This is a great article that discusses how mental "illness" or anomalies manifest themselves differently based on cultural mores, beliefs, prejudices, etc. I think it's pertinent in various ways to both sides of this argument:

http://www.nytimes.com/2...06/magazine/06LATAH.html

I'm sure there has been studies done on chemical induced hallucinations and similarities / differences based on culture. If anyone can link to one I'd love to read it.

Peace
-idt

I'm always intrigued by faith in science. The bulk of science is tried and tested theory's which undeniably cannot be argued with. Then there's theoretical science based on hypothesis and mathematics which people are still waiting for the means and technology to prove or disprove accordingly. To me this latter part isn't yet science though those who believe strongly in the methodology behind it will call it so. Then thirdly there's the blank space which I would refer to as the unknown or the unknow-able which much of what has been discussed here is covered by. Your average scientist has a firm belief that it is only a matter of time before this knowledge is mapped and quantified in a way that can be put into words and rationalised in our everyday reality. Whereas the mystics among us will say these realms do not need to be understood in a mechanical sense and all that happens within them should be understood only by our own experiences within them and there is not a mechanism in it that functions on our level of physics.
I once tried to make a friend understand that our race, at it's current stage in evolution is not mentally able to understand the mind of "god", the universe or whatever it is that makes stuff "work". As my model for explanation I was telling her that a dog could not understand the most basic mode of quantum mechanics no matter of the method that was used. While she understood the limits of dogs, she was not willing to accept that humans were limited in a similar way because of our mastery of communication, thinking and experiementation. She is an atheist, dedicated to that faith (and it is a faith rather than lack of, no matter what they may think) as a christian is dedicated to there's.
While I was indeed frustrated at her inability to give credit to my hypothesis, it did give me an odd peace of mind to know that she was so strongly opposed against my way of thinking, because I believe that everyone needs an opposition if they truly want to better their understanding of their own reality. The only really important thing is to give credit to others experiences and not just judge them by our own.

Person A: I think she's pretty.
Person B: I do not.

Very crude example I know, but we are all gifted with different eyes.

I think that will happen. And then we will see what is that which cannot be quantified. Because when the scientists who experience that which is beyond science try to grasp it and write it down for others to understand, they will find that colleagues who did not have the experience simply do not understand what they are talking about, however refined and clever the used vocabulary and metaphors are.

And then it will be accepted, that there are things which cannot be understood without the experience. Or that experience comes first, and description second, and then it will be clear in what way description alone is lacking.

An interesting point and one that reminded me of something i recently read, with thanks to the "Book bin" thread on here.

I have included the excert below. Which can be found in the foreword of Cossmic Trigger, by Robert Anton Wilson

"I DO NOT BELIEVE ANYTHING
This remark was made, in these very words, by John Gribbin, physics editor of
New Scientist magazine, in a BBC-TV debate with Malcolm Muggeridge, and it provoked incredulity on the part of most viewers. It seems to be a hangover of the medieval Catholic era that causes most people, even the educated, to think that everybody must "believe" something orother, that if one is not a theist, one must be a dogmatic atheist, and if one does not think Capitalism is perfect, one must believe fervently in Socialism, and if one does not have blind faith in X, one must alternatively have blind faith in not-X or the reverse of X.
My own opinion is that belief is ihe death of intelligence.

As soon as one believes a doctrine of any sort, or assumes certitude, one stops thinking about that aspect of existence. The more certitude one assumes, the less there is left to think about, and a person sure of everything would never have any need to think about anything and might be considered clinically dead under current medical standards, where the absence of brain activity is taken to mean that life has ended. My attitude is identical to that of Dr. Gribbin and the majority of physicists today, and is known in physics as "the Copenhagen Interpretation," because it was formulated in Copenhagen by Dr. Niels Bohr and his co-workers c. 1926-28. The Copenhagen Interpretation is sometimes called "model agnosticism" and holds that any grid we use to organize our experience of the world is a model of the world and should not be confused with the world itself. Alfred Korzybski, the semanticist, tried to popularize this outside physics with the slogan, "The map is not the territory." Alan Watts, a talented exegete of Oriental philosophy, restated it more vividly as "The menu is not the meal."

Belief in the traditional sense, or certitude, or dogma, amounts to the grandiose delusion, "My current model" — or grid, or map, or reality-tunnel — "contains the whole universe and will never need to be revised." In terms of the history of science and of knowledge in general, this appears absurd and arrogant to me, and I am perpetually astonished that so many people still manage to live with such a medieval attitude."

I wouldn't worry about that though. I think todays main religion or reality model is apathy...

