Simply put -

Is there a conscious self that is distinct from the physical mechanisms of the body?

Cite at least three examples.

This test will make up 100% of your final grade......

-- Anonymous, April 03, 2000

Answers

Ken,

Do we take the test before, or after dinner?

;-D

Diane

(Will "thunk" a spell on it. Brain tired this evening)

-- Anonymous, April 03, 2000

No. Or agnostic and cannot answer having only experince with corporial coupling with mentation.

Suggestive hints from the high lama selection/recgonition process but bodies are present.

Intuitive sense of "never not being" leading to assuption of always being but says nothing about the need for a "body".

But my personal answer is no, all my experiences of a conscious self have occured while my body exists, and my sense is that damage to parts of the body will do things to my conscious self, including taking it off line.

How many dimensions does my body exist in? More than 4? Is existance in each dimension coupled with a constant time or do they run independntly, or out of sync?

------------ See where they found Pepi's Queens tomb with new texts? found late March, reported at the big Egyptology meeting in Cairo last week.

-------------

-- Anonymous, April 04, 2000

Is there a conscious self that is distinct from the physical mechanisms of the body?

Yes.

Cite at least three examples...

1) Astral Travel

Ive read a bit on the phenomena of astral travel, although its been difficult for me to test it, since Im very anchored, or overly attached, to this physical form. Others are not so physically constrained. One of the more impressive written journals, with a research bent, on the topic was in Journeys Out Of Body written/conducted by Robert Monroe in the 50s.

Especially am interested in the aspect that many testers of the astral travel concept will perform. They will often make a date, or blind test, with a friend in another city, who will sit in an unstated room and have conversations with unknown people. The test is for the astral traveller to later recount to the friend... where they were, who they were meeting with and what the conversation was about... specific phrases and words used. Like being a fly on the wallpaper.

Makes you think about the pliable nature of reality.

My own experiences were baby steps by comparison. One time, late at night, after I had been reading some metaphysically-oriented book, I found myself contemplating astral travel and wondering how I could try it. Went to sleep, then at some point woke up when something/someone lifted me out, and carried me in a slow circle around the room, then placed me back into my body. Words to describe the experience are lacking. I knew my body was back in bed, cause I glanced back and saw it. I had the very kinesthetic sense of being lifted, of being moved... almost floated... around the room, then of snapping back into my body with a spinning, disorienting feeling. Needless to say, couldnt sleep the rest of that night.

Had another experience of being halfway pushed up and out of my body (very kinesthetic sensation) but I immediately sensed that something wasnt right and took intuitive steps to stop it. (Used a technique sometimes referred to as getting out the psychic swords and cutting off the energy).

[Yeah... I know Tom. So what definitions can I provide?]

2) Lucid Dreaming

Have little experience myself with this, but my good friend Tom Hoobyar, who has extensive experience in Transcendantal Meditation (TM), and NLP, would describe to me some of his experiences. I have know reason to doubt his words.

As I understand it, lucid dreaming, is a state of consciousness, where you are almost split between two realities. Your brain is very aware and active, but there is a distinct quality to that awareness which is not found in regular dreaming. The individual is also very aware of the physical body sleeping, while they are elsewhere. Not the same thing as astral travel.

Sorry... such a poor recounter. For my part, I do better when I have direct experiences.

3) NDEs -- Near Death Experiences

So much has been written and researched on the subject. In case after case, the body goes through clinical death, will the consciousness travels elsewhere, and makes a decision to return.

Raymond Moodys Books, an M.D., are well worth investigating for this area, espacially Life After Life : The Investigation of a Phenomenon--Survival of Bodily Death, as are a whole host of research endeavors.

Diane

(David... got links to the Egypt stories?)

-- Anonymous, April 04, 2000

Diane,

I cannot accept your examples as demonstrating the existence of selfconsciousness without a physical body. Seems to me it only shows that the conscious self need not be localized within the body, it does not follow that it is independent only not bound to.

