I was watching Through The Wormhole on the Science Channel tonight. The episode was called Is There a Creator?. In it they talked of Michael Persinger and "the God helmet".

The text below was cut and pasted from http://clinicallypsyched.com/neurotheol ... godinmind/



In the same way that we might be fooled into believing that our current surroundings are real and not virtual, can our brains fool us into believing that we are perceiving other beings, God, NPMR, and the like?

I have often considered the notion that the brain functions in part as some sort of awareness limiter; preventing us from remembering our true origin or our true purpose so that our current experiences appear to be fresh and new (thus promoting growth). I have also pondered the notion that in the same way that the brain might act as a limiter, it can also act as the doorway to discovering our true nature and purpose (ie: binaural beats and meditation).

It is interesting to note some of the spiritual encounters and epiphanies associated with injury to the head or electrocution. A quick search found these examples. They are not ideal, but will do for now. I'm certain that I have heard of other similar examples:






So does the brain function as both a block and gateway to our true nature, or has it evolved is such a way that it provides us with the illusion of something greater than ourselves to ease our anxiety and prosper as an evolving biological species?

Perhaps the bigger question is how can we tell? In MBT Tom talks of the shared NPMR experience being the moment when was able to acknowledge the realness of his experiences. Is the brain so powerful that it could accomplish this as well? It seems unlikely, but perhaps it must be considered by the open-minded skeptic.

I tend to lean toward the idea that these experiences are a result of our control of our brain; keeping it quiet while we venture into our true nature. I have no solid proof as of yet with my own experiences in terms of deciphering with any certainty what is real and what is not. I always seem forced to return to the the idea that uncertainty is the only certainty (at least in this current experience).

Curious what you all think of this topic.

By the way, Tom and MBT would have been perfect for the show. I kept expecting him to pop on the screen at any moment. There was much talk of AI and TOE's, but no Big TOEs.

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-"You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you might find... you get what you need"

I'm going to completely ignore everything you just wrote to ask if you saw the Through The Wormhole that had David Susskind on it talking about the the universe being a hologram? I'm going to post something about it in physics thread today, thank you for the reminder.
Love
Bette

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All That Is
what is?
Consciousness.

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-"You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you might find... you get what you need"

I can see the power of belief systems. Some attribute everything to God, others everything to Jesus, then yet others everything to the "brain". Isn't this just comfortable to attribute a lot of things to one thing? Well, no matter what do you attribute things to, extraordinary things happen. If you think it is the "brain", we can name a metaphor "AUM" that would just be like the "brain". Don't confuse the manifestation of something with the cause of something. When you run you sweat and you see drops, then some people might conclude that the drops cause you sweating or even running.

Claudio

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"Experience is the ultimate teacher."

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I'd been reading and watching material from Michael Persinger most of yesterday. I found this very interesting and I wanted to post here and see some opinions if anyone watches it -so I did a search and found this thread.

Oddly,last night I had a lucid dream in which 'Gary Coleman' -the dude Justin posted a pic of above- randomly showed up.... XD Now it makes alittle more sense I think..LOL....

Anyway,here it is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9l6VPpDu ... ideo_title

Hmmm...interesting video Jeff, thanks for the link. I haven't come across Persinger before - there seem to be so many out there in this kind of genre now, all with stuff on the internet, it's so hard (not to say almost impossible!) to keep up with it all, to say nothing of the brain overload it begins to induce in an old codger like me! But very thought-provoking. Absolutely a physicalist view of course, from the origin of consciousness, to the kind of phenomena (remote viewing, telepathy etc) which otherwise are thought of as pointers to a non-physicalist view. Interesting that there was no mention, until nearly the end (in the Q&A, I think) of a blocking action, which I would have thought would have been used as an experimental control from the outset (I was waiting all through for a mention of such a control). The reply to the question about blocking was that Ingo Swann couldn't function when his 'chamber' was permeated with a strong field from two externally-placed solenoids. The construction of the 'chamber' - whether screened or not etc - was never described. I recall Robert Monroe in Journeys Out of the Body said he couldn't achieve the OOB state when experimentally placed in an electrified Faraday cage, but could do so when the current was switched off.

I'm a little dubious about Persinger's assessment that alleged paranormal occurrences have decreased worldwide since mass electronic communication has come about, supposedly, in his view, disrupting the putative mechanism of generation of the phenomena. That seems a rather difficult thing to make such an objective statement about, in my opinion.

From an MBT perspective, of course, it's just further elucidation of what's possible under the PMR rule-set, but it does deserve more consideration than just that, if it is proposing alternative explanations for so many phenomena which otherwise are thought to support a consciousness-first worldview. Keeps us guessing, as open-minded sceptics should!

Arthur

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"Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans."

Michael Persinger has an article in WikiPedia here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Persinger
There is no value to repeating things here from the article except that he has been criticized in the past for the lack of controls in his experiments and failure of reproducibility by other researchers.

Ted

Hi Arthur,
Good point about the blocking action as a control ,I hadn't thought of that.Apparently that is a common criticism as Ted pointed out.I think his claim about the decrease in paranormal occurrence is questionable also.

Yeah,it's interesting stuff for sure.About the physicalist view: I can't see how such scientists can really equate consciousness and qualia with brain matter and electromagnetism. Electromagnetism and matter are measurable and demonstrate predictable,law-like behavior.I often wonder how they can really believe that qualities like intelligence,intention and purposeful behavior can emerge from this law-like behavior ? I suppose it's because matter and electricity behave as the laws of physics demand,so they are perhaps forced to take the position that consciousness is just an illusion along for the ride.Otherwise 'causal closure' and conservation laws are violated.