Soulman - Brilliant! Your words pretty much sum up my life philosophy since I was a young child. The paradox here however is that THIS in and of itself is a belief. It's open ended and allows for free modification and interpretation, but it's still a belief in the purest form.

Another significant paradox that I often wrestle with is that science and the supernatural are NOT mutually exclusive. To me, science is based on a quantifiable, provable explanation of the mechanics of what we know. If you take things one step deeper however, you still have to ask the question of WHY science "works". Gravity is an excellent example. We know that an object's mass and density create its gravitational force, but we do NOT know why the combination of mass and density create gravity on a scientific level. In short, anything that can be quantitatively or qualitatively proven still raises questions as to WHY such things are quantitatively or qualitatively provable. Just because something can be scientifically proven is not proof that "intelligent design" (for sake of simplifying terms) is not part of the equation as well.

For the record, I am an agnostic (my set of beliefs). I have not seen enough evidence on either side of the coin to convince me one way or the other. I believe in the laws of physics as we know them, but I also believe there are additional laws of physics that we do not fully understand yet. No matter how much we do understand scientifically, there always remains the question of "What makes these scientific laws exist in the first place?"

Peace
-idt

Sounds like religion. Some people swear by science like a religion. It is ALL blind faith. Scientists can categorize observations in this 'reality', create terminologies for 'things', and can hypothesize on 'reactions'. But the honest truth is, no one knows a thing. A molecule is a word created to describe an absurd circular compound that nobody knows what it is, or how it got there. (Don't get me started on the origin debate.) Giving it a name and observing what it does and how it reacts makes us a feel little more grandeur about being human.

A friend of mine who was a hardcore atheist (science freak) all his life got into the biomedicial field and is now in agreement that it is all absurd. Stem cell research is his specific field and he reports that it indeed must be an act of god, how stem cells can replicate specialized cells for any part of the body.

All laws of physics break down near and inside a black hole. Techinically, supermassive blackholes shouldn't even exist. 90% of the universe is invisible. Quantum mechanics proves that science breaks down on the miniscule scale. Double slit experiment shows that an outcome that is impossible will happen with an observer(man or machine) present, then go back to operating normally when not being observed. And quantum tunnelling means given a near infinite amount of time, I can eventually walk through a wall. All of a sudden, science sounds so silly, it is not even worth "attacking" or defending. It is so limited because we are so limited. It is ignorant to claim that science can and will explain away existence and reality, just as it is ignorant to claim god made the earth and the heavens in 7 days. The difference is that science will observe existence and reality, put a name on it and claim that is just enough to know what it is.

Great statement.

I once asked this entity I met in hyperspace, is he a creation of my mind. He(?) didn't understand the question, and answered, "what's the difference?"

You are stereotyping scientists. This is what I was trying to say earlier how I feel people are misunderstanding science. It may be that even many scientists misunderstand it. Science is a system to make hypothesis about observations however what separates it from religion and original philosophy is that the goal is to then test the explanation for truth. Logic is used to design an experiment which shows the dependence or relationship of one variable on another. Science may give us only relative information (as QM does indeed show us that our notion of reality is dependent on the part of the system we observe from) however this does not mean that a variety of things especially regarding the "external" world and the brain-mind relationship cannot and will not be explained in a relative manner one day. Science has progressed our understanding of the world more so than any other tool of thought. Science has answered many of the great philosophical questions of the past. There are limits to science however the Heisnerberg uncertainty principle is one of them and Godels theorem is another. The theory of relativity could also be extrapolated in an broad sense as being a limit.

Atheism and science are not synonymous, yes many scientist learn logical thought and thus are skeptical of a watch maker god theory but any intelligent person would claim that there is no way to know what is truly going on with the world even the buddha said this 1000 before the birth of christ. That being said there is no reason why we can not develop strategies to test our theories about reality and the mind so long as we understand there limits. Science is the best tool we have for studying the psychedelic experience and subjective experiences in general.

The hallucinogens are very useful neuropharmacological tools to "disrupt" select higher level circuitry in the CNS. This "disruption" at the molecular level leads to changes in subjective experience. The molecular changes are occurring in regions of the CNS involved in complex cognitive processes such as comprehension and perception or allowing hyperspace to be contacted (???). Hallucinogens can be used to effectively determine the neural correlates of consciousness. Furthermore the endogenous hallucinogens may play a role in normal waking consciousness and if one gives this some thought it begins to make a lot of sense if we use what we have learned from cannabinoids and opiates and the role of their endogenous counterparts in normal physiological processes.


