What is reality, what is a 2x4?

Discussion of the nature of Ultimate Reality and the path to Enlightenment.
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Tomas
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Re: What is reality, what is a 2x4?

Post by Tomas »

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:On a different note I once shocked a group of people by yelling "here come 5 x 6" at a series of Yahtzee games. The first time I announced anything after hundreds of throws but I did got 5x6 in one throw on a crucial moment. What's the chance, really? Or lights go out during a games of dart and it's pitch black. I need the bull and throw anyway, not even knowing where the wall was anymore. But it was bull's eye and I never hit anything during the light. Of course nobody believed.
Never was much on Yahtzee so no comment follows.

301 Darts I'm familiar with (actually my favorite) and going out (boys night out from spouses) tonight and toss a few rounds. Ditto for some call-your-shot pool. Budweiser (draft) beer gonna tie one on! Haven't had beer (liquid spirits) since last September, so maybe there'll be a little skunk-weed, too!

Were your dart escapades sober or spirit-filled ;-\

The 'lights-out' bullseye has happened at this end, too. Unbelievable so never mentioned to someone else since it prolly happened to them also. I generally write it off as 'luck of the draw', eh?

Oh yeah, was the board electronic? The new boards (within the past couple years) are heavily-chipped (spirited) with all sorts of whiz-bang electronica attachments. Sometimes rarely, one can wander up to those and when one goes to insert the coin there will be a spark and the machine will shut down, more electronic wizardry but maybe built-in fail safe mechanism (or to simply rip off the inebriated player) and plunk in more loose change. I'd assume the person's aura energy field may short-circuit more than others. It's much like walking in the night and one ventured under a streetlamp and it shuts down, always gives the creeps when that occurs. They usually have the 'electric eye' above the sense the setting sun. The cost for a game is now fifty cents. Not bad considering the intentional devaluation of the american dollar. Pool table costs have escalated up to a Buck.

More later.
Don't run to your death
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Re: What is reality, what is a 2x4?

Post by guest_of_logic »

Tomas wrote:
Diebert van Rhijn wrote:On a different note I once shocked a group of people by yelling "here come 5 x 6" at a series of Yahtzee games. The first time I announced anything after hundreds of throws but I did got 5x6 in one throw on a crucial moment. What's the chance, really? Or lights go out during a games of dart and it's pitch black. I need the bull and throw anyway, not even knowing where the wall was anymore. But it was bull's eye and I never hit anything during the light. Of course nobody believed.
[...]

The 'lights-out' bullseye has happened at this end, too. Unbelievable so never mentioned to someone else since it prolly happened to them also. I generally write it off as 'luck of the draw', eh?
Nothing like that for me personally, but one of my friends in primary school told the rest of us that he could win anything he wanted to, and that he'd prove it by winning the school raffle (I can't remember the prize - some kind of cake maybe). To our astonishment, he did win. Not quite as low odds as you guys overcame, but maybe worth mentioning.
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skipair
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Re: What is reality, what is a 2x4?

Post by skipair »

Hi Laird, I've skimmed through some of your posts here, and it seems to me the main theme is a verging toward anti-science.

Tell me, is this trend something other than your strength of characters saying to the world, "THIS IS WHO I AM"...and then finding whatever mode to help justify it, however 'woo woo'?
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Re: What is reality, what is a 2x4?

Post by Diebert van Rhijn »

guest_of_logic wrote:Can you see why, given that, I came to the conclusion that you are extreme in your denial? If that's the wrong conclusion, then I'm pleased to welcome your thoughts on what the middle ground might be, because until now, you haven't offered them.
Not really. But possibly you do not dig my mode of communication very well. There can be two Christians and one follows a false God and kills Christ. There can be two Buddhists and one perpetuating and selling ignorance. There can be two scientists and one does not really understand the scientific principle at all. In all these cases there's no "middle" ground, nothing to agree on in the middle. But what is important to understand is that by challenging the one, it doesn't mean the whole topic is dismissed. Proper method can still be followed and people can discover the truth for themselves. They don't need me to outline the map, supplying them more theories or theologies to ponder over. I believe in challenging the blocks and not by simply presenting just another block to misinterpret. It's about method and path, not about another map. It's the same with most of my writing as it's just where my main interest at this forum lies.
These "highly probable" explanations (Diebert's words
High or low probability, it's nothing more than a common scientific way to address future events or theories when they cannot be proven to be incorrect altogether. And I was talking about "single true positives" in a much broader sense than you appear to have taken it. So you might have concluded something else from it than I intended. Also, supernatural explanations are in my view never "highly probably" since they always raise way more problematic questions than they ever solve. Although I admit there can be situations there doesn't appear any viable option and then such answer might at least help people to give it a place. The mind hates open endings and loves a good story after all. My mind just as well!
when one asks the question, "What is the probability that none of these events has a supernatural explanation?" given that each of them "highly probably" (or even at a probability as low as 0.1, as my analysis shows) has a supernatural explanation, it doesn't require too many of them before that probability is, for all intents and purposes, 0.
Again there are two major mistakes here on a fundamental level (before calculation starts). The type of events you are talking about (unexplained events in daily life) cannot be assigned high or low probability that easy, if at all. And even when we do, you cannot be sure they are independent. Or even if they are, how do you select which to count as "event" to add to the list and which not? And how many times are you able to repeat the whole process to obtain some statistical significance?
Diebert: Then how do you know if the bullet actually attempted to go through the body if there was no mark or other trace? Maybe it went another way or didn't leave the gun at all? It's very hard to research these things outside controlled circumstance. It's quite unlikely you have been able to research all the possibilities.

