Sure, but I mean in sense of talking about the unknown.

well i dont know anything about the ormes or ormus or whatever the hell that is, just by reading these threads my first thought is that its another ploy to make money, kinda sounds like some bs or at least exagerated claims. Honestly though i dont know about them so im really not qualified to talk about them.

Citta: Yes I agree with your keys in the pocket metaphor, the problem is most of the scientists (when it comes to conciousness co-creating physical existence) havnt looked in their pockets! I dont think they are qualified to talk about things they have not experienced or even looked into.

"If we are talking about individual consciousness (or even worse, "personality and ego", it's obvious how many contradictions and flaws it would bring to believe that my own mind creates the universe. But if we're talking about some kind of Principle that is behind what we see as matter, I think it becomes more reasonable to understand."

I think i understand what your saying, if im understanding this correctly i completely agree, im not saying that if I think "unicorn" a unicorn will appear in front of my face, I see it as more a collective conciusness creating this. Not just the collective conciousness of humanity of course but of everything, we are just a drop in the ocean.

And yes you are correct Citta there is always a very good possibility that its all in my mind and I am completely insane, i consider this possibility all the time. Theres really no way for me to know though so I just kinda float along, doing my best to understand the ocean of chaos around me.

I didn’t watch the video, and I doubt the truthfulness of profiteering charlatans who take advantage of gullible people who want to believe. And this “ormus” business seems fishy.

Anyhow, you say that the absence of evidence with respect to consciousness is significant. This is simply not the case. In fact, the only real evidence we have that anything exists at all is via our consciousness – we know that consciousness exists by virtue of experiencing it.

From our conscious experiences, we deduce that a physical reality exists. But there is no evidence to support this. Consciousness is self-evident. The existence of physical reality is not.

The claim that “consciousness creates matter” is a very specific claim, and I agree that there is no evidence to support it. But I am 100% confident that consciousness exists. I cannot be as confident that material reality exists outside and independent of consciousness.

You bring this line of reasoning up everytime, and I knew it was going to come. Damn I wasn't more prepared!

Before we go on (again), I think you might have misunderstood me. You write:



The absence of evidence I am talking about is not absence of evidence for the mere existence of consciousness, which undoubtedly exists. The absence of evidence I am refering to is the absence of evidence for the claim "consciousness creates matter". This absence of evidence is, I still maintain, quite significant. The world should behave very differently if this was the case I think, and surely there should have been, through thousands of years of experiencing consciousness as human beings, some hints to this - regardless of the fact that this evidence would have to be experienced inside our consciousness. There is no such evidence.

You say that you can't be very confident that a material reality exists outside and independent of consciousness, yet our conscious experiences conclusively tells us all the time that whatever reality is out there, was there before us and is responsible for us being here now, asking these questions. While I really like your clever arguments as well as the ideas themselves, for me personally there is just too many significant problems with it.

For example, if there is no objective material reality outside our minds or consciousness, how come we perceive the same things? Why can't we collectively agree to create hamburgers ex-nihilo? What created consciousness? Where is it? How can it create matter just like that, when this is a clear violation of every known physical law? What does evolutionary theory mean in this context? Why do we have eyes and other sensory organs to register and interpret external signals? Why do life adapt to some kind of external environment? What does it mean that we can conclude the earth is 4.54 ± 0.05 billion years old? What about the physical laws that are the same for everyone? If there is no objective, external reality, then there are no objective truths. That objective truths doesn't exist is necessarily something that must be objectively true, hence you have reached a contradiction; or to put it in Sam Harris' words, you have reached a contradiction before you were able to tie your shoes.

Let's also take a concrete example that I have done before on this. Let's say I walk into a completely sealed room, alone, and I place something inside of that room. You do not know where I have placed this object. I then exit the room and leave it there with no conscious observers for a little time. According to the claim "consciousness creates matter" there should exist no object inside this room when no consciousness is there to observe it. Now you enter the room; how can it be that you register the same object at the very same place I put it? How can this be explained if there are not some defining properties, properties that are totally independent of consciousness and conscious observers, inherent in that object?

Problems such as these, among many others, poses some serious trouble to the idea of consciousness creating matter, problems that simply can't be bypassed by the rhetoric "all we know arises in consciousness" etc. Last but not least, the claim is not really verifiable nor falsifiable, because it is not contingent upon how the world is. It is in many ways completely withdrawn from reality. We might as well claim that there are unicorns in every house, just that they are placed so no one can see them.

"For example, if there is no objective material reality outside our minds or consciousness, how come we perceive the same things?"

