I think that the fact that we are aware of our existence poses many intelectual and spiritual chalenges. The idea that we have all linked with Descartes "i think (therefore) i am", is from all times and places. In ancient times it sparked an interest in religious/spiritual issues. Fact is that self awareness is something we cannot (yet) completely understand, even though this same question nowadays doesn't have to lead to religious type of conclusions. Could machines become self-aware ?(there's another thread on that on this forum as well)
Even if a machine is able to process information in such a sophisticated way that it would seem to be able to draw this conclusion,it is not sure that the machine really knows that it exists, just like knowledge may be stored in books but books don't know anything.
It might be that A) indeed we have a soul (wich still doesn't mean that there is any religious system that has information of it's nature and content) B)there is a 'universal soul', a 'nature-god', that the energy that carries the information processed in our brains is somehow 'alive'or 'counscious' and that this primal energy is the spark of all our spiritual and psychological awareness C)That our self awareness is some kind of illusion created by the brain, that we are not really aware of anything and it only seems that way D) something else i have not yet thought of.
That, back to the cartesian uncertainty again, everything is uncertain and every concept of reality requires a leap of faith of some kind, makes not every system of belief equal to another.
The fact that we take part in this discussion alone proofs that we all take what we think is our daily lives but wich might just as well be an illusion, serious enough to believe it's real. We know the senses can deceive us, and that at the end the only certainty we have is from experience, but this doesn't make all claims about reality equal. For instance, many systems of belief depend for large parts on speculation while they at the same time are extremely specific, wich often leads to a schisma between those taking all that's written down literally and those who take it metaphorically.
I would say that the scientific aproach at least is the most consistent one with the least leap's of faith taken. Only one, the first one, that of our experiences being real. We can believe that life is real and at the same time know that things can be deceiving, but the scientific aproach can explain the differences, while the rejection of science cannot, other that reffering to the mysterious ways of god or other postulated existing thing. I am pretty much open to everything but what i do reject is a platonean picture of there being two worlds; a material one and a spiritual one, of wich one has then eventually be preferred over the other. This has often lead to nothing less then discontempt and loathing for the only world we are certain of, that wich we live in and that we share with others.

You sound remarkably like Jesus Christ, Burnt.

He trumped the Ten Commandments with the above "Golden Rule!"

WTG, GodChild! You're right! That's all that counts.

BTW, i 'm asking myself... would we find religious or spiritual tendencies in other species like bonobo's and other humanoïds, if we would look?

I would say that the scientific aproach at least is the most consistent one with the least leap's of faith taken. Only one, the first one, that of our experiences being real. We can believe that life is real and at the same time know that things can be deceiving, but the scientific aproach can explain the differences, while the rejection of science cannot, other that reffering to the mysterious ways of god or other postulated existing thing. I am pretty much open to everything but what i do reject is a platonean picture of there being two worlds; a material one and a spiritual one, of wich one has then eventually be preferred over the other. This has often lead to nothing less then discontempt and loathing for the only world we are certain of, that wich we live in and that we share with others.[/quote]

Polytrip: I sense we're not far off in what we are trying to express here. You say, science is the best, most reliable approach to reality, and I do not disagree. I also believe that the scientific endeavor is HOLY and DIVINE, not just convenient for survival.

Do you not see the subtle disctinction in values and degree here? Both my *beliefs* are true. You are saying one truth trumps the other?

I also hold a strong BELIEF that Dualism is a DIS-EASE and denial of the validity of opposing but equal viewpoints(which is artificial) IS A MAJOR REASON for the present state of social and biological dysfuntion in our roles both as biological beings and as social beings.

Compassion is enough to prove divinity. Hard to measure, there's little enough to go around but it's REAL!
And it's Holy. (WHOLLY SH--, BATMAN)

I am pretty sure that the spiritual is linked to the existential, and that there is no defining line between the two.

In that my cat has self-awareness, he also has *Soul* by some people's definitions.