BO: To answer your question; there was a hole in the center of the back of the chair where this man was sitting. We found the bullet later.
That didn't answer the questions at all. As I told you earlier (and you leave that context out) there were many more possibilities obviously. From which side did the bullet enter the chair? Was the hole a bullet hole at all? Was the bullet possibly from another event? In these kind of cases one should be modest and more in awe of the amazing possibilities of the human mind. It seems you as well as Being are not that modest. What you see is what happened and others should not doubt it too much! That's how I read it. While a bit of common sense and empathy, being in touch with the world of real people and concerns would make it clear this cannot be claimed outside the group of witnesses who can take something from that experience and leave it at that. A mystery with so many possible "hidden variables".

guest_of_logic wrote: I'm simply asking why, given your recognition of his sincerity, and his ability to satisfactorily answer the questions you put to him, you don't consider his story to be credible.
With sincere I meant I don't think he was making it up. Does in your language "sincere" means one is also right? Duh.
guest_of_logic wrote:"Prime argument"? Come on, mate, you have to know you're stretching the truth beyond what's reasonable there. I.... it was more like tertiary evidence (evidence, not argument). Really, you ought to be more careful. Stretching the truth like that does your own credibility no favours.
It was just my impression considering the effort you have poured into outlining the case. The account seemed to mean suddenly a lot to you? For example here:
guest_of_logic wrote:Did all four of them hallucinate the same mirage of broken bones reforming themselves - was the victim in fact not injured in the first place and all of them just hallucinated the injuries as well as the subsequent healing? How is the mental and perceptual congruence required for a group hallucination of that order in any way more plausible than the spiritual explanation, especially taken with the preponderance of Bo1's other spiritual experiences?
Perhaps I should add that it doesn't need hallucination to misinterpret and misdiagnose the medical state of a victim. Talking bout the experience later in a group can even reinforce the wrong observation. This is well known by people who examine eye witness reports. Good intentions all around.
Last edited by Diebert van Rhijn on Sat Mar 31, 2012 8:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Kunga
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Re: What is reality, what is a 2x4?

Post by Kunga »

Is there more than one system of Logic ? Is the Logic that is used here, Western [Aristotle] Logic ? Is this Logic Universal ? Could it be, that Truth is Relative to systems of Logic ?

A Shaman would be experienced with the Spiritual World, unlike someone raised in Western Society. Native American Indians take Spiritual things of this nature seriously...unlike Western educated people that have to "see it to believe it."

I just think by limiting the mind to Western interpretation is being narrow minded. If you consider all systems of Logic and then make a conclusion, wouldn't that be more accurate ?
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Re: What is reality, what is a 2x4?

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Logic is probably fundamental to the human mind at some.extremely basic level. The use of.logic is.probably fundamental to thinking and perceiving. But the 'terms of logic' are what make all the difference. The data if you will. The data of an Esquimo and that of Aristotle or of Freud...are the difference that makes the difference.

Howz that sound?
fiat mihi
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Diebert van Rhijn
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Re: What is reality, what is a 2x4?

Post by Diebert van Rhijn »

Kunga wrote:I just think by limiting the mind to Western interpretation is being narrow minded.
The mind limits and narrows but rare is the mind that knows exactly how and when it's doing it.
If you consider all systems of Logic and then make a conclusion, wouldn't that be more accurate ?
What would you employ to "consider systems", "making conclusions" or how to even think in terms of "accuracy"? One ends up advocating without realizing it higher and more demanding forms of logic.
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Re: What is reality, what is a 2x4?

Post by Kunga »

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:What would you employ to "consider systems", "making conclusions" or how to even think in terms of "accuracy"? One ends up advocating without realizing it higher and more demanding forms of logic.
Well...maybe if you were a doctor that had a patient seeing demons..instead of telling the patient demons don't exist & you need meds [even though the patient had no other symptoms and was rational otherwise], you instead accepted the patients story[truth]of what he was experiencing, and referred him to a specialist in that field. LOL. yeah right. Western doctors don't wanna even go there...all they think about is their reputation, and losing their license.

Here's an interesting study :

In comparing shamanistic healing with Western psychotherapy, the principal distinctions advanced by psychiatrists and psychologists have been: (1) that the shaman's patients receive 'remission without insight' while Western psychotherapy provides patients with a learning experience; and (2) that Western psychotherapy is based upon rational theory, whereas psychotherapeutic elements in shamanistic rituals are by-products of irrational magical activity. Anthropologists, on the other hand, have demonstrated the logic behind the shaman's seance, and its uses as a projective system which locates the patient's problems in external entities rather than within his own psyche. An investigation of the Malay shamanistic ritual (Main Peteri) expands the scope of discussion, since it reveals that embedded within this exorcistic spirit-raising seance is a nonprojective indigenous theory of psychic functioning, employing symbols internal to the patient, which is comparable to, and no more nor less rational than, mainstream Western theories.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3227379


It pisses me off that they judge the shamans rituals as "irrational magical activity" , when, to the Shaman it is perfectly rational & logical. But the conclusion was interesting, as both systems of logic eventually accomplish it's goal. So that proves that it doesn't matter what your system of rationality is...but that it all makes perfect sense in your world...the outcome then will be the same. In other words....there is more than one way to skin a cat.
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Re: What is reality, what is a 2x4?