Am I misunderstanding ken's question? I thought he was asking about a disembodied existance of self.

-- Anonymous, April 04, 2000

Morning, Diane,

Actually, I had thought of two if the three examples you provided, but ultimately had to reject them.

1) Astral Travel - I had tried this experiment many years ago. I had asked a friend to log their feelings and activities for a certain afternoon. During the afternoon, I logged my "start" time and tried to initiate an OBE, and direct it to my friend's house, then logged my "stop" time. Later, the only significant feedback my friend had logged was getting an "odd" feeling of maybe a presence at a certain time, which fell into the range of the attempted OBE.

I think I can account for the "odd feeling" with the proposed electro- magnetic-PK-field theory, perhaps acting over a distance? I think what is needed is a controlled observation of a person who is confident they can achieve an OBE at will.

Then again, the Amazing (nauseating) Randy has a million bucks to give away, if someone can bring back the sequence of numbers he has sealed in an envelope....

2) Lucid dreaming - is still dreaming, a function of an organic brain (apparently). Observation is needed here too.

3) NDE - There are two schools of thought concerning NDEs, one, that the "experience" is the perception of a dying brain blocking oxygen from entering its "gates", which can be replicated with the general anesthetic ketamine, and two, that the ketamine experience is vastly different from the NDE.

Myself, not having the benefit of the ketamine experience, I have no basis of comparison to either confirm nor deny the assertion....

AND, I must take issue with Dave's position (contrary little cuss today, aren't I?) that personal consciousness need not be localized. None of the cited examples indicate actual, nonlocalized consciousness, but the subjective perception of nonlocalized consciousness.

In the semiconductor engineering industry, there is a saying "The proof is in the pudding." If consciousness is truly nonlocalized, where's the pudding? If personal consciousness, awareness of self, is independent of organic physicality, where's the pudding?

...work in progress.....

-- Anonymous, April 05, 2000

Uh, quick comment David... try ghosts and poltergueists (-1 sp).

But then, since they are "observed" from within the body proper, perhaps you would disqualify their existence. That is, until you encountered one.

*Grin*

Guess the same logic would disqualify a Divine force?

Ken,

I sure thought my experence was separate and apart from my sleeping body at the time. Guess you had to be there.

;-D

As to Lucid dreaming... donno. As to NDE's... you tell us.

*Another Grin*

Diane

-- Anonymous, April 05, 2000

Morning all,

Diane, me too. During the NDE, the experience was the most real thing I had ever experienced up to that time. Afterwards, I was dumb enough to mention the experience to a nurse, noting the incredible sense of peaceful bliss....and was put on suicide watch and pumped full of dope for my trouble. Later, I was informed the NDE experience is not terrible uncommon, can be a milestone in one's life, the turning around point, if you will.....

As it was pointed out to me, a person experiencing a halucination believes it is real also, but....... is it?

.... to be continued.....

-- Anonymous, April 06, 2000

Sure a hallucination is real. Can you try to imagine a fake hallucination?

I think maybe what is coming up here is the cultural valuing of sensory grounded data that can be confirmed by others ("I'm from Missouri -- show me", "Just the facts ma'am.").

Internal experiences, such as NDE's and visions are inherently disvalued because they are internal. The visions that are celebrated are ones that lead to action and capabilities in the outside world (Einstein visuallizing riding on a ray of light, sewing machine inventor having a dream about a savage with a spear with a hole in its spearhead, benzene ring chemist's dream about the circling dance).

So - one of the ways that UFO and angel visitations are disparaged are to call them hallucinations.

I think it's one of the rhetorical ways to attempt to reduce the validity of what a person is proffering by limiting the context of what they are saying to themselves and themselves alone. Sort of like the retort "Well, that's your opinion."

All of which avoids the larger issue of what the person's experience has to say about the larger world.