Doug Hofstadter, in "I Am A Strange Loop," goes so far as to suggest that Souls have sizes, and that a baby then has a smaller soul than an adult. And a mosquito none at all, in his world view.
You mentioned his book, Godel Escher Bach, so you know that Doug does not believe in God, but he obviously <needs> to believe in Anima.
He simply takes another step, and says that physical descriptions of this Self are enough to explain our consciousness, apart from a God.

And these souls, including their SIZES are now possible to describe (according to Hofstadter) due to advances in our understanding of science and the language of Mathematics.
(I am having a hard time with accepting this idea smaller and larger souls as I read this book today)

What do you think about this idea? He says that our brain/body is designed to evoke this Soul-ness, and our complexity of Self directly affects the size of Soul?
Thus we feel ethically fine about killing beings with souls that are much *smaller* than ours. I dunno - think this could be a dangerous way to view the world.

For this reason i'm a vegetarian. I don't eat anything that i think might be able to feel pain, although this can end up in a tricky word game like 'what is pain?' and 'do plants feel pain as well?'. (but i am comfortable with eating plants)
This thing you mentioned about the 'value' of reality. Well, i agree wholy. From an 'objective' way of looking at things, science has to be prefered as a way of finding truth, but looking at the same world in a more 'private' context i may feel differently about the things resulting from this scientific aproach. At some moment i may feel there is a god and even that this is a certainty, and the other moment i may feel that the whole notion of there being a god is just insane. When it comes down to my behaviour in social situations, when my decissions can affect others, i take no risk with other people's lifes in depending on my most personal views on life. If i would here the voice of god calling me to kill randomly for the sake of some holy war or something in that direction then, no matter how deep my belief in this phenomenon would be, as allways i would let ratio prevail.
If hofstadter is right about the structure of the human psyche, then the brain works in such a way that it creates the illusion of self awareness, since self awareness is then nothing more than a structure.
I think that the notion of larger and smaller souls is incomplete since souls that would as a structure be smaller, would still have, i think the same relative awareness in relation to this structure. So a drunken man may be less aware of anything happening to him, but in as far as he ís aware, he will considder whatever is happening to him of equal importance as when he would be sober. And in that last part is not only awareness in an abstract manner concluded, but also self-awareness.
What, even if you completely follow hofstadter and other people who think like him, still remains a mystery is this; what if you would have a machine duplicating the flows of information, the cognitive processes, in the human brain. Let's say of one flash of awareness we would make a printout. How can numbers on a piece of paper be aware?
And these numbers would represent the same information as going on in this artificial brain. So;1- self awareness is an illusion or 2-there is something still not answerred. This mysterious thing from the second option, in ancient times would always be answerred as 'the devine spark' (from god, mostly). We now realize that there doesn't have to be such a spark, our brains might be just deceiving us, but it ís a mystery.

[quote=polytrip]For this reason i'm a vegetarian.
D. Hofstadter is a vegetarian for much the same reason. I'm not but I don't eat red meat - or find it all that appealing. So it is not often in my diet, no more than 3 times a year. I've enjoyed Filet Mignon when it was plunked down in front of me with no other choices but would never order it.
My ethics are fishy here.

Literally fishy:
My husband is Brasilian so I'm down there a lot. The best restaurants are called "churrascarias" where typically the waiters bring huge slabs of beef, lamb, chicken parts, bacons, sausages all grilled on huge skewers and that's the main meal! You have to signal them with a Green signal for more meat or Red for stop! It's DISGUSTING even though I am no vegetarian!!!!
Fortunately these Churrascarias also have world class seafood or I'd be eating only coconuts. I love seafood so much that I am dubious about how much my aversion to red meat is due to the fact that the animal is self-aware or capable of pain.

I'll try to make a Long Story short, there's a moral to this somewhere... (it would be easy for me to *talk* about Brasil for hours)
I really enjoy almost any seafood, especially crustaceans,MMMMmmm with no qualms! And for me, it was same with chicken UNTL LAST SPRING! What happened to transform me?