Post by Kunga »

Talking Ass wrote:Logic is probably fundamental to the human mind at some.extremely basic level. The use of.logic is.probably fundamental to thinking and perceiving. But the 'terms of logic' are what make all the difference. The data if you will. The data of an Esquimo and that of Aristotle or of Freud...are the difference that makes the difference.

Howz that sound?
Exactly. That's why the red flags go up when I see "logic" [Western], being touted as the only rational way to think.
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Re: What is reality, what is a 2x4?

Post by Dennis Mahar »

What was the problem?
seeing demons?
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Re: What is reality, what is a 2x4?

Post by Kunga »

No. But my daughter had a dream, that one was trying to get inside her body, and the same night her children had the same dream.
So what is your logical explanation ? To me it sounds like, A=A.
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Re: What is reality, what is a 2x4?

Post by Dennis Mahar »

Instead of muckin' about.

The problem is the belief that 'demons' have intrinsic existence, exist from their own side, are uncaused, are outside the play of causality.

Tomorrow is April Fool's Day.
You could have waited.
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Re: What is reality, what is a 2x4?

Post by Kunga »

Even though you do not exist inherently, you still need air to breathe and food to eat. Everything is a form of energy.
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Re: What is reality, what is a 2x4?

Post by Dennis Mahar »

you still need air to breathe and food to eat. Everything is a form of energy.
body needs air and food.
these too are causes/conditions.
lack inherent existence.
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Re: What is reality, what is a 2x4?

Post by Kunga »

Dennis Mahar wrote:Instead of muckin' about.

The problem is the belief that 'demons' have intrinsic existence, exist from their own side, are uncaused, are outside the play of causality.

Tomorrow is April Fool's Day.
You could have waited.

If you are so sure of yourself, why don't you prove it, by summoning a demon and see what happens. Do a Google search in how to summon demons. Get back to
us with your report. I myself wouldn't dare go there....I want nothing to do with it.

So all you out there that think you know something......experiment.....I bet you're too chicken shit.
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Re: What is reality, what is a 2x4?

Post by Dennis Mahar »

not denying phenomena exists.
the matter at hand is how it exists.
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Re: What is reality, what is a 2x4?

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Talking Ass wrote:Logic is probably fundamental to the human mind at some.extremely basic level. The use of.logic is.probably fundamental to thinking and perceiving. But the 'terms of logic' are what make all the difference. The data if you will. The data of an Esquimo and that of Aristotle or of Freud...are the difference that makes the difference.
When it comes to fundamental matters, the data for a Jesus or a Buddha or a Nietzsche or a Solway is exactly the same. It never changes.

Kunga wrote: Exactly. That's why the red flags go up when I see "logic" [Western], being touted as the only rational way to think.
Don't worry. Give it five minutes and the flags will be down again.

-
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Re: What is reality, what is a 2x4?

Post by Trevor Salyzyn »

Kunga wrote:A Shaman would be experienced with the Spiritual World, unlike someone raised in Western Society. Native American Indians take Spiritual things of this nature seriously...unlike Western educated people that have to "see it to believe it."
Seen it. Believed it. Transcended it.
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Re: What is reality, what is a 2x4?

Post by guest_of_logic »

skipair wrote:Hi Laird, I've skimmed through some of your posts here, and it seems to me the main theme is a verging toward anti-science.

Tell me, is this trend something other than your strength of characters saying to the world, "THIS IS WHO I AM"...and then finding whatever mode to help justify it, however 'woo woo'?
Skip, 'woo woo' verges on being insulting and doesn't much inspire me much to engage with you. I'll do it anyway because of our friendship.

It depends on how you define "science": as a method, as a body of knowledge derived from that method, or as a set of assumptions typically drawn out of that body of knowledge. I doubt that anything I've posted is directly contradicted by either of the first two, but it might be contradicted by the third e.g. in such assumptions as that consciousness is purely a manifestation of the physical brain and thus that there is or can be no independent spirit/soul.

I'm disappointed in your suggestion that my posts to this thread are about "seeking justification for who I am": actually, they have been about explaining how I have come to the conclusions that I have come to - it's a pretty straightforward and logical process. If it's not clear to you, then I'd encourage you to return to the start (or just to the point at which David challenged me) and to read more carefully.

Diebert,

I went pretty easy on you in my last post, only to have you respond with an assumed superiority the likes of: "Proper method can still be followed and people can discover the truth for themselves. They don't need me to outline the map, supplying them more theories or theologies to ponder over. I believe in challenging the blocks and not by simply presenting just another block to misinterpret".

So, let me make myself clear: I reject the implication that in relation to truth I am any more "blocked" than you are, and I definitely reject the notion that your method is "proper", much less superior to mine. Your method, it seems to me, is to make a presupposition (that there can never be a supernatural explanation) and then to twist every piece of evidence to the contrary to fit that presupposition (by suggesting impossible or just very implausible alternative naturalistic explanations). You have done this consistently in every post I have read where you address evidence. Not one of your suggested alternatives in any case explored in this thread has been more plausible than the supernatural alternative. I won't rehash them all as people are quite capable of looking back over them and forming their own opinion.