When I tell a therapeutic metaphor sometimes I get asked (by my more literal "clients") as to whether the story was "true". As a healing proposal the story only works if it is a "true" fit to the underlying processes that are being used to organize this person's experience. So in a practical sense "truth" is what works -- if the metaphor doesn't work for you - then it isn't true. However, the surface appearance of "truth" --- "Was there really a Mr. Egglehart that had such a neightbour?" is normally what the person seems to be asking. It strikes me as a sort of garbage filter that they apply to prevent intaking crap into their system. They are not going to entertain made up stories -- whereas if the story is a recounting of a "true" event, then they have the confidence that "reality" was acting as an editor of what was possible.

Strikes me as a confusion of domains.

We've had so much success with the external domain (engineering and business) that the internal domain has been pushed into shadow - not just undeveloped but mistrusted.

Thence - when you say to the nurse that I've had this experience, as opposed to calling in a specialist that will assist you in making sense of it - they instead dope you up. Maybe if you're lucky you'll remember nothing...

-- Anonymous, April 06, 2000

Ken - your comment: "Later, the only significant feedback my friend had logged was getting an "odd" feeling of maybe a presence at a certain time, which fell into the range of the attempted OBE." did ring a small bell for me.

One of the Aikido exercises (I practiced formally for a while at a dojo in Ottawa) mentioned in George Leonard's "The Silent Pulse : A Search for the Perfect Rhythm That Exists in Each of Us" was that of being able to direction track someone after "fixing" on them. The exercise was to have the person a few feet away on the dojo mat, then hold your palms up towards them and "concentrate" (???) until you can feel some sort of connection in your palms to them. You test this by swinging your palms away and then back again until you're confident you can discern a difference. Then you close your eyes or take a blindfold and the other person moves around you and you track them with your hands. I've done this with my wife (taken a fix) and casually used it on occasion when I'm proceding home from work and trying to discern if I'm going to be there before her by taking a bearing (the city is well to one side of where we live, so if she is in that direction I'm ahead of her on the way home). I've only done it 3 or 4 times but it worked each of those times.

So - this might suggest not only the possibility of a connection but as you say "the proposed electro- magnetic-PK-field theory, perhaps acting over a distance?".

The exercise is easy enough to do, so maybe you want to form your own opinion.

-- Anonymous, April 06, 2000

Ooopsie.... Certainly didn't mean to imply Diane's experiences are halucinations (I'm sure subjectively they are as valid as last week's paycheck), but to point out the old subjective - objective hatchet again...

Disvalued internal experiences - You sure got that one right. As my grandfather said many a time "Thinkin' sure looks a whole lot like fuckin' off."

-- Anonymous, April 06, 2000

Ken,

I don't know if consciousness is locallized in the body or not, if astral projection, remote viewing, etc occur than perhaps its not. My point, however, was that whether it is localized or free ranging, like lucid dreaming, there is still a body brain somewhere in real time, reality. The process we call death, definitionally, if nothing else implies a one-way trip. That's why its a near death experience not a real or full death experience.

Best I can figure there is no way around the problem except waiting to see what finally happens.

-- Anonymous, April 06, 2000

There's two simultaneous aspects of experience going on that create dissonance for me. One is the point of experiencing disembodied entities - ghost as Diane gave an example of. The other aspect is the way that our consciousness is so bound to attributes of our physiology.

By the latter I mean much more than being hit on the head makes us lose consciousness, or different drugs will shift consciousness in systematic ways. I mean that our consciousness, at least so far as is communicated in language, obeys all kinds of formal rules (the sorts of things they document in psychology majors) that might be best illustrated by optical, auditory, or haptic (touch sense) illusions. An easily accessible example is the illusion of proximity distance. You take two pins and separate them and touch them to a person and ask them to estimate how far apart they are. On the hands we can make good estimates, between the shoulder blades (over the back) we make very poor estimates. Our representational capabilities are a function of the dispersion of touch sensors in the skin - and the density of these is very high on the hands and low on the back. So - the "true" separation distance that I feel is a function of where I feel it?