While in Cabo Frio, BR (beach, near an old Portuguese fort circa 152 I had an ongoing argument with a big, brash, arrogant (I anthropomorphize too much) ROOSTER about who was going to wake up who first in the morning!
Every day, 3 a.m. this rooster went off,WAY before sunrise and I was not amused. It was truly a BATTLE of WILLS. The last day in town, I woke up the bird, not the other way around!
This argument was a RELATIONSHIP of sorts.
My point?
This $#$#@%! rooster demonstrated self-awareness all right; he was a stubborn, nasty, irrascible pain in the ASS. But he won the day.
I have not eaten any chicken since. And you know? I remembered seeing my Great-grandfather killing a chicken when I was a child. Could not have been more than 5 years old ARG! (Seems to me if more people had to slaughter their own meat as in the old days, we'd see far more vegetarians)

Bottom line, many years later I now find I can't eat things I can TALK to, if they talk BACK. Does this make sense?
(Of course there are MANY good reasons to avoid red meat other than ethical. For example, even if you don't believe that beef is any more aware than toothpaste - it takes acres and acres of grain to produce a pound of meat, or whatever. It's an inefficient food source at best. No excuse or reason exists to justify farming large mammals. I grew up with meat being enter of the main meal every day as a child, but I LOVE FRESH VEGGIES. Go RATATOUILLE!)

True I did steal that one from religion but I don't follow it for religious reasons. Also I could have deduced such a belief without any religious connetation. Empathy or understanding the feelings of others because I understand my own experiences (to an extent)allows me to do that.



I agree very much that personal belief is certainly not enough to tellw hats real and whats not. By faith I mean believing in something just because someone else told you too. Or because you do not want to look at the evidence and so you choose to believe whatever you want because whats just how you want to view things. Which is fine until one tries to impinge on others but anyway I meant it in that general sense. Like someone tells you to beleive in an afterlife just because so you do thats what I meant by faith.



I assume you mean metatonin hear. But it should be pointed out that we are sensitive to DMT because we have a number of receptors capable of recognizing this molecule and using it to be able send signals which effects whatever part of the brain those neurons interact with. Its endogenous so it makes sense why such receptors exist and because of the similarity in structure other such compounds of interest interact also with similar receptors. I am sure we both understand what I mean here though.



Yea I am biased against that term because of the baggage attached to it so your right language is getting in the way here. And I totally understand that your view of god is probably much different from that of a religious fundamentalist.



If you mean the experience of god as a peak mystical or psychedelic experience then yes I can see how one would find these things answers unsatisfactory. But the reason I am bringing this up is why does it have to be anything more? Our brain is an excellent device at creating a perception of reality based on experiences and incoming stimuli. But why do people feel that the experience one has under the influence of psychedelics or other altered states is an experience of god? Yes you feel like you are one with the universe and you feel like you are touching something deep and profound that I will not deny. But my only argument really is why is that god? Because ancient religious traditions also had belief systems that said we are all one etc? If you mean God by that what created us then the psychedelic experience or other altered states would have to get us in touch with that which created us. They may be doing this I really do not know. I still do not entirely understand what created us or the universe (multiverise, existence, whatever you want to call it), no one does and yes maybe we never well.

But my point is it can also be looked at that the experience of feeling one with the universe is your brain simply losing its ability to tell its boundies of self and often what accompanies such an experience is a loss of connection with ones memories and hence ego. What I am saying is that it may be possible to fully describe the religious or mystical experience in terms of brain function.

Now of course this still does not entirely answer the ultamite question. Is consciousness a result of brain function or is consciousness required for the universe and things like brain functioning to exist? Or as you point out is this duality meaningless That I do not yet know or grasp at my current level of understanding of what I have experienced and what I think I know/understand.



