Your brain on AYAHUASCA

[Jonathan Österman]

If a material chemical molecule can change the chemistry of our material chemical brain and thus produce an altered state of our conscious experience, then it follows that our normal state of consciousness is being produced by the normal chemistry of our brain. And this proves that materialism was correct all along, because the material basis of our conscious experience is clearly and obviously the normal chemistry of our brains.

The above is not some bogus idealistic philosophy.
The above is an experimental, empirical scientific fact.

Materialism is NOT baloney, and chemical machine consciousness is NOT Lunacy.

Duh, basics of scientific method: correlation can never be used as a direct proof of causation.

and to weaken the logic of the above sillogism even more, we can recall that even the bare correlation is far from clean, as BK showed:
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/ob ... -research/

Lets' suppose that you drunk a strong neuro-toxin and you immediately died, and you would call it a mere weak correlation?


When you eat to satisfy hunger, is it also a mere weak correlation? If yes, then stop eating, and start reading a menu instead.





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[lorenzop]

Lets' suppose that you drunk a strong neuro-toxin and you immediately died, and you would call it a mere weak correlation?
[/size]

When you eat to satisfy hunger, is it also a mere weak correlation? If yes, then stop eating, and start reading a menu instead.
.matter

There is no need for any sort of thought experiment - all the Materialist need to do to win the argument is produce a chunk of matter - show us this matter of which you speak.

[Federica]

Duh, basics of scientific method: correlation can never be used as a direct proof of causation.

and to weaken the logic of the above sillogism even more, we can recall that even the bare correlation is far from clean, as BK showed:
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/ob ... -research/

Lets' suppose that you drunk a strong neuro-toxin and you immediately died, and you would call it a mere weak correlation?


When you eat to satisfy hunger, is it also a mere weak correlation? If yes, then stop eating, and start reading a menu instead.





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Few are extravagant enough to deny the laws of nature, and that our physical body is submitted to these. I am not one of them Jonathan But your use of logic is slightly extravagant, I must say

[lorenzop]

My point is that someone could think of growth as a reclaiming of one's spiritual heritage, or, thinking as a materialist creating a higher functioning more coherent brain.
Put another way, I don't see having materialism as a preferred metaphysics as the enemy, or as a hindrance to growth, or equated to being of low morals.
It's just a prefered philosophy - like preferring an apple over an orange.
Here's a question - can an individual actually live as a materialist? Does anyone actually live as though in a brutish world of facts and quantities . . . is this even possible?
I don't think I've ever met an actual materialist.

[Jonathan Österman]

Few are extravagant enough to deny the laws of nature, and that our physical body is submitted to these. I am not one of them Jonathan But your use of logic is slightly extravagant, I must say

Dear Federica,

Hi,

Thank you very much for all your above contributions to the debate of my syllogisms.

My main Ayahuasca syllogism, and our short debate, might seem very simple at a cursory glance.

However, there is a hidden, profound conceptual depth to it.

Federica, what if I told you that in our debate,
we both were correct, and at the same time, we both were wrong ?

I will elaborate on it when I have the right moment for it.

Federica, let me give you just one hint to start with.

You critically and logically examined my main syllogism.

In support of your logical criticism you then quoted
a syllogism that a correlation is not a causation,
which is clearly true, but only in some limited general sense,
because it all depends on our understanding
of what causation might ultimately be, if anything at all (it is still debatable).
And if there isn't any causation at all, than based on this,
what would you hope to prove? Maybe only that we know
that we don't know anything for certain.

Then you quoted BK's paper which is full of syllogisms.
One syllogism can't possible cause a true conclusion to appear
in a form of another syllogism, or as a simple assertion.

All syllogisms in papers, like the BK's paper, are merely
combined in a string of weak correlations only,
which prove absolutely nothing, because the proper notion
of scientific proof, strictly speaking, is only applicable
in the field of mathematics, and nowhere else in science, at all,
not even in the experimental physics.

Except mathematics, all well-established scientific conclusions
are considered to be true, but only tentatively, until such time,
when they could be somehow, convincingly enough,
demonstrated (but not proven) to be wrong.

Philosophy is the last place in science where anything at all
could be established to be true beyond even a small reasonable doubt,
and this equally applies to all my philosophical syllogisms
and assertions that are logical, reasonable, and seem to clearly be true.

The objective physical evidence, so far only, that what I wrote above
is true for the time being, are never-ending an unceasing scientific
and philosophical debates, like the ones on this forum.

Federica, I hope that you will be surprised that in mathematics
there has been a well-established and well-accepted irrefutable PROOF
that all we can possibly know for certain is that we don't know
anything for certain. And this applies to the entire human knowledge,
past, present, and even future, regardless whether there is
such thing as causation, or not.