Let us, though, in any case grant you some small probability of being right in each case. Let us even say that it is as much as 10%. Then, a statistical analysis shows that even with three cases (and there have been at least that many presented explicitly in this thread - mine, Tomas's and Bo1's (not to mention that Bo1's involves multiple cases) - and a fourth one by reference - Roy's) the overall chance that not one of them has a supernatural explanation approaches zero.

I'll address your recent objections to this analysis:

1. "The type of events you are talking about (unexplained events in daily life) cannot be assigned high or low probability that easy, if at all".

Not precisely, to be sure, but of course they can be approximated given a bit of discernment. For example, what is the probability that in a remote rural property whose doors and windows were closed, where all present were seated at a table in the dining room and where no car was heard drawing up outside, a wind in the dining room coming from the direction of the kitchen where there was no door was caused by the opening of a door?

My own answer: effectively zero, but I might grant you some small benefit of the doubt with some figure well under 1%.

2. "And even when we do, you cannot be sure they are independent".

It would be up to you to suggest how they might not be. How, for example, might the odds that a particular wind in a particular house is supernatural be statistically dependent on the odds that the swing of a particular pendulum (Roy's) was influenced by supernatural forces?

3. "Or even if they are, how do you select which to count as "event" to add to the list and which not?"

Simply: select any event that has odds of greater than zero of a supernatural explanation.

4. "And how many times are you able to repeat the whole process to obtain some statistical significance?"

The statistical significance consists in considering the overall odds that not one of the events has a supernatural explanation, not in the repetition of individual events.

The fact of your presupposition you make quite clear in your most recent post: 'Also, supernatural explanations are in my view never "highly probably" since they always raise way more problematic questions than they ever solve'. You fail, however, to elaborate on what these "problematic questions" might be, nor why they are any more problematic than the implausible-impossible questions you raise in your scepticism.

Will you fail again in your next post to elaborate on my now explicit challenge to you to do so? My guess is that you will, because it seems to me that you are more intent on spin and obfuscation than on truth. In a previous post, when it was convenient to you to try to wriggle out of the fact that your approach is an extreme one of denial, you suggested that there might be some "middle ground" (which presumably you inhabited), and yet, when I challenged you to elaborate on that middle ground, in your most recent post it became more convenient for you to explain that, after all, there can be no middle ground but that "by challenging the one [i.e. Laird's interpretation --Laird], it doesn't mean the whole topic is dismissed": which, peeling away the layers of obfuscation and spin, is simply to say, "There is no middle ground, your path is wrong and my path of denial is the right", isn't it, Diebert? A whole opening paragraph of cruft just to revel in the idea that "Diebert's path is superior". Pull your head in, mate.

Here's what you say after making explicit your presupposition against supernatural explanations: "Although I admit there can be situations there doesn't appear any viable option [other than the supernatural one --Laird] and then such answer might at least help people to give it a place. The mind hates open endings and loves a good story after all". You are obviously aware that the notion that those to whom the supernatural has been proved true are simply "looking for a good story" is brimming with condescension, because your subsequent "My mind just as well!" is a transparent attempt to mitigate that condescension.

The theme of your posts to me has been one of assumed superiority. You have referred to me as a "newbie" in comparison to your "old dog" self. You have told me that I have a "feverish" mind and that I need to "take a break" and "get some grip". You have dismissed one of my questions by following your answer with "Duh". Most tellingly, even though the level of theory involved was so elementary as to be, in cousinbasil's words, "unassailable", you took it upon yourself to try to "educate" me on a topic about which you quite obviously are uninformed yourself, acknowledging in a massive understatement when called on it that you "might have stated some things not properly".

Let's consider this in light of what you wrote to me in a typically supercilious tone in an earlier post: 'What I am challenging is only your specific view and logic. But you cannot separate them because you think you have some "authority" or "knowledge" on the subject'. Here you make reference to a false claim to authority and knowledge - I wonder what such a claim might look like in practice; might it look anything like a false assumption of authority to "educate" someone about a mathematical topic on which one clearly lacks the requisite knowledge? And yet where in this thread have I assumed an authority or knowledge that I cannot justify? Isn't projection fascinating?

In any case, getting back to your statements to the effect that even when the supernatural explanation is the best one, it's nevertheless "just a story": in those cases, then, Diebert, what do you think is the real explanation and why do you think it is superior to the otherwise inescapable supernatural explanation? If your answer is that you don't know what the real explanation is, then on what basis do you reject the supernatural explanation?
Diebert: Then how do you know if the bullet actually attempted to go through the body if there was no mark or other trace? Maybe it went another way or didn't leave the gun at all? It's very hard to research these things outside controlled circumstance. It's quite unlikely you have been able to research all the possibilities.

BO: To answer your question; there was a hole in the center of the back of the chair where this man was sitting. We found the bullet later.