How do you know we precieve the same things? How do you know I even exist at all, or anyone else? What if this is all just a figment of your imagination? You are only relying on the assumption that what you experience is real (as long as all of the other figments of your imagination agree with you lol).

"Let's also take a concrete example that I have done before on this. Let's say I walk into a completely sealed room, alone, and I place something inside of that room. You do not know where I have placed this object. I then exit the room and leave it there with no conscious observers for a little time. According to the claim "consciousness creates matter" there should exist no object inside this room when no consciousness is there to observe it. Now you enter the room; how can it be that you register the same object at the very same place I put it? How can this be explained if there are not some defining properties, properties that are totally independent of consciousness and conscious observers, inherent in that object?"

this just brings us back to the problem mentioned by gibran2 (i think) what do you define as conciousness? I think most of the work is being done by our subconcious. so just because that person is not conciously aware of the location of the object in the room, i belive that his subconcious, the part that is connected to the collective conciousness is very aware of this. To me this explains phsycic phenomena, de ja vu (probably spelled that wrong but ive expereinced it many times) and things like that.

In my previous post I agreed with you – there is no evidence that consciousness creates matter. But there is also no evidence that matter exists outside of consciousness. If there was, what would such evidence look like?

The problem, as always, is that we can’t say in what way things exist.

As a previous poster suggested, we can’t be certain that anything exists outside of our individual consciousness. You say that because “others” agree with your perceptions, that this suggests physical reality exists independent of our perceptions. But how can you be certain that others exist as physical, independent beings? And what if DMT entities agree with your DMT perceptions. Is this evidence of the independent existence of the DMT realm?

Science can tell us how the world works, and as we progress it does a better and better job of this. But science can’t tell us if the world exists outside of our own perceptions. There is no scientific experiment that can prove I’m not “dreaming” all of this.

Isn’t this what you’ve already suggested? You say that DMT-induced hallucinations can be convincingly real, yet might very well not be real. How can you be sure that your everyday reality isn’t just a very convincing and very persistent “hallucination” being had by whatever it is that possesses your consciousness?

matter exist and dont exist at the same time. Everything we see, on dmt or sober, is real and not real at the same time. Nothing is real if you look it from one perspective, but everything is also real from another. I understand what you guys are trying to understand but its like trying to fight for the same thing... Yes the material world is sort of a illusion and sort of created by our conscience but the material is there. We can feel it, touch it, analyse it. My conscience do not tell me that my spice extraction will work. in fact I'm always waiting for a disaster to come but it always works out. The material world is there, but its indeed a creation at the same time of our brain chemistry. The material world wil show itself differently if your a bee or a cow, but the material world, which is impossible to know what it really looks like, and I think that the material world doesnt really look like anything by itself, there is a billion answer to this because their is billion of different animal and life in general, but the material world do exist. However, the material world is just that, not important, because its always changing depending on where the consciense have to work with: us monkey, for now...


I think that their is two opposite, the material world and the spirit world. Science can only try to understand a little bit how the material world works, but will never try to understand what is intengible, what is infinite.
the material world is finite, their are laws, and they are proven. we really are on a planet.
the spiritual world have not laws, its chaos and order at the same time.
the material world is in order, but its the chaos too, evrything dying and shit
the spirit world will never die
I'm dying and my material world is too. It might look like a chaos for me, but its not for anything else.

The more we think about the why and hows, the less we do what we have to do, live!

My only qusetion is how long can we stay in the immaterial world? How individual am I? how can I think once I'm done, what is there to think without the material world around.

maybe the other opposite is just that, the material world is the brain and the immateriel is the spirit. we need both to access any of those... Its not a fight on what more real, everything is real, everything that we experiment is real yet an illusion. everything is a simple paradox. you need two opposite to create a balanced energy, or maybe not?

The claim that evidence/evidence to the contrary doesn't exist for the fact that consciousness creates matter and that there exists an objective, realistic and external universe I agree is true in a strict empirical sense. But there are good reasons to believe the first is wrong - the details will be dependent on the specific claims, but contradictions, the problem with existence between "time of perception" or shared reality remains. Some of these problems I talked about in the last post, problems you didn't offer any solution to.



Are you now assuming ontological solipsism in your arguments? If you believe that DMT-entities and other things experienced in such states are real as something more than your own drug-induced fantasies, you obviously don't. If you do however, I suggest you go talk to some of your other fantasies

As far as I know there is nothing that can prove/disprove ontological solipsism, and this almost by definition, but it can't really be defended in a rational manner either, which means that it hardly is a good starting point.