I think this is nothing to fear and its great that people are studying these things it interests me in my work and normal life immensly. I think the scary part for religious people might be that we may be able to show that the conscious experience is purely a result of brain function that there is no need for the soul or afterlife or any of these religious ideas. But again the duality and language definitions of what god is gets in the way! Haha. The scary part for aithiests may be that science can finally explain what God is as in what creates us/makes us conscious living beings but I think that definition of God may be a far cry from anything that most people think of when they think of God so then what does being an atheist even mean? Who knows.. I think we are a long way from truly understanding the phenomenon of consciousness but I think the more data the comes in the better. No fear in that regard.







No I don't think the ultamite bottom will be reached any time soon, and I don't think us as humans will get to the bottom of it, perhaps beings that evolve after us may but I really can't say I simply do not know. I think its worth pursueng an understanding of how the mind works for many reasons that I dont think really need to be explained.



I mean that they are both a result of brain function. If different kinds of brain functioning can cause psychosis and delusion then it also makes sense that brain function can creat what we are calling a spiritual experience.

To summarize my point sorry if I repeat myself. We call this experience that we have under the influence of psychedelics or altered states a religious experience. But why? Yes it does coincide with religious and or spiritual beliefs probably because those beliefs are a result of people having these powerful experiences and attempting to describe it to others. But who is to say that there is anything divine or otherworldly aboud this experience? All I am saying is that it could all be a result of brain function (whether or not you call it proper or inproper brain functioning doesn't really matter). Now yes the argument about language and what is god and dualities can come into play here. Energy and matter are related infact they are the same thing in different forms. I guess the only real complaint I have is why is this called a religious experience?

I will be away for some time so I won't be able to continue this discussion for the time being but I look forward to thinking about the things we talked about and hearing your reponses. But until then cheers!

Hey Burnt,

Seems to me we're barking up the same tree. I really enjoyed reading your responses cause you've confirmed my suspicion that the semantics were probably getting in the way of meaning here. We have viewpoints and opinions that intersect quite a bit with much in common - I think.

"Religion" and spirituality are very different animals to me. In fact, the two can often be at odds with each other. Religion is a tool that has been used to suppress both the cognitive and spiritual freedom of humans as much as it has been to enhance it!
Religion can be powerful, beautiful and dangerous. It has been used as an instrument of torture and oppression for aeons. It can also be a catalyst for people to do good. BUT it's not the same as spirituality, and I think a lot of people confuse them.
If you take the word God out of the picture, the concept of God does not go away, it is ingrained in us regardless of belief.

People who go beyond skepticism (Agnostics)and call themselves A - Theists still are using the concept of God to define their belief system.
Atheism would not exist without God....see what I mean? I'm posting this publicly, and look forward to whenever when you *return* and we can continue - you've given me a lot to chew on until then.
Ciao!

;-)

One more thing - you didn't *borrow* the Golden Rule from Religion, you borrowed it from Jesus Christ. He merely put to words an archetypal IDEA which is so powerful that exists in everyone; ubiquitous to all humankind. And it is very closely related to Karma too. As in "You reap what you sow." And reminds me of Zen Buddhism too. "Love thy enemy." could easily be a koan.

But I grew up in the Judeo-Christian mythology, for better or worse. So I guess I'm a Christian Existentialist. The teachings of Jesus are lovely and rich in content. Material (pragmatic) and spiritual wisdom both.
And am REPELLED by the way all the GREAT IDEAS engendered by all those very interesting spiritual writers (Bible) over the centuries have been TWISTED into instruments of control by those who hate freedom.

Jesus was always pissed off at *religious* people. QUOTE "...Pharisees and scribes who not only refuse themselves to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but would stop all who would enter in." And where is this Kindom of Heaven according to JC? "The Kingdom of Heaven is inside of You." Whoa! Now how can anyone control OTHER PEOPLE using THAT idea? Essentially he is saying we are all expressions of Godhood, and that it is our birthright. That idea got him KILLED.
And for sure you've heard the story of Jesus'temper tantrum in the Temple? He was so pissed at the *moneychangers* i.e. LOAN SHARKS in the Temple - that he tore the whole place apart!
Jesus' life story as it has come down to us is simply a perfect example of how to live and do no harm...but has been so screwed up by Religious people no-one wants to hear it anymore!