Diebert: That didn't answer the questions at all. As I told you earlier (and you leave that context out) there were many more possibilities obviously. From which side did the bullet enter the chair? Was the hole a bullet hole at all? Was the bullet possibly from another event?
Excellent, a chance to demonstrate what I explained earlier: that your naturalistic alternatives are either impossible or exceedingly implausible - certainly so as to be far less plausible than the straightforward supernatural explanation. I'll take these questions one by one, and, to forestall any criticism, let me make it clear that yes, this is all predicated on the assumption that Bo1 is telling the truth, but, crucially, you have made it clear that you hold that assumption:
  • "From which side did the bullet enter the chair?" It's hard to believe you ask this question as though it were a rational one. The implication here is that the bullet might have entered from the back of the chair, but even if it had done that, then, given that the hole went right through the chair, the bullet would still have had to have passed through or at least entered the man's body!
  • "Was the hole a bullet hole at all?" Considering that at least one person in the room - at least the person to whom it belonged, and very likely the person who was sitting in it from looking at it before sitting down - would have known whether or not there had already been a hole in the chair, this question amounts to suggesting that a hole magically appeared in the chair for some reason other than the gunshot: a suggestion that is in itself supernatural (and certainly less plausible than the straightforward supernatural explanation), unless you want to suggest something bizarre and utterly implausible such as that someone, somehow, unbeknownst to everyone else in the room and prior to the gunshot, drilled a hole in the chair, somehow making it appear like a bullet hole - but now, you see, it starts getting ridiculous, and you can see why Bo1 might have wanted to forestall a process of questioning.
  • "Was the bullet possibly from another event?" This question implies that a gunshot went off but that the round was a blank, and that, as in the previous question, a bullet hole magically appeared in a chair in the direction that the gun was pointed for some unknown reason unrelated to the gunshot, and that the bullet found later in the room was unrelated to this gunshot and had somehow been in the room unbeknownst to the owner of the house - and this is supposed to be more plausible than the straightforward supernatural explanation?
Your comment on "the amazing possibilities of the human mind" reads quite interestingly in this light, I think - the amazing possibilities of the human mind to twist the evidence to deny a simple truth.
Diebert van Rhijn wrote:Perhaps I should add that it doesn't need hallucination to misinterpret and misdiagnose the medical state of a victim. Talking bout the experience later in a group can even reinforce the wrong observation. This is well known by people who examine eye witness reports. Good intentions all around.
I find it hard to call your intentions good though: I think you're intent on denying the truth.
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Re: What is reality, what is a 2x4?

Post by guest_of_logic »

Incidentally, I hadn't done any research on Ouija boards prior to the post where I introduced my experience with one in this thread, but out of interest I did a little googling and came up with Chapter 21. The Ouija Board in Victor Zammit's book, A Lawyer Presents the Case for the Afterlife. Here is an excerpt from it backing up my testimony and that of Roy:
Paul Beard, as President of the College of Psychic Studies in England, studied many cases of Ouija board obsession and concluded that habitual use of the board or automatic writing can bring about prolonged contact with a malevolent dead person who can infiltrate the victim's protective aura and then make contact with the victim at any time by 'talking' in a 'voice' or through 'thoughts' in the victim's head. This can lead to 'practically continuous evil suggestions which may involve visual hallucinations' (Beard 1970). Ian Currie cites one case where a young mother was shown hallucinations of herself torturing and killing her baby (Currie 1978: 190).

Martin Ebon outlines his negative Ouija experiences in The Satan Trap (1975). He claims that he began by being thoroughly skeptical about anything to do with the occult but became hooked on the board when it accurately predicted New York's 1973 flood and gave him accurate 'inside' information about the death of a famous gossip columnist.

Another woman who warned against the board was medium Susy Smith in her 1971 book Confessions of a Psychic. She wrote:

Warn people away from Ouija and automatic writing until you have learned how to be fully protected. They say that innocent efforts at communication are as dangerous as playing with matches or hand grenades. They have me as Exhibit A of what not to do, for I experienced many of the worst problems of such involvement. Had I been forewarned by my reading that such efforts might cause me to be mentally disturbed, I might have been more wary (Smith 1971).

A few years ago I came upon a serious case of a young man who had been using a Ouija board, asking for winning numbers for gambling purposes. For some time he had indeed been winning and became very excited about the information given him by his new 'friends'. But when he tried to give up using the board he began to be obsessed by voices and found himself woken up at one or two in the morning in great terror, literally being squeezed and suffocated by a vengeful presence, who claimed that it was owed a debt.
It should be noted that Mr Zammit describes positive Ouija interactions, too.

In the concluding section of that chapter, he writes in part:
It is simply impossible to explain the staggeringly different kinds of communication that one receives when entities of different levels are communicating—often in quick succession—purely on the basis of projection of the unconscious of an individual or a group.

As well there have been a number of startling cases of drop-in communicators coming through the board. These are entities which although totally unknown to the sitters give correct and verifiable details of names, address, occupation and sometimes a large number of other details. Dr Alan Gauld investigated 37 of these who had appeared among 240 alleged communicators in a Ouija board circle which met in a Cambridgeshire home between 1937 and 1954 (Gauld 1966-72:273-340).

In his paper for the Society for Psychical Research he explains how he followed up the details of some of these in some cases more than twenty years after the original communication had been made and had been able to verify a significant number of details in at least four cases.

In the case of Gustav Adolf Biedermann Gauld was able to verify the personality of the communicator and the following specific information:

I lived in London.
My house was Charnwood Lodge.
Nationality German.
Correct name Adolf Biedermann.
I was always known and called Gustav
I was a Rationalist
I was turned seventy when I passed away
I had my own business
I am associated with the London University
I passed over a year ago

In these cases, Gauld points out, the sitters did not seek publicity or money and he was convinced that there was no way they would have gone to the trouble of accessing the public documents he obtained from a huge number of sources to fool the other circle members and then leave them for more than twenty years on the off-chance that somebody would happen by to investigate them.
Probably, though, Diebert, that's exactly what did occur - right?