You can not walk through a wall Walking through a wall has Nothing to do with the behavior of sub atomic particle at the quantum level it is a misunderstanding of QM and is incorrect. The notion refers to the fact that an atom is made up mostly of empty space. However there are forces also present in an atom (electorn clouds as well) that repel one another that would never allow this claim to occur. Furthermore fermion particles never touch one another when they "interact" but interact through the exchange of particles, known as bosons, even empty space is now believed to consist of interacting particles. Thus walking through a wall is a myth and is impossible. I have also heard it used with reference to QM as well, as some probability of electron tunneling, and it is wrong as well, as electron tunneling refers to energy graphs not a physical process.

QM is a form of science. Furthermore QM does not prove that SCIENCE BREAKS DOWN at the quantum level. How can science break down? It simply shows that the newtonian laws of physics which govern our level of the system, are not followed at the level of particles. This is all it says. These particles follow a different set of laws than larger bodies. When we observe their behavior it is different. However we are still using science to observe and study these interactions. It only seems strange because we are not used to seeing these types of interactions and thus lack words and models for explaining them. Furthermore at this level an observation is able to influence what occurs. The presence of an observer causes the collapse of a wave function. A wave function is the state of the system prior to being observed. The system is best modeled by a mathematical matrix, and its behavior and thus the schrodenger equation. Science is still able and does study these systems. This is called quantum mechanics (QM) and is a major field of science.

The we only use 10% of our brain myth is false. This is one of the first things they say in neuroscience classes. This stemmed from a misconception of a quote by some psychologist and is one of the most commonly misquoted lines. I hear it all the time. What was meant is that only 10% of the brain at anyone time may reach the level of awareness. This is not even known for certainty. The entire brain is being utilized.

Placing the ever effective twist on the subject at hand the science aspect is a great idea but it is not a good one to base all ideas upon. The existence we are talking about with hyperspace is a mixture or commingling if you will of all lifeforms in the known universe past and present. Therefore while we experience reality with our senses those senses allow us to experience life here on earth and allow our spirits to exists within the limitations of our bodies that which they may learn and grow into the transcendent modification to our souls. While we will live in a uniformed place the more we learn now, the better off you will be whence transcended.
So don't hate, people, don't hate

The thing is that everyone has strong emotions about the experience because it is so meaningful. However most explanations I have heard are completely made up many sound really cool but that does not make them real. There is not a shred of evidence to support the existence of an alternate reality or hyperspace. Hyperspace does not have to be real, the experience can still be meaningful, amazing and life altering. It is just as incredible that those beings come from within you than it is that they come from afar I think we should all agree to keep an open mind and attempt to discover the truth no matter what it is. Science is the best tool we've got weather the hallucinations come from chemicals acting on higher level cortical circuits or if hyperspace truly exists science will still be able to study it. I think while the scientific explanation is not complete it is far more logical and supported by fact than any of the others. The scientific explanation is that the hallucinations are drug induced by the drugs acting on the brain and thus they are not real. This is the scientific explanation but it is not science. If hyperspace is real, it must interact with matter (the brain) and it can be studied through science.

I simply cannot make myself believe that the hyperspace I experienced is not real. Of course, the thinking machine may entertain the thought that it is just a hallucination. I can even see the logic in that statement and the justification for it with my "scientific" part. But for the wholeness of me, there is absolutely no doubt. The proof is much stronger (and of a different kind), than what science can provide.

I do not think so. I think we can easily be mislead especially in an altered state. I have had dreams that seemed very real, I have thought I was awake but in the end they were just dreams. My sense organs are all shut off and my brain is just generating complex organized consistent information. I do not think that because the experience is complex (and thus seems real) that, that is any type of proof of its existence. It is just proof of how powerful the brain and the chemicals are. How can there be no doubt? I think we all need to be open minded about this. I have had incredible experiences as well, but how is it so difficult to think that the brain (our god) is unable to create these complex experiences of consciousness when disrupted. You are inside of your brain right now, your brain creates all things you feel, see, taste, touch, hear.... The fact that many of these experiences are culturally influenced further supports my the scientific explanation in my eyes. Although the hyperspace crowd has given an alternate explanation, which one can always do however it is their burden to prove it than.

This whole argument seems to boil down to "what is real" and what is not...
In the science corner, they are saying that only things that are measurable with scientific instruments are real.
In the spiritual/holistic corner, they are saying that whatever we experience is real.

At the end of the day... does it really matter? Where does this obsession with defining other people's reality come from?
I will define my own reality thank you very much. And in my reality, EVERYTHING I experience is real. Just that they can occur on different planes of reality. I see things that happen in everyday physical reality as just as impportant and real as things that happen in my dreams and in hyperspace. Its all part of the same interconnected web of existence.

As stated previously, we cannot hope to measure something from one plane of reality with an instrument belonging to a different plane. It just aint gonna work, not predicatably anyway.

Thats my 2c for this discussion for today.