I am not kidding you, Federica.
Do you know what is this proof called?
If not, then maybe somebody else on this forum knows it ?




https://quantumantigravity.wordpress.com/up/










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[Jonathan Österman]

i] [/i]

Few are extravagant enough to deny the laws of nature, and that our physical body is submitted to these. I am not one of them Jonathan But your use of logic is slightly extravagant, I must say

Dear Federica,

Hi,

I forgot to tell you one important thing.

I would like you to know that I am absolutely certain
that the indisputable obvious directly observable
and experimentally testable scientific fact of physical causality
have nothing to do with doubting the irrefutable validity
of the view of Philosophy of Idealism.

The Scientific Materialism and the Philosophy of Idealism
are both correct.

However, the view of Scientific Materialism constitutes
a lower (lesser) truth, while the view of
Philosophy of Idealism constitutes the Higher Truth.

Federica, please consider simple planting of seeds
in the soil, all the trees that have ever grown out of them,
and all the countless harvests of grain on this planet (unambiguous causation).

If there has ever been as little as a single observed
instance of an apple tree having grown out of
a planted seed from an orange fruit, then I will fully agree
that scientific materialism is baloney, and that what we
call a physical "causation" is a mere weak correlation only.

Even though the Scientific Materialism is obviously true,
it is not the only truth about existence.

There is a hierarchy of valid objective truths,
and Idealism is the Highest Truth.

Can I prove it ?

Nobody can prove it, because ultimately nothing is provable,
not even in mathematics. There is only some "evidence" (a mere clue)
that needs to be properly comprehended,
which requires intelligence and Wisdom.

Existence is all about simply being,
and never about proving anything to anybody.

I hope it was somewhat helpful ?

Jon






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[lorenzop]

This was in the context of your comment that a materialist, who doesn't believe in any spirit to reclaim, can still make 'spiritual progress'. This materialist believes that individual conscious existence must evaporate with the cessation of brain functioning at death. My comment on the movies was to illustrate how this way of thinking is directly responsible for all the pathological ways people behave towards each other when confronted with the question of death. The entertainment and coherence of the movie plotlines come directly from the fact that most audiences feel it's entirely reasonable for the protagonist to go on revenge fantasies when a loved one is murdered, or to take all sorts of extreme and immoral measures when they fear their own physical death. We feel it's reasonable and an entertaining basis for a plotline because that's how we also think about our relationships with other human beings - at the core it is about using others to extract as much personal pleasure, satisfaction, happiness, comfort, etc. for ourselves while we are alive, because who knows what if anything will happen after death.

I have not seen any correlation between what people believe, and how they treat themselves or others. If anything, extremists in any religion (especially Christian\Muslim\Jewish) are the more prone towards revenge fantasies.
Having a belief in Hell\Paradise, or any flavor of reincarnation - does not appear to bring peace.

[AshvinP]

This was in the context of your comment that a materialist, who doesn't believe in any spirit to reclaim, can still make 'spiritual progress'. This materialist believes that individual conscious existence must evaporate with the cessation of brain functioning at death. My comment on the movies was to illustrate how this way of thinking is directly responsible for all the pathological ways people behave towards each other when confronted with the question of death. The entertainment and coherence of the movie plotlines come directly from the fact that most audiences feel it's entirely reasonable for the protagonist to go on revenge fantasies when a loved one is murdered, or to take all sorts of extreme and immoral measures when they fear their own physical death. We feel it's reasonable and an entertaining basis for a plotline because that's how we also think about our relationships with other human beings - at the core it is about using others to extract as much personal pleasure, satisfaction, happiness, comfort, etc. for ourselves while we are alive, because who knows what if anything will happen after death.

I have not seen any correlation between what people believe, and how they treat themselves or others. If anything, extremists in any religion (especially Christian\Muslim\Jewish) are the more prone towards revenge fantasies.
Having a belief in Hell\Paradise, or any flavor of reincarnation - does not appear to bring peace.

Ok, but does your thinking discern the logical coherence of the connection I mentioned before? That complete uncertainty as to the threshold of death and what it signifies, regardless of philosophical or religious belief, can be linked to how people treat themselves and others, which anyone paying attention can admit is in a terrible state today?

If so, then the question is whether a better orientation to death can be attained beyond mere belief. We all know death is a real and inevitable event, and that something occurs at that event, and that our life of conscious experience has some relation to whatever occurs. Can these facts be explored any further without relying on beliefs or unreliable visionary experiences?