TA and Kunga, I hope to respond to your posts next.
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Re: What is reality, what is a 2x4?

Post by guest_of_logic »

Hi Kunga,
Kunga wrote:It pisses me off that they judge the shamans rituals as "irrational magical activity" , when, to the Shaman it is perfectly rational & logical. But the conclusion was interesting, as both systems of logic eventually accomplish it's goal. So that proves that it doesn't matter what your system of rationality is...but that it all makes perfect sense in your world...the outcome then will be the same. In other words....there is more than one way to skin a cat.
The judgement by psychiatry of shamanism as "irrational magical activity" is in my opinion typical of the attitude of (some) modern men to the world-views that precede them. What bugs me about it is what bugs me about Diebert's attitude and with the attitude of anyone who likes to assert that "it's all in your mind": the unjustified condescension and false assumption of superiority of it all.

As for your comment that "there is more than one way to skin a cat", this, interestingly, seems to be related to what TA was trying to say to me in a recent post. It's probably very true, although I feel like mentioning that I do agree with one of the assumptions of this forum: that there is an objective truth about reality - so, from my perspective, it is the case that one or other of the systems of rationality to which you refer more accurately or truthfully reflects objective reality. What do you make of that?

--

TA,

In an earlier post, you wrote:
This from Brihadarankaya Upanishad:
"The human being has two states of consciousness: one in this world, the other in the next. But there is a third state between them, not unlike the world of dreams, in which we are aware of both worlds, with their sorrows and joys. When a person dies, it is only the physical body that dies; that person lives on in a nonphysical body, which carries the impressions of his past life. It is these impressions that determine his next life. In this intermediate state he makes and dissolves impressions by the light of the Self."
Still---and this works either in immanentism or transcendentalism---one can always say:
Lead me from the unreal to the Real;
Lead me from darkness to light;
Lead me from death to immortality.
I would say that this 'third option' is what I am calling our Novelesque. It holds, contains and expresses our essential view of the reality in which we occur. We have a creative relationship, much like the 'magical' relationship I mentioned before: we substantially create that world. In it are all our 'impressions' which will always carry over. How do we 'purify' that interior splace, that 'third option', that place 'not unlike the world of dreams'? What has happened to us that there is so much garbage and horror in our own little personal Novel?

This line: "In this intermediate state he makes and dissolves impressions by the light of the Self', I believe points us---atheist or theist---in the right direction: In some way we go to work 'dissolving impressions' by the light [power, strength, creative power] of the Self. But since we can only 'destroy as creators', we become builders of worlds of possibility. Hopefully beauty.
Then, in a slightly later post, you wrote this:
I would again refer to the Upanishad I quote earlier. One can visualize, if you will, two worlds and a third, intermediate world which is I think the 'world' David refers to when he mentions the mind. The wind in Laird's narrative burst into that third, intermediate world, but in exactly the same way, or rather in a related way, a 'banishment' can occur.
Next, in an even later post, you wrote:
The way I look at 'reality' most likely influences how I see, or allow myself to see and interpret, the things that happen in the world of men. And by 'world' I mean at least in some sense what David and others mean when they say 'mind'. But for me 'mind' is that, but also 'psyche', 'imagination': i.e. the virtual world in which each of us lives: that 'space' that is there when we close our eyes. It seems to me that what makes humans human, is really everything that has to do with this mental world, this 'world' of psyche and imagination. It is because each of not only exists within but in fact is this 'virtual world' that it can be said that each of us lives in our own world.

[...]

We are dealing (as I see it) with ways that perceptions are handled and how values are assigned. We are dealing with the 'psyche'. We are deling with an in a unique and special 'world' that is 'mind': the third world of perception 'much like a dream' of the Upanishad.
Finally, in one of your very recent posts, you wrote:
PS: I guess I operate in a liminal realm between the explicit and the implicit, which is to to say a place of mind and consciousnes that is strung between two poles of perception. That is how I understand the novelesque world(s) that we live in and perceive through.
I do think you're onto something with the idea that there is both a material world and a spiritual world that we have simultaneous access to, and at the intersection of which is our personal "novelesque". My literalist mind (!), though, is seeing a conflation of "world" with "consciousness", "mind", "psyche" and "imagination", and it makes me curious about the extent to which by "world" in the above you mean an objective external reality rather than the internal (novelesque) reality of those who observe it, such as, for example, when you write that "[t]he wind in Laird's narrative burst into that third, intermediate world". I'm pretty sure you don't mean that the wind occurred entirely in the consciousness of those of us who felt it, but it doesn't hurt to clarify.

If it weren't for the fact that this is a public forum, I would share a personal story that, I think, suggests the truth of what you say about the intersection of material and spiritual worlds - a story where spiritual phenomena intersected with material phenomena in a meaningful way. Unfortunately, I was the only person present, which makes it impossible for me to explore the extent to which these were phenomena present in objective external reality and the extent to which they were simply part of my private "novelesque". This is one reason why I question you above about the relationship between objective external reality and this "third place".

In any case, I believe you when you write that "in exactly the same way, or rather in a related way, a 'banishment' can occur". As you know, being instrumental in that event, such a thing occurred for me last year for a time. I'd prefer not to explore publicly my struggle to return there though.