Epistemological solipsism, however, is hard to disagree with, but it doesn't mean that it is impossible to say something about the likelihood of something being the case or not. There is no reason to believe that the earth is flat, despite epistemological solipsism. It isn't the case that one cannot say anything about anything because we can't be sure if everything and everyone you experience is not some kind of hallucination. Now, if we assume not everything and everyone experienced is a hallucination, something I think you explicitly, or at least implicitly, do in your arguments, we're back to the original arguments I have raised before you came up with this quasi-argument.



I sense some inherent problems in this question. First of all there is a difference between the reality of the experience itself, and the claim that what is experienced is something more than a hallucination because of "abnormal" brain-activity. Secondly, in light of your other questions, this is somewhat of a "begging the question"; if the DMT-entities can agree upon something, then you have already presumed that they exist independently of yourself, as autonomous conscious beings. Thirdly, if they really exist it should be possible to correlate experiences with these entities for example, but not necessarily in this exact manner, by sending a secret message between to individuals through them, given by a neutral third-party. Finally, even though this is not of the best argument, would you (or any other here at the nexus) be just as eager to reject that this is just hallucinations if the entities told you your neighbor is evil, and that you should take an axe and plant it in his forehead, or would you become more skeptical in this situation? I bet you would be more hesitant, and I see no reason why you still shouldn't be just because they tell you or show you things you like to hear and see.



I can't, but does this really constitute a good argument at all? This I think becomes a little bit too absurd and meaningless in the long run, but it is true I can't be sure of this. Fundamentally I can't be sure of anything, but as I argued earlier this doesn't mean we can't say anything about anything.

PS: Sorry in advance if I have misunderstood you in some way, or interpeted you wrong, and consequently put words in your mouth and/or argued up in thin air. I am pretty busy these days with exams and all (which also explains why I replied so late).

My way has been to look at myths. Myths are stories that get told us, and then we tell ourselves. If we had been born in the times of Galileo's house arrest, and suppression of his discoveries of the universe, we would have believed the Aristotelian and Catholic myth of the motions of the universe, believed to rotate around Earth.

In the time line of history it is clear to see the beliefs, or myths. When animal torturer Rene Descartes hits the scene and tells his followers that animals are machines and have no feelings that is what people believe, and very sadly still do! This is what people now feel about plants, and Trees, That they have no feelings, and thus look at nature as some commodity to do with as one wishes via cold eyes cold heart. Animistic peoples did not think or feel like this. They experienced nature as full of spirits.

Now those peoples are called 'primitive' and considered inferior by this Age of Scientism. Scientismists now believe THEY are 'objective', but not realizing that their subjectivity creates a dead mechanical world, and they violently impose this myth on others, often blinding others with science because --like the Church once had its priests only being the ones who understood Latin--they have their scientific language, and specializations that people who are not into that do not understand, and so this becomes their POWER.

They then will DEMAND that your psychedelic experiences which drip with meaning are mere 'hallucination' and 'chemical rides', because science tells it so. But this is BS. They will tell you that the paranormal is a load of bunk, that the UFO phenomena is all of a hoax. And of course their cherry on the cake---that ALL reality and experience can be ex-plained materialistically, or physically.

I am saying that this hijacking reality in the name of scientism is the current myth which has taken over from the previous traditional religious fundamentalism. But important to notice that BOTH worldviews deprive nature from having spirit!

#Just found out that both Graham Hancock, and Rupert Sheldrake have had their videos removed from Ted Talks!

That is an interesting myth you are sharing.

I know a lot of people who maintain a scientific ontology who don't do that at all.

They know that science is a methodology and cannot make claims for or against things which cannot be tested. There are some fundamentalist science people who do just what you say, and they tend to be outspoken, but they are not the majority. I know a lot of scientific people who have religious and or spiritual beliefs.

But then fundamentalism exists on both sides of the argument and rote dismissals are distasteful. Consider that what you are criticizing is an intolerance for other views from a scientific view, but it your criticism of it you have also come across as closed minded and intolerant in a manner just like those who practice fundamentalist scientism. Here it is right here:


that statement where you say it is BS is an absolute, it indicates a closed mind and intolerance for the viewpoint you don't agree with, but isn't that the same thing you are saying is bad for science to do? Aren't you just emulating the behavior that you are saying is the problem with some people who have a scientific view?

Maybe it is BS, maybe it isn't. Doesn't almost everyone with an opinion think they know what they are talking about? Going around and saying something is BS is one of those things that fundamentalists on both sides end up doing, but isn't it just naysaying?

Isn't the imposition of a viewpoint in absolute terms disgusting behavior no matter what it is and who it comes from regardless of the view?

Or am I just mistaken?

