Friday, December 31, 2004

No Comfort In Bad Reasoning

Occasionally I encounter bad reasoning in attacks upon the materialistic, scientific worldview. The bad reasoning goes something like this; we are immortal because our physical bodies will always exist even if that existence is in some other form. The argument is based upon the fact that the material being does not vanish upon death. The argument may also be illustrated by pointing out that a cloud becomes rain which collects into rivers and eventually finds its way into your cup of tea. It is then argued that the rational mind fears death because it does not realize this.


There are many problems with this line of reasoning. First the rational mind fully understands that the physical body does not simply disappear upon death and that physical matter can exist in many physical states. The rational mind also understands that physical matter may be transformed into energy but otherwise never ceases to exist. It is not the mere existence of the physical body that concerns us but a valuable property of the physical body in a particular physical state, i.e. when the physical body is properly functioning we enjoy its property of being alive and healthy. The water vapor in a cloud may return to a liquid state or be frozen into a solid state but each of these physical states concern us in different ways due to their different properties. We can drink the water and cool our drink with the ice or enjoy the shade of a cloud blocking the sun. In other words, the physical state of the material world is not all the same to us.


A more sophisticated line of reasoning argues that the mind has no discernable physical properties and therefore does not exist in a physical state which is subject to physical changes, except for the changes made by the experiencing of the external material world. The conscious mind can therefore be said to be immortal and will eventually return to its essential pristine state once all experiencing is over. There is some intriguing evidence that consciousness is not even dependent upon the physical brain. Occasionally medical science has encountered individuals who show no evidence of having a physical brain (there is nothing in their head except fluid) and yet they are fully conscious and otherwise functioning normally! Also consciousness sometimes seems to exceed its limits of personal experience and comes up with mental imagery that is beyond its life experiences, although you can never be sure if this is due to an inaccurate memory or dreamlike distortions of actual experiences that have simply been made unrecognizable. In any event, speculation on the true nature of consciousness offers more comfort than bad reasoning about the material world.

posted by Robert Robbins @ 11:51 AM 0 comments

Friday, December 24, 2004

Remote Viewing

Remote viewing is the paranormal ability to see in your mind's eye places that are separated from you by vast distances or by time. I would argue that this is just an altered state of perception. Remote viewing is just a misinterpretation of the mystic's vision or the artist's imagination. It is merely a matter of mental imagery coming to mind of places that seem real but unfamiliar. I've observed that there is never any verifiable facts to be found in these mystery places. People who believe in remote viewing as a paranormal ability will often convince themselves that they've seen an actual location by grasping for similarities between their vision and a real place that they may visit later on. For example, someone who has had a vision of an apartment will later visit a friend and convince himself that this is the apartment in his vision based upon the refrigerators being eerily alike. It is important to note that the vision was vague and the connection is also vague. You can never precisely connect a vision of a place with a location in the real world based upon a hard fact that should be unknown to you.


New Age believers in remote viewing also come into contact with entities. They may also think they can spy on actual people as disembodied voyeurs. For me, there is never anyone at these mystery locations. The place is always completely deserted with no entities or persons in sight. I account for this discrepancy in the experiences by speculating that their experience is accompanied by a dissociative mental state whereas mine is not. The New Age believer fails to associate with his vision and therefore his mind creates the illusion of another to provide a experiencer distinct from his identity. I properly associate with my mental imagery and recognize it as being the product of my imagination and therefore there is no need to create the illusion of the other.


Why is it so common for mental imagery to create the illusion of a real, but unfamiliar location? My rational explanation is that exceptional access to the unconscious mind or altered states of consciousness are like dreams that occur while you are awake. A dream has to occur someplace so there is always a location. Also I have observed that I never have a vision of a place that is completely unlike anything I have ever seen. Usually it is just a highly distorted vision of someplace I have seen although it is often difficult to be sure about this. It should be noted that dreams never picture a place without significant distortion. Even your own, intimately familiar home will be transfigured into something unrecognizably surreal.


posted by Robert Robbins @ 4:03 PM 0 comments