Turning to another subject, in a post of yours that I quoted from above, you also wrote this:
The interesting part in this is somewhat different than we might suppose. May I refer to a Jungian perspective? Our long, long human history and the way we have 'organized perception' still remains with us and in us. It seems we deal with entire systems of perception---'epistemes'---that only quite recently have neen challenged by the rationalistic orientation. In a Freudian sense this means reducing all such psychic disturbance to trauma, and all the notions that arise in the mind to support any externalization or fantasy of symptoms, to 'neurosis', and that includes of course the whole idea of God and divinity.
On this, I'd like to share something that Roy Vincent wrote re the application of certain psychoanalytic frameworks to spiritual experiences such as those he (and in many similar ways, I) have experienced. This, from Chapter 6 [Microsoft Word document] of his book, strikes a chord with me:
Many times over these intervening years, I have retold my story to a variety of people in a variety of situations. What has remained with me after these various tellings has been the fact that almost no one has returned to the subject, asked supplementary questions, or followed through with any analysis, except for those in two groups. The first is the group of people who have had deep spiritual experiences of their own - they recognise and accept all that I say, and then there is nothing more to say, but only to empathise, with the understanding that can only come with shared personal experience. The second group is composed of one individual, one of the several Rogers amongst my friends. He used to come to stay for a few days at a time to talk and derive the healing that the house and environment provide. On one occasion, he harked back to his previous visit and what he had discerned within me, namely my anger, albeit unexpressed. In an effort to help Roger from insights derived from my own experience, I had recounted in detail all that I am writing in this and the next two sections. His response was to begin to analyse me to myself! He was very much ‘into’ Jung, and all the Jungian jargon came pouring out in the convoluted analysis of which only he amongst my friends was capable. In the ‘let me be your counsellor’ role in which I found myself, I could not let my anger manifest itself, but internally I was seething, and it must have showed; with his perception of it, I was able to take off the string that had been tying down the safety valve, and express myself.

Which really is me getting to the point of saying to you that if you are reading in a state of total disbelief or with the intention of ‘doing a Roger’ on me, there doesn’t seem to be much point in your reading any further. What I am writing does not allow of any interpretation. It all happened, and in the manner and ways that I am describing.
By the way, I've finished reading through the links you pointed me to yesterday - hopefully my next post will be a response to that. First, though, I need to get on with some coding that I've been putting off.
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Re: What is reality, what is a 2x4?

Post by Talking Ass »

Laird, I already did answer. I am not sure what more to add. What you should.be able to discern quite clearly is that some people are not---not ever---going to be able to agree with you within the framework of perception/understanding that you offer. Also, you should.begin to understand the 'Buddhist' maneouvre: to regard all phenomena of the mind as essentially unreal. How will you manage to locate your really real things [spirits] in the minds of those who CANNOT and WILL NOT see them in that way?
fiat mihi
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Re: What is reality, what is a 2x4?

Post by Diebert van Rhijn »

guest_of_logic wrote:...only to have you respond with an assumed superiority the likes of: "Proper method can still be followed and people can discover the truth for themselves. They don't need me to outline the map, supplying them more theories or theologies to ponder over. I believe in challenging the blocks and not by simply presenting just another block to misinterpret".
You could also read it as a form of modesty: I'm not like you trying to supply hookers and addicts with cheap material to snort. I think people can figure things out for themselves if they follow sound principles to start with. It's my belief the focus should be on that at a philosophy forum and not as much on stories and speculation.

Let me try to demonstrate a type of thinking which is more principled and more measured ("rationed/rational"). Not because I need to stress superiority but simply because I believe you are in need of it for your benefit. But according to your logic even a nurse is feeling superior when caring for a patient: taunting him with health and ability, torturing him with awful medication and then kick him out of bed because he's dramatizing too much :)
For example, what is the probability that in a remote rural property whose doors and windows were closed, where all present were seated at a table in the dining room and where no car was heard drawing up outside, a wind in the dining room coming from the direction of the kitchen where there was no door was caused by the opening of a door?
Effectively unknown. Since it's not a controlled environment there are just so many unknown variables. Trickery, wrong recollection, weather conditions (suction) and of course now you mention the kitchen, wasn't there some kind of ventilation shaft above the cooker? In my flat the cover on it used to slam like crazy with certain wind conditions sometimes without warning or clear weather change.
How, for example, might the odds that a particular wind in a particular house is supernatural be statistically dependent on the odds that the swing of a particular pendulum (Roy's) was influenced by supernatural forces?
Simply, if a distorted unreliable mind was registering both events there would be immediately be a dependency. But to claim independence still doesn't mean you can derive anything from it. If for example there are 999000 normal events (each eg 100% chance) and 1000 rare events (each eg 0,1% chance) in a certain time and place then nothing strange has happened. But if I'd handpick 10 of each because of certain selection criteria (like i happen to notice them) I'll find crazy odds. God, I hope I calculated that the right way!
3. "Or even if they are, how do you select which to count as "event" to add to the list and which not?"

Simply: select any event that has odds of greater than zero of a supernatural explanation.
You can have an infinite amount of events of a certain type but it doesn't change the low odds of any single one. Like throwing a millions times the dice will not either. And most importantly: there is no such thing as a chance there is a supernatural explanation. A low probability event is still a natural event since we already established a probability for it to happen naturally. What you mean to say if an event occurs with a different frequency than probability would allow. Again, for such statement quantitative analysis is needed in control environments. Take note I'm not denying the possibility of a supernatural cause but I am denying your suggested method to assert supernaturalness. This is the crux of our disagreement here.
4. "And how many times are you able to repeat the whole process to obtain some statistical significance?"