[lorenzop]

If so, then the question is whether a better orientation to death can be attained beyond mere belief. We all know death is a real and inevitable event, and that something occurs at that event, and that our life of conscious experience has some relation to whatever occurs. Can these facts be explored any further without relying on beliefs or unreliable visionary experiences?

At this time the answer is No, we don't have any technique\technology for knowing what (if anything) happens after death.
Then there's the possibility that even if we could learn about post-death, we couldn't do anything with the knowledge.
So, I'd suggest odds are very slim we can learn anything actionable regarding our post-death.
The fact is we have been granted a life, and yes we have stains and impurities . . . the Present Here-and-Now is a great gift . . . enjoy it.
----

I bet Steiner has a 'tool' to learn about post-death - but I'm not hearing of countless followers giving reports on how their current lives have been altered by their knowledge of the future.

[AshvinP]

If so, then the question is whether a better orientation to death can be attained beyond mere belief. We all know death is a real and inevitable event, and that something occurs at that event, and that our life of conscious experience has some relation to whatever occurs. Can these facts be explored any further without relying on beliefs or unreliable visionary experiences?

At this time the answer is No, we don't have any technique\technology for knowing what (if anything) happens after death.
Then there's the possibility that even if we could learn about post-death, we couldn't do anything with the knowledge.
So, I'd suggest odds are very slim we can learn anything actionable regarding our post-death.
The fact is we have been granted a life, and yes we have stains and impurities . . . the Present Here-and-Now is a great gift . . . enjoy it.
----

I bet Steiner has a 'tool' to learn about post-death - but I'm not hearing of countless followers giving reports on how their current lives have been altered by their knowledge of the future.

Right, so we come back to the same issue we have been circling around on this forum for a long time. It is quite amazing on the intuitive path when we realize how all the crippling uncertainty regarding death and what it means for our stream of experience is a relatively recent phenomenon in human history, born of the fact we have stopped understanding ourselves as beings already living in and experiencing the stages after death. Why should it be otherwise? Why should there be some fundamental discontinuity between our normal conscious experience and the subconscious experience of our breathing, our circulation, and our metabolism? The latter may not be conscious to us but we know our conscious experience unfolds within its lawful context and, through effort, we may even become more conscious of these inner processes. When we are not conscious of them, that doesn't change the fact that they are unfolding and influencing our conscious experience.

It is the same principle with the stages after death. The Here-and-Now cannot be fully appreciated and enjoyed unless it is experienced within the holistic context that gives it meaning. The very fact that you are still on this forum testifies to this reality - you know there is something deeper to be explored within the Here-and-Now and you are not satisfied with the latter 'as it is'. This is nothing to be ashamed of. If we all became satisfied with the 'now' as it is, all life would die out and evolution would cease. People should be curious about the most certain event of their lives and the lives of everyone they know - death. They should balk at the idea that death should act as some absolute barrier to experience. Yet because of ingrained habits of thinking that imagines discontinuities everywhere, most don't know where to turn for concrete answers. Cleric provided a simple and effective image before:





The left-hand conception imagines that growing into the post-death stages of existence is like remaining a soul atom, as we experience ourselves now, except leaving the body and going into more subtle states with more fluid experiences, and what have you. Then it imagines anyone who reports on these stages is simply collecting factoids about exotic worlds which, if they even exist, cannot possibly have relevance to our TFW lives in the corporeal state. If we understand the right-hand image correctly, though, it means that as we grow into those stages, we awaken to how our first-person perspective was always an interference of the manifold activities taking place across the pseudo veil. Only in the corporeal state our perspective was too aliased to realize this and projected all that activity as the 'outer world' of other beings and events and as the 'subconscious' of our inner life. When on the corporeal plane we experience the animal, plant, mineral kingdoms, the elements of air, water, and earth, the natural laws of gravity, electromagnetism, etc., the events of human history, we are experiencing the shadows of our spiritual movements across the pseudo veil.

I know most will write this off as fantastic speculation - as Cleric already said before, there is reflexive resistance to anything that speaks concretely about these things - but the only point is that when you say "we couldn't do anything with the knowledge", again you should be saying "I". Because as long as the knowledge is conceived as floating factoids about worlds that have nothing to do with our Here-and-Now experience, we indeed can do nothing of importance with it. But if that knowledge is understood as the inner dimension of our current experience and that the latter is always a 'slice' of the whole spectrum of existence, then it cannot help but alter our lives in the most profound ways.

Also, Lorenzo, your knowledge of the future is always influencing your current life, unless you flow with your stream of experience without any consideration whatsoever for your responsibilities, obligations, tasks, people to meet, places to go, etc. Why would it be any different for more holistic insight into the future?