:-((

This guy Jesus was NOT a fan of Religion either.

wow, this has really taken off...

I'm pretty drunk so I cant wrap my head around all the stuff you guys are talking about exactly,
But goddamn most of it is spot on...even though its all different I havent read anything I disagree with yet...
"I agree very much that personal belief is certainly not enough to tellw hats real and whats not. By faith I mean believing in something just because someone else told you too. Or because you do not want to look at the evidence and so you choose to believe whatever you want because whats just how you want to view things. Which is fine until one tries to impinge on others but anyway I meant it in that general sense. Like someone tells you to beleive in an afterlife just because so you do thats what I meant by faith. "

faith is different from theism/religion.

I have no religion, [think the idea of following outdated texts *verbatim* is kinda silly]
But I have faith. Maybe it is just semantics, but for me, faith is ALL personal, things that others tell you, thats religion.

you know the combination of alcohol and all these brilliant perspectives you people are thowing around
is tieing my brain in knots

I'll come back later
crustaceans yum yum yum crunch crunch

Yep.
You don’t need to explain what faith is…to somebody who knows the nature of faith.
It is impossible to explain what faith is…to somebody who don’t know the nature of faith.
That’s what I think.

yea i think language is key and gets into confusion in these discussions.

for me energy = spirit they are the same thing. some people find energy a cold way of looking at spirit but any description of spirit fits more in with how we define of energy then anything else. but soul does not necessarily fit in with that idea because soul implies you your consciousness moving on and that does not fit in yet. at least with the way im looking at this.

Hey Burnt and Everyone! How can you have a *discussion* WITHOUT LANGUAGE? (by the way, nice to see the Nexus back online again! How the heck are y'all?

It wasn't a drug per se, but Bill Hicks made me question God entirely. LSD was my confirmation. I guess I could be called a pantheist.

Stalking the Wild Pendulum by Itzhak(sp?) Bentov
and
Science and the Akashic Field by Ervin Laszlo

Quantum physics is practically searching for god. They'll find it and wonder: "What the fuck is this?" More questions.

It is my firm belief that we are all together god, and the whole conundrum is similar to light being singluar and spread... we are all god the singular, yet we are gods split into little individual 'god-souls' at the same time. We are god searching for god, like so many other things in this mutilverse, going around and around in a feedback loop in order to sustain it's existence.

So what natural system of order does this "searching" fulfill? I believe the entire continuity of the universe. Simply put as quatum freaks would say, if we weren't here to observe this world then it would non longer exist. POOF. We are god because this entire reality is in our connected brains.

We keep searching and believing even without physical proof of god because somewhere in our beings i think we all feel god because we are/were god... it's like looking for love is akin to wanting to go back to mommy's womb.


The answer i get from asking the hallucinations who they are is not they are me, the answer is more like I am really them. I find salvia extremly blatant in this regard. Salvia beings are reflections of me, but 100% honest and stripped down to a spiritual core, meaning quite simply they are more real than I. I am the hologram, they are the actual image.


Taking it the extreme we are all holograms and god the singular is the actual image, but he is not different from us, there is no 'other'. We have created this all in our minds, just like now we are "all imagining new ways to power cars" and voila within 10 years...we will be.

Somewhere a "mini god" is conjuring up a vision never seen before, he communicates to someone, it gathers momentum, or spin, and as the spin and density of souls involved in this idea grows, the idea slowly become a physical reality, and eventually makes its way onto tv or into a blockbuster movie or release as a major product, and now the entire universe is being swept up in this major or minor swirl or possibilities. God makes something from nothing at all into real phsyical possibilities. We do that too.

An idea is the real thing - the reality we turn it into, is a hologram of our imaginations.
God is the one hologram we can't seem to manage to bring about evidence of (not even a sighting like aliens, notice? never read about a "miracle" except for jesus on toast) because we cannot bring about the reality of ourselves, that would end the feedback loop of searching, and the entire universe would experience a quantum "collapse" and dissapear back into the singularity... so it won't happen.