The statistical significance consists in considering the overall odds that not one of the events has a supernatural explanation, not in the repetition of individual events.
But there's no way to establish the actual odds without testing of course. Only by repetition or mathematical modeling of some kind.
You fail, however, to elaborate on what these "problematic questions" might be, nor why they are any more problematic than the implausible-impossible questions you raise in your scepticism.
It's very simple, Laird. The reason something is called "supernatural" is because it's assumed there are factors at play which lie way outside the "known" or "the natural". Every time one refers to such solution of course countless questions will pop up about the exact nature of these factors and their origin. It's a bit like saying a God must have created life. That may be the case but it raises a lot of question on what this God is, where he is, how we communicate, how did he come into being, why he did it, etc. And each religious answer to that provides then more questions. Of course this is the nature of faith as answer.
when I challenged you to elaborate on that middle ground, in your most recent post it became more convenient for you to explain that, after all, there can be no middle ground
Simple because I'm not discussing the content of your claims as much as the method you used to arrive there and the logical coherence of the whole process. That's the ground I want to meet but you're not on the same platform yet - you keep bouncing back up into the air!
You have referred to me as a "newbie" in comparison to your "old dog" self. You have told me that I have a "feverish" mind and that I need to "take a break" and "get some grip". You have dismissed one of my questions by following your answer with "Duh".
I was incredibly nice and patient at the time considering what you were claiming without any base in those particular cases. I hope one day you might realize it!

Perhaps you never consider yourself to be arrogant and belittling? I quote: "the QRS trip", "trite" and "facile", "tout the shallows as the depth", "rationalising (and in denial)", "in you I see instead preconception and denial". Not that I mind at all you saying those but at least I do not bring it up to make some disingenuous argument with it about condescension I might have for you or the topic. Okay, I just did now of course in a way! But if you don't like the tone at least keep it out of the discussion by ignoring it.
  • "From which side did the bullet enter the chair?" It's hard to believe you ask this question as though it were a rational one. The implication here is that the bullet might have entered from the back of the chair, but even if it had done that, then, given that the hole went right through the chair, the bullet would still have had to have passed through or at least entered the man's body!
Nice try but obviously this doesn't have to be the case. We don't know the exact location of the back hole or if the person was sitting against the back of the chair. We don't know the trajectory of the supposed bullet: did it go straight or through an angle? Of got stuck in the chair and fell off. Or ricocheted while the force of the impact chipped a piece out of the chair? Your imagination is so dull! Only straight penetrating trajectories are allowed with Laird. Conveniently filtering out many dozens of alternative routes.
very likely the person who was sitting in it from looking at it before sitting down - would have known whether or not there had already been a hole in the chair
Sure, we all inspect our chairs with great scrutiny to check for holes before sitting down on it. And what if it was coated with heavy plush? What kind of chair did you have in mind? What size of hole?
and that the bullet found later in the room was unrelated to this gunshot and had somehow been in the room unbeknownst to the owner of the house
Well the story didn't give any detail on the location. What if it was in the house of a criminal, in the ghetto used by drug dealers and hookers all the time for business? Would it make a difference? And did someone ask the owner if the bullet could be from another event? Or was there even an owner or was it just a random space in use? Was the gun even loaded, were the bullets counted before and after? Did the model check out? Why was someone bringing a loaded gun anyway? Was that normal with these people and if so, was it normal to shoot there too?

Questions, questions. But somehow you think they are not important when someone would like to find out what happened in a physical, scientific sense. You prefer the conclusion: a tantalizing possibility of the miraculous. And I completely understand. But why go on and invoke it as "evidence" of something else? Just to make me type [for me] incredible long posts?
Last edited by Diebert van Rhijn on Mon Apr 02, 2012 8:29 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Kunga
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Re: What is reality, what is a 2x4?

Post by Kunga »

Diebert...

Say you were sitting down at your table drinking a glass of water, relaxing, going over some notes or reading......then the coffee pot on the stove levitated and slowly came towards you, and poured in your glass left over coffee. What would be your rational explaination ? [There are no hallucinigenic drugs in your body or in anything else. You don't have a fever either. ]

Wouldn't the rational explaination be, that something paranormal just happened, and it could be related to spirits ?

It seems to me,, that explaining away something paranormal as having a rational explaination...is in itself, irrational.
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Diebert van Rhijn
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Re: What is reality, what is a 2x4?

Post by Diebert van Rhijn »

Kunga wrote: Say you were sitting down at your table drinking a glass of water, relaxing, going over some notes or reading......then the coffee pot on the stove levitated and slowly came towards you, and poured in your glass left over coffee. What would be your rational explaination ? [There are no hallucinigenic drugs in your body or in anything else. You don't have a fever either. ]

Wouldn't the rational explaination be, that something paranormal just happened, and it could be related to spirits ?

It seems to me,, that explaining away something paranormal as having a rational explaination...is in itself, irrational.
Why do you think I needed an explanation? I certainly wouldn't think anyone would be impressed with the story or believe any bit of it! But to answer your question, first I'd make sure I wasn't dreaming or drugged by someone else [exercise for you: how to do that...]. Then I'd try to investigate the environment, perhaps try to collect some evidence I could study later. That's all. The fever is only in those who need to have their judgment ready because they fear the unknown or love to keep the mystery. Summary: I'd postpone any judgment.
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