rather than the classical."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanticism

It seems to me that you are "romanticizing" all experience to the core.
When it comes to cognition and consciousness, you seem to say that emotions are "all".

Is this correct?

hoghead1 wrote:
Emotions just aren't purely subjective things stirring around in our heads and no place else. They transform the what's out there into the what's in here. Our primary level of experience is empathy, feeling the feelings in another.
An interesting claim.
Do you have any evidence to support it?

hoghead1 wrote:
Because our rational society tends to unduly downgrade emotion, we tend to separate emotion from the world of sensation, viewing emotion as a mere byproduct of our sensations, something just in us and no place else.
"our rational society"

When I take a sample of my culture.. there seems to be a WHOLE LOT OF emotions.
I hardly ever see Plato being discussed on TV, for example.

But relationships.. yeah.. I see a lot of discussions about love and relationships.
And a LOT of people are going to vote for Trump. :)

hoghead1 wrote:
We tend to look at the color green, for example, just as a blank sensation, think that's all the data that was given to us.
Some people might.
Are you saying that we all do?

hoghead1 wrote:
We are inclined to write off remarks such as "pink feels more passionate than green, which is a softer mood" as just referring to something in us, not really out there. But in point of fact, the opposite is the case.
Could you be over-generalizing the case?

hoghead1 wrote:
Our sensations are mere byproducts of a deeper, more immediate emotional response.
I'm not too sure what you mean.
Could you describe how that works.

Let's say we approach a leaf.

Now what?

hoghead1 wrote:
When we see green, what happens first is that our body cells, minus sense organs and any capacity for cognition, empathize with these feeling tones, these emotions transmitted to us by a particular color.
Questions:
  • 1. When you use the term "body cells" are you describing those with sensory capacity?
    2. How have you determined that our body cells devoid of any cognitive capacity can have empathy?
hoghead1 wrote:
And then, at a much later stage, does the visual world of green emerge from these earlier, more direct emotive experiences.
Questions:
  • 1 . Are you saying that our experience of the leaf comes FROM our emotional responses?
    2. Is this the ladder of consciousness you are hypothesizing:

    1. External stimuli i.e. "leaf".
    2. Emotions
    3. Senses
    4. Thoughts

    ( where 1 is the most basic and 4 is the most derivative )


:)

hoghead1
Guru
Posts: 2011
Joined: Tue Mar 22, 2016 10:02 pm

Post #30

Post by hoghead1 »

Blastcat wrote: [Replying to post 28 by hoghead1]



[center]hoghead's views concerning mystical experiences,
Part 2: The ladder of consciousness[/center]

hoghead1 wrote:
I am not talking about returning to superstitions.
I was presenting the worst case, not the best.
I don't think anyone wants to go "back" to those bad old days.

hoghead1 wrote:
I am talking about getting better in touch with the unconscious levels of our experience that underlie our consciousness.
"In touch with the unconscious".

That seems to be a contradiction.
Allow me to explain:

I sometimes think that I have been in touch somewhat with my unconscious when I remember dreams. How does one decide that one is "in touch" with the subconscious.. or is consciously IMAGINING being in touch with it?

I sometimes think that I'm always "in touch" with the subconscious parts of my brain... because they are always working for me in the background.. maybe. It's just that I am not conscious of the work.

I don't know how one is supposed to be conscious or what is not conscious.
That sounds like a logical contradiction to me. If I become consciously aware of a part of my thinking, it's not unconscious any more.
  • When ice melts, its not ice anymore.
    When it's hot outside, it's no longer "cold".
    When I can get in touch with my unconscious, it's no longer unconscious.
So, I have trouble with your notion on logical grounds.
Your idea doesn't make "sense" to me, logically. It almost seems to be that you are saying that you are saying that what is unconscious is also conscious.

Your idea is confusing me.
Could you clear it up?

I'll try in my next post.
hoghead1 wrote:
It is a long, commonly held myth in our society, that all experience, all mental life, is necessarily conscious.
And then along came Freud, and all those psychologists.
And of course, we should not forget the neuroscientists that are currently hard at work trying to figure out how the brain works.
hoghead1 wrote:
That is not anywhere near true.
Agreed !!
I think that's the modern scientific consensus, yeah.

hoghead1 wrote:
Normal, waking consciousness is the mere end product of zillions of unconscious experiences or mental events taking place, experiences far beneath the normal threshold of our consciousness.
A lot of philosophers and scientists agree.
I don't have any problem with that, either.
But I'm not sure it's a FACT ... I think that it's a very good theory and hypothesis.

I would even go so far as to say that it's the best theory we have.
So far.

hoghead1 wrote:
Certainly, the field of modern psychology has made that plain enough.
Yep.
We have achieved agreement once again !!

hoghead1 wrote:
Science, as well as other highly cognitive enterprises, are certainly important. I don't deny that. I just think they scratch the surface.
Yep.
There is a LOT of information that we don't have yet. I think that we partly agree here, I'm not too sure I reflected the exact point you were trying to make.

I would say...when it comes to consciousness, let's invest in neuroscience and psychology. We are just scratching the surface.