There are more complex (as in it would take a little long to type in until I'm sure this aspect is relevant to people) regularities of how we classify things, and how we organize the syntax of human language. The finding that we only use a small corner of the possible syntaxes of languaging was a good support argument for Chomsky's theory that we have an organic "LAD" (language acquisition device) in our structure.

So - on the one hand we have thinking, languaging, and conscious experiencing mediated and constrained by a specific physiology. And on the other hand we have experiences of entities lacking a body such as ghosts. (Serious side question for Diane - you mentioned being hugged by an angel. This implies arms? Angels are embodied, or is it an encounter with aspects of embodiement - like feeling being hugged but not seeing anyone, or seeing something but hand passes through?)

Ken - this is sure an example of one of those paradigm cracks you allude to.

-- Anonymous, April 06, 2000

Tom,

Very much the sensation of arms. At some point I'll share. Like Ken's NDE, that single event was a major "turning point" in my life. Has never been the same since... and I'd never go back... to the "before time."

Adventures in consciousness await those who "let go."

Diane

-- Anonymous, April 06, 2000

Thanks Diane for the answer on the hug.

You've always referred to it like a major turning point, and after such an illumination I don't know why one would want to go back.

I suppose letting go is appropriate if you're on a cliff and have wings, in my circumstances I kinda feel that I just have to keep moling along... Maybe my burrowing will exit a cliff face sometime and I'll get to fly.

Cheers,

-- Anonymous, April 10, 2000

Okay, so we can all agree on the following, no?

1. Subjective consciousness/awareness and perspective need not be localized.

2. There are many reports of perception of "other-than-self" disembodied entities, which may or may not be subjective projections based upon residual electromagnetic fields in the "haunted" area.

3. There are reports of "angelic encounters" with entities "other- than-self" with the perception of nonphysical "bodies" performing actions similar to physical bodies.

4. There are reports of "near death experiences" in which objectively perceivable electrical activity in the brain stops, and the subject encounters disembodied entities with nonphysical "bodies" performing actions similar to physical bodies.

Okay, anything else I've missed?

Which points do we want to dwell on for a while?

-- Anonymous, April 10, 2000

Ken,

do not agree that observable electrical activity stops with NDE. Measurement is crude.

Shall we talk about death. three days minimum would be my guess, and even then, without embalming I would expect life activity in certain areas.

Meditations on a courpse are usually extended over 100 days to a year. But this has less to do with the transition of a spirit and more to do with an enlightenment for the meditator.

I suppose a lot depends on how you die. vaporized in an a-bomb flash I'd bet its fast. Other ways, pinned under a fallen tree, could be protracted.

A turtle heart will beat for days in a glass of water, doesn't even need an isotonic solution. We can culture and imortalize cell lines.

My point is that medical science makes it possible to maintain and restore body functions that would in the past have been fatal, thus it looks as if the individual is being pulled back from death but "full death" is many hours further into the experience than what we deal with today.

termination or transfer of self-metaprogram takes place long before full death.

Don't see reason not to expect the physical consequences of experience to shift and change neural network settings leading to altered perceptions as well as profound cosmological confusion with resepect to consensual reality.

Well, nuff fucking off, better go think.

-- Anonymous, April 10, 2000

Hi Dave,

I recall Danion Brinkley stating many times that death was a process, not an event...

Remember back in the '70's, when there was that big to-do about organ donors, and how some doctors were accused of "harvesting" organs before death? Anyway, one of the points of contention was, when is a physical body dead? Dead enough? One version (? urban legend?) has it that a typical EEG would record brain activity in Jell-o...

So really, how dead does a brain have to be before we can, with reasonable certainty, give a separate level of credence to the NDE experience?

-- Anonymous, April 10, 2000