Along this line I think that most brain scientist accept that the brain somehow forms indirect representations of it's input.The self or experiencer is also a result of,or representation in neural activity.Both the percept and the experiencer form a causally closed loop of self reference.To me this seems like circular logic. Brain matter-electromagnetism =qualia. Qualia=Seeing the color red. Seeing the color red= brain matter-electromagnetism.Yet there is no color red to be found in the brain's matter or electricity when one experiences the color red.So where in the materialist objective space is this illusion? And since all percepts are illusions or indirect constructions,not the thing in itself,why should we believe that anything is real at all including materialism?I think it was Chris Carter that wrote something like "they are trying to explain away the very thing that allows them to explain." (or something like that)

Persinger however,has atleast demonstrated a macroscopic quantum connection within the physicalist view,which pushes the envelope further beyond the skull.It is cool to see a materialist take the position that our consciousness is profoundly interconnected.In his paper,which is very technical and over my head,he describes our brains as nodes! Also, if he did indeed transfer percepts in this experiment,than this is pretty significant!

The way I see it though,our consciousness must interface with what we take as the physical someway or another; but setting matter and electricity as equal to consciousness and perception seems ridiculous because of what I stated above.

Here is a great interview with Prof. Persinger on skeptiko.The host makes excellent points about veridical NDEs and flat EEGs ,Dr. Persinger does not have a good reply to this at all.This interview gave me the impression that Prof.Persinger might be quite open minded though.He certainly has to keep his funding and teaching position too ,so in light of that I really like the work he's doing.

http://www.skeptiko.com/michael-persing ... thic-link/

On another forum I recently looked into the phenomena of synesthesia. Generally speaking it's a function of brain wiring cross-connecting with adjacent sensory centers.

Of interest to MBT is a BBC Horizon program Is Seeing Believing ?

I was so surprised to hear scientist Beau Lotto's words, that I went looking for a transcript. Found one and here's part of what he says:



The rest of the transcript is equally elucidating. He clearly undermines a physicalist/materialist viewpoint.

Thanks RBM,
That looks very interesting.I'm going to check it out....

I 'have' synesthesia. I never knew that my particular mental processes were much different to anybody else's until the 1980s/90s when New Scientist started publishing articles about this new-to-me 'condition', and then I knew they apparently were. I have the commoner form - associating colours with numbers and letters, and sometimes with whole words (like days of the week). The associations are constant and long-term (lifelong). There seems to be a family tendency - my sister also has the number/colour association (though not the letters one), and some of her children have it mildly. Other people I mention it to haven't a clue what I'm talking about! I also see the series of numbers (in their colours) as 'tiered' (3d-like) structures - upwards from 1-12, downwards 13-20, then rising steadily, as tiers of decades, to 100 and beyond. This can help with mental sums, in being able to 'manipulate' the figures almost as physical items. I can also 'catch' myself momentarily visualising a certain location when thinking of a particular concept, which may be abstract. I'm not sure if this aspect of it is connected with synesthesia, and maybe everybody does something of the sort - I have noticed that the location visualised may sometimes be a place where maybe I first thought of that concept, but it's hard to be sure. Studying one's own mental process sequences is well worth the effort, and becoming consciously aware of them is the first step. We take so much for granted that happens almost automatically. Meditation of course not only helps with attaining the awareness, but provides the optimum arena for the study as well!

Arthur

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"Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans."

I have only experienced synesthesia one time when I heard a glissando on a celesta in a stereo system demonstration room. I perceived a shower of colored sparks when I heard the glissando. Never noticed it again.

Ted

Hmmm,





All new to me. Thanks Ted.

Sorry, I didn't think that the terms would be unclear. No doubt those definitions you looked up are accurate but obscure. The celesta is a musical instrument that makes a sort of tinkling bell like tone of high pitch. Not particularly like a glockenspiel which I have seen it related to as to sound. They both amount to metal bars, struck by hammers so that they 'ring', but the celesta is a keyboard instrument like a piano while the glockenspiel is that lyre shaped instrument with metal bars mounted like a keyboard and struck with a spherical tipped 'hammer' on a long stick of 12 to 18 inches. They are used in marching bands or concert bands as I was in at high school. Those celestas that I have seen were simple rectangular boxes, nothing like a piano as they need no soundboard nor are the bars long but with a keyboard like a piano while of no great range of musical pitches, perhaps 2 1/2 octaves. They are part of an orchestral percussion section's 'special effects' but uncommon in a band setting.

A glissando is not just a glide of one pitch to another but rather resulting from running the fingers up or down a keyboard for some distance as more than an octave to produce a 'shower' of notes [as induced my synesthesia] or such was my high school band experience. It also applies to other instruments where one 'slurs' one note into another over a fair range of pitches. If you can remember Rhapsody in Blue by George Gershwin, you can perhaps remember the clarinet glissando that it features. A celesta is used in several passages in The Nutcracker Suite by Tchaikovsky that is so commonly performed at Christmas. I thank Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy being one. If you can remember that music, perhaps you can recall what a celesta sounds like. I do not know where to refer you for a glissando on a celesta. It was a demonstration recording of who knows what after all this time.

Ted

RBM,
The BBC video is amazing! Thanks for posting. The audio illusion is great ("ba" "ba - "fa" "fa") ,my daughter had good fun with this. My wife couldn't believe that the yellow and blue squares were really grey.