If you believe in yourself, then you tend to believe in humanity, and then you tend to believe in gaia (the earth) and then the universe, and that belief is god itself. I consider myself a believe in god, but there is no "other" in my opinon is what i'm saying, and I get glipmses of that on all psychedelics.

i was agnostic
then i ate 7 grams of cubensis

God spoke

i am a now a firm believer in a higher power

pm me and ill link you the trip report

SWIM will admit that after a number of very intense psychedelic experiences SWIM was convinced that he had seen "god" and understood the universe. Actually that happens almost every time SWIM trips haha (deep ones anyway). But the more time that goes on and the more SWIM returns to normal waking consciousness the more SWIM begins to question what SWIM experienced. That's SWIMs nature though, probably a result of scientific training.

Some of the visions SWIM has had under the influence of psychedelics SWIM didn't want to be real(even though we've discussed the unreality of our human reality see reality thread).

For example if you trip and see what you think may be some true realization about the universe you like it and accept it as true. But if you trip get insanely paranoid thinking your neighbor is going to attack you run around your house wild peering out the windows you might come down and say hey that was stupid and made up. My point is that we accept realizations and explanations for experiences we like and reject the ones we don't like as being a paranoid delusion. I don't know I just don't take a psychedelic experience as necessarily proof of anything except that our brain is a lot more capable of doing weird things then most people realize.

SWIM has also seen people who have gotten into a very insane way of thinking after taking psychedelic drugs. People literally becoming delusional and characteristically insane after using them. Making up complete and utter delusions about the world that the rest of us see and experience. What do we make of this and how it ties into experiences of god?

SWIM was a complete atheist until one ayahuasca trip where SWIM was contacted by God. God told SWIM things that were impossible for anyone to know. God predicted many future events, all of which happened exactly as God said. These were completely impossible for anyone to be able to predict. It wasn’t “coincidence” that they happened. That would be impossible. The detail of the future events, the complete accuracy, the vast array of items predicted, there’s no way it was a figment of SWIM’s imagination. God even found a wife for SWIM. And get this, she was located on the other side of the world. God gave SWIM specific instructions on how to find her. SWIM has been happily married for many years since then. SWIM’s wife is the best possible companion SWIM could ever dream of.

So, SWIM went from being a complete atheist to a complete believer in God from a single ayahuasca trip. God completely convinced SWIM of God’s existent beyond a shadow of a doubt.

SWIM realized that God has always been there, but SWIM just never noticed God. He wasn’t open to God. I know that sounds corny and all, but that’s how it was. He was simply blind to God, and ayahuasca opened up his eyes.

SWIM has only had contact with God a few times since.

During the first contact with God, God explained to SWIM that God is not like us. God has no body, no molecules, God is pure soul energy and that all of reality is like a dream that is being dreamt by God. We are all just a figment of God’s imagination. Like a dream a human might have, such dreams have a past, present, and future. God explained that there is actually no past (it’s an illusion just as reality is), there is only the present. We are all just souls, the rest is purely an illusion. We are each small pieces of God’s consciousness. Like God, we cannot be destroyed, because we are part of God’s consciousness. However, God can put us in our place (dream us to be a piece of bacteria if God so chooses). If God so chooses, God can suddenly change reality to have completely different rules, a completely different past, and a completely different set of physical laws.

After that experience, SWIM had an understanding of life that was far beyond anything he had expected. Basically, our souls are real, the rest is an illusion. All of science is based on the laws of the current dream God is dreaming. At some point in the future God will suddenly change things and our current understanding of the universe will suddenly need to be completely overhauled. Science will always be one step behind, because the laws of physics are periodically being changed by God. At certain points God dreams a completely new dream. That event leads to the complete destruction of the universe and a new one is then created.

beautiful ron!

thanks for sharing

SWIM was also changed from atheist to knowing there is a Transcendental and that everything matters, due to psychedelics. though its not as 'personal' idea of God as yours