What if hyperspace is real, but in a different then way many of you think?
What if we would create a place in our mind that is a translation of the brain, of complex information we subcounsciously receive in this world?

Let's say somebody tell's you something, but his body-language tell's something more...maybe about a third person you and he both know. So at a certain moment you might intuïtively feel there's something with this other person you know. But then your brain has to explain to you how you suddenly, intuïtively got to know that tina broke her leg's this afternoon.
So to create a picture of 'telepathy' is an easy explanation while there has been nothing 'supernatural' going on.

Hyperspace could be a metaphor for subcounsciously received information.
If that's the case, then you cannot simply say that it isn't real. But you cannot say that it is exactly what it seems to be, as well.

Real in my eyes means something is consistent and exists independently of me. I do not think my dreams or my hallucinations exist independently of me. Whereas I think that the physical world does even if not in the same fashion as I perceive it (QM). Nor do I think the physical world is dependent on my cultural upbringing (I am not talking about interpretations here but raw sensory experience) as my dreams and hallucinations are most certainly. The physical world is thus consistent whereas dreams and hallucinations are not. Furthermore I can see what in the physical world influenced my dreams and my hallucinations.

We can study these altered states by studying the brain. The brain is the one object which all these states require for "us" to experience them. Without the brains we can not experience any of these states. We know that the physical world can exist without a brain (not getting into QM which would say it exists in a different sense) we do not think that dreams exist w/o a brain. I do not think hallucinations can exist without a brain. So there is a difference b/w real and not real. One thing all experiences have in common is that no experiences can happen without brain activity. We can thus monitor the brain and relate the subjective reports to neural activity and eventually molecular activity.

This is a good point. I always think there is an explanation for these types of experiences as everytime I have thought I have had one I investigated it and there was a reasonable explanation. It is very easy to trick ourselves into believing magical things but if we investigate them logically magical explanations quickly are shown to be false. One thing about the hallucinogenic experience that many psychonauts like Terrence McKenna and James Kent and others have acknowledged is that no new information can be obtained from it. I agree with this as I have tried. You may get reworked info or different was of looking at a single problem but you can not get anything new out of it. It can not tell you anything you do not already know. No one has triped and then came up with a new equation that the elves showed them. This is strong evidence to me that it has not independent existence w/o the mind.

The experience may have an informational part, but that alone wouldn't be enough to believe. The elves or wizards may share the deepest secrets of the cosmos, if it's only systems of thought, in the end it amounts to nothing.

What makes it real (for me), is the infinite intimacy and love I felt. I know that this may sound naive or sentimental. But when God touched my heart, I immediately threw away everything and cried like a long lost child, who finally returns home. I realized this internal longing in me which I had since I was born. And in that moment, this longing was fulfilled, absolutely. And I knew that this longing is in every single human being. I shared the fate of us, fallen angels, and it was terrible and beautiful at once.

Sorry, I cannot explain it.

Perhaps it is you, who is misrepresenting science:



Heh, a by the book misrepresentation of science that "many scientists also misrepresent." A way all too familiar to religious zealotry.



Well, like I said earlier it is not worth attacking or defending, because science is basically knowledge. We watch the sun rise in the morning, that is science. It is knowledge gained by study or practice. I am just pointing out the underlying absurdity about it all: it is absurd, and nobody knows what it is.



This is the problem with your argument. It is near impossible to prove a universal axiomatic truth through science. First of all, a good scientist never admits to attempting to find the 'truth' through hypothesis and experiment. Science will test, adjust and explain results of an experiment and it becomes a theory. Science's goal is not to prove anything true, only to show certain things are false. It is going to be very hard to prove false someone's hyperspace experience. Just as it is hard to study QM with conventional science. It is easier to doubt the validity of someone's trip, and compare it with conventional science. But then, we do that with all religions.



Really? First I have ever heard of it not being a potential. You saying that this phenomenon would never occur, is pretty bold. Give me a centillion years of walking into a wall, and I assure you, I will pass through it one day.



The statement 'science breaks down' is not some controversial generalization. Science breaks down a plenty in our universe.
You are putting the term 'science' on a pedestal, at the same time arguing semantics. Isn't newtonian law science? Isn't newtonian law our governing system for our level? Does it not break down when applied to QM? QM is weirder than our traditional scientific model is willing to admit. So is hyperspace.



Will it be any less strange if we give them words and models? Which is my entire previous post's point. That, and that to some, science is a religion.



I don't know why you brought this up, I don't have anything to add to this discussion, as I was not a part of it. However, I will post a link to this interesting yet slightly unrelated video that perhaps has more to do with brain-mind then it does quantity of usage: http://www.ted.com/talks...l_stroke_of_insight.html