But it's very hard for me to catch up with advances in neurosciences.
I'd say... "try my best to keep up with that".

hoghead1 wrote:
there are far more factors in our experiences that we are ever capable of analyzing at the moment or really at any time.
Agreed !!
We don't currently know everything.
But we seem to be learning by leaps and bounds these days.

hoghead1 wrote:
Our experience goes by too fast for that. Indeed, when you stop and try and think and analyze your experiences of reality, you lost them.
That's why the science has to be GOOD, CAREFUL science.
I say that we should invest more in science, to make sure that it is.
If you are talking about the virtues of science, you make a very good case for it.

hoghead1 wrote:
It seems most arbitrary to limit our experiences of reality to the five senses.
"Most arbitrary to limit"

Well, they are the most obvious senses.
We DO seem to have sense organs. like "eyes" and "skin" and "ears" and so on.... You know, the common 5.

I'm not too sure what sense organ we might be referring to when we are "sensing" mystical experiences.

Do you have a suggestion?
The imagination?
Emotions?

Are you calling these "senses"?

hoghead1 wrote:
Many organisms, for example, with no real sensory apparatus still evidence a responsiveness to the environment, unconscious though it may be.
"no real sensory apparatus"

I'd like an example.

I found one, but I'm not too sure it proves your point:

"Phototropism is the growth of an organism which responds to a light stimulus. It is most often observed in plants, but can also occur in other organisms such as fungi. The cells on the plant that are farthest from the light have a chemical called auxin that reacts when phototropism occurs. This causes the plant to have elongated cells on the farthest side from the light. Phototropism is one of the many plant tropisms or movements which respond to external stimuli. "
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phototropism

Maybe we can't call phototropism "sensory apparatus", I'm not too sure.
Any thoughts or better examples?

hoghead1 wrote:
Emotions just aren't things stirring around in our heads and no place else.
How does the location of the emotions matter?

hoghead1 wrote:
Also, the brain is continuous with the body, and the body with the rest of the world.
Agree !!
I'm not too sure what you're getting at.
If we take the theory of evolution as true, we have adapted to our environment.

hoghead1 wrote:
Information ours into us through many channels other than the senses.

"Many channels"

You would need to give me those examples.
I have no idea what you mean.

hoghead1 wrote:
Matter of fact, our identification with the senses is purely affective. How do we know we see with our eyes?
I'd ask a person with blindfolds on to look at a leaf.

hoghead1 wrote:
We don't see our eyes make us see, but we do feel our eyes make us see.
hoghead1 wrote:
When I close my eyes, I "feel" that I don't see.
You might be confusing "feel" for "think".
Are you saying that our senses are unreliable as sensory devices?
Well.. I'd say they aren't perfect, and should be verified.

We do make errors.
Our senses can fool us.
That's where scientific rigor comes into the picture.

Do you agree?

hoghead1 wrote:
The same is true with causality. We do not see the puff of air make the eye blink, we feel it do so. Our connectedness with the rest of the world is via emotion.
I have to ask you for a clarification.
Is emotion the ONLY connectedness with the rest of the world?

Are you advocating some kind of radical romanticism?

Here is what Wikipedia says about romanticism:

"Romanticism was characterized by its emphasis on emotion and individualism as well as glorification of all the past and nature, preferring the medieval rather than the classical."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanticism

It seems to me that you are "romanticizing" all experience to the core.
When it comes to cognition and consciousness, you seem to say that emotions are "all".

Is this correct?

hoghead1 wrote:
Emotions just aren't purely subjective things stirring around in our heads and no place else. They transform the what's out there into the what's in here. Our primary level of experience is empathy, feeling the feelings in another.
An interesting claim.
Do you have any evidence to support it?

hoghead1 wrote:
Because our rational society tends to unduly downgrade emotion, we tend to separate emotion from the world of sensation, viewing emotion as a mere byproduct of our sensations, something just in us and no place else.
"our rational society"

When I take a sample of my culture.. there seems to be a WHOLE LOT OF emotions.
I hardly ever see Plato being discussed on TV, for example.

But relationships.. yeah.. I see a lot of discussions about love and relationships.
And a LOT of people are going to vote for Trump. :)

hoghead1 wrote:
We tend to look at the color green, for example, just as a blank sensation, think that's all the data that was given to us.
Some people might.
Are you saying that we all do?

hoghead1 wrote:
We are inclined to write off remarks such as "pink feels more passionate than green, which is a softer mood" as just referring to something in us, not really out there. But in point of fact, the opposite is the case.
Could you be over-generalizing the case?

hoghead1 wrote:
Our sensations are mere byproducts of a deeper, more immediate emotional response.
I'm not too sure what you mean.
Could you describe how that works.

Let's say we approach a leaf.

Now what?

hoghead1 wrote:
When we see green, what happens first is that our body cells, minus sense organs and any capacity for cognition, empathize with these feeling tones, these emotions transmitted to us by a particular color.
Questions:
  • 1. When you use the term "body cells" are you describing those with sensory capacity?
    2. How have you determined that our body cells devoid of any cognitive capacity can have empathy?
hoghead1 wrote:
And then, at a much later stage, does the visual world of green emerge from these earlier, more direct emotive experiences.
Questions:
  • 1 . Are you saying that our experience of the leaf comes FROM our emotional responses?
    2. Is this the ladder of consciousness you are hypothesizing:

    1. External stimuli i.e. "leaf".
    2. Emotions
    3. Senses
    4. Thoughts

    ( where 1 is the most basic and 4 is the most derivative )


:)

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