I mean scientism, however it is so that the scientific method is defined as only taking as reality the measurement of matter. Do you agree?

No, I do not agree at all, that would be a claim that cannot be tested (*about what constitutes reality) and thus is outside of the method.

The method is about plausibility and testing, falsification etc, it does not contain in it any inherent claim about reality and many who use the method would say (or write) that there is a lot more to reality than the measurement of matter, but they would say that is not a matter of scientific methodology.

Consider that you are using technology, typing on a machine that was created based on results from the scientific method, this kind of thing is representative of what science offers and pertains to and it does not require (unlike many religious or spiritual concepts) that you believe in it or have faith in science to be able to employ the technology.

If something cannot be tested or measured the scientific method does not make a claim that it does or does not exist, some humans may opine that it does or does not, but opinion is not the domain of science either.

I have deeply spiritual beliefs and a spiritualistic ontology, I believe in spiritual energy and lots of other things for example, but in the case of psychedelics I do not think that they are obligatorily spiritual. If I engage in a spiritual practice while on psychedelics I tend to have a spiritual experience, but if I do not practice such, then i do not have a spiritual experience. Many many people have taken drugs, DMT even, scientists, and have never once had a spiritual experience or associated the experience with religion or god whatsoever. Some consider the insights psychological, some spiritual, some consider them trivial or non-existant.

As far a science is concerned, the method itself has greatly helped psychedelic exploration, by hypothesizing that psychedelic drugs gain their effects from their structures and their effects on the body (to say nothing of personal experience) and by identifying the correlations of molecular shapes and specific receptions the scientific method has come up with literally hundreds of new psychedelic compounds. Consider that some who have explored this and invented many new psychedelics using the scientific method maintain that the psychedelic experience is due to the interactions of molecules and receptors, ergo the experience is a "chemical ride" and yet they also maintain that this "drug intoxication" can be highly spiritual.

I have not had a spiritual insight on psychedelics that i can recall, (still i've probably used psychedelics less than 1000 times in my life so maybe I am lacking in experience) though i have learned a great deal about myself from them. Still I have had spiritual experiences with them (just no metaphysical insights) and I believe in science as a method and think that there is a very strong form of evidence for it being an accurate way of relating to reality right in front of you, the PC computer.



So, when the science myth changes will LSD no longer work as a psychedelic?
Will the computer not work anymore?
If there is an aspect of reality in scientific claims it is of cause and effect, saying that your computer will work, however if this is a highjacking of reality by the imposing of myth, then it is implied that this claim of an aspect of reality, namely your computers operation, is myth and thus relative and subject to change.


Unless I am mistaken that is instead realism, the brand you imply being scientific realism, which is not the same as science as a method or even as the basis of an ontology, but is itself a philosophy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_realism

I really like how with things produced by the myths of science, I don't have to believe in the myths or even be familiar with them to use them, like this computer here. I cannot say the same about psychedelic spiritualism.

You seem to actually have agreed






A less than a 1000 times is a LOT!
I had a spiritual experience the very first time I was given LSD when 15, and every psychedelic experience since (I have taken LSD and magic mushrooms) has been very spiritual.
You contradict your self. First you say you have not had spiritual experience and then you say you have. I am confused.
How do you define 'spiritual'?



First sentence doesn't make sense to me?
What I mean is that is 'science' demands that there is only material--which is the materialistic philosophy--then it demands that reality can only be measured by their criteria--the scientific method--and no other forms of knowledge about reality via other means, like psychedelic (etc) exploration are authentic.
What does my computer working or not have d=to so with this. I am not anti science. I am aware though that the very innovation of computer has come about via psychedelic insights.

Our culture is based on scientific materialism. Its central social controlling myth, the myth of mental illness is based on this myth, and hence more and more human behaviours are classed as chemical disorders of the brain. There is no place in this worldview for spirituality. This is a big reason for the war on psychedelics/consciousness.

You don't seem to understand what I am relating.
It isn't my concern though, I didn't agree.




You don't read closely enough.



Science demands no such thing.
Wow!


I think that is a myth, you can believe in your myth, but I do not.

Our culture is not at all based in scientific materialism and it has a lot of room for spirituality. Just because there are outspoken people who oppose spirituality doesn't mean they are definitive or representative of our culture. Most people in our culture have spiritual beliefs, the majority of them. This war you mention, against consciousness as you term it, it isn't waged by society or the majority at all, but by a small minority with a strong influence.

I take it that you do not believe in mental illness?

From what I have read of your posting, there is no room in your view for alternate viewpoints to your own, including for scientific spirituality. You make it seem like science and spirituality cannot or do not coexist, but in my experience they do.