Martin,
> I have to challenge you on a number of your claims.
Thanks for the reply.
> Individualism has not (in my view) been the
> dominant theme of western civilization for the last 2500 years. The atomized individual is probably a
> notion (that has never been fully realized in fact, thank god) that emerged with the Rennaissance.
I didn't mean 'individualism' in quite that sense. You may well be right that individualism
( in the sense of a kind of selfishness, socio-political relationship,etc ) sprung from the Rennaisance.
I don't know. But what I had in mind, was the kind of conceptual mental model which derives,
probably, mostly from the Greek philosophers. It's the mental model of 'what a person is' which
I personally, and most people I have known, have inherited from the culture, via education,etc.
I'm talking more from a psychological than a sociological angle.
> I am not sure what you mean by "Po Mo" but, in any case, as I pointed out in an earlier e-mail (if I
> remember correctly), I think that stories are real but that we must separate them clearly from what
> they are stories of. The story is not the thing itself - except in the case of stories about society, and
> this is another matter that I would prefer avoiding discussing now. On second thought, here are some
> thoughts on both types of stories - "natural" and "social" and where "truth" figures in it - as I see it, in
> any case. To me truth is a property of the story and not a property of what the story is about. However,
> it is the what that the story is about that determines the truth status of the story - surely this is the
> central problem of epistemology. Natural science is all about how to ensure which of our stories about
> nature better correspond - but this does not by itself change the reality that these stories are about.
> Therefore, as a realist I firmly accept that no matter what I say about the natural world, it is the way it
> is.
To borrow a line that JWD used the other day, about folk who argue that 'science is not
really science'. I want a better, 'more scientific' science...
My line of reasoning goes something like this. Traditionally, science 'pretends' to be 'objective',
and to conduct its project 'as if' it were not being done by scientists, i.e. human beings.
That's a 'story' that scientists have told themselves.
> But of course, when speaking about the social world, a "slight" modification is required. As a realist
> with respect to human society I firmly accept that no matter what I say about the social world, it is to
> that point the way it is independently of whether my claims about it are true or false but, once I have
> made a claim about the social world, that claim enters into the being of that world and participates in
> either altering it in my small way or reproducing it in my small way up. (To illustrate how I see this
> working, it is useful to take a "Big" example, e.g., the President of the US, in his capacity as president,
> declares war on Iraq. That statement is "Big" as a declaration made by someone in the institutional
> position to make it count is self-constructively true by bringing about the state of affair it declares.) In
> the small case of my own story telling, changing the way the world is in a small way will obtain when it
> turns out that my claim is not true but it is taken as true and as my claim is part of what it is about then
> it alters that way of the world for those believers and if I can convince enough people, then it becomes
> a big alteration and the lie reshapes the future - but not the past, only our experience of the past. In
> the case of reproducing the social world, this obtains when it turns out that my claim, intended to be
> true, is true and is taken as true. And of course, whether or not a claim about the social world is true or
> not is what all the ongoing dispute over what they/she/he said and did not say in acting and about
> their actions, the social institutions, the social properties is about - i.e., our collective historical
> experience. It is not the past that is at stake but the future by way of the way we construe the past.
Well, I think that the above, and many similar remarks that I have read recently, are problems
which arise because there is an overlap between the culture of science ( 'metaculture' of science,
- thanks JWD) and popular, general social culture (- or rather cultures, because there are many.)
The culture of science is good for some things, but it cannot substitute for a more complete
culture which addresses a much wider range of human needs and foibles.I think that the
confusion of these two is at the root of much of the acrimony and discord in contemporary
discussion.
> How does this relate to "telepathy" and your claim that it makes the belief in the isolated individual
> false? I am not sure. But I do have some comments on telepathy.
>
> By "believing in telepathy" I assume you mean that you believe that humans (only humans?) can
> communicate without the intervention of some tangible signing system - tangible in the ordinary sense
> that signs as representations are objects that impinge on our standard senses such that we can discern
> patterning (visual, aural, etc.) by which we interpret their meaning. It is via tangible signing that we
> normally think of ourselves as "displaying" or making manifest our mental states to each other.
What I meant, is that to have a truly scientific science, requires an accurate designation of
what a scientist is. Of what a human being is. Traditionally, 'scientists' have scoffed at anything
which did not fit their agenda (the stories they told themselves ). For example, 'ghosts' are
beyond the pale for mainstream scientific orthodoxy, whilst at the same time every branch
of science is littered with vague spectral concepts and conventions that are every bit as elusive
and insubstantial as ghosts.
I do not "believe in telepathy " as some kind of article of faith. What I'm saying, is that the
scientific model of 'what a person is', must be revised, because telepathy is _a scientifically
proven fact_. The vernacular accounts of telepathy, and the fact that many cultures have taken
telepathy for granted, going back for millennia, are valorized, and the rejection by science of
telepathy as 'paranormal nonsense', must be reappraised.
> I assume that telepathy is a form of communication that makes this "display" unnecessary. Since you
> now claim that you believe in telepathy, I assume that you believe it has been an ongoing process but
> we are not aware of our own state of telepathy. But this still means that in normal circumstances
> telepathy must be based on some sort of ongoing process of representation - both in terms of
> broadcasting (producing output) and interpreting (reading input) - of which we are oblivious, i.e.,
> although we are telepathizing we are not actually having a telepathic experience of this in the way
> that I can say, if asked, "Do you see Mr. X?" and I say "Yes I see that Mr. X has arrived" meaning "Yes I
> am having a visual experience of Mr. X and this experience is caused by the fact that Mr. X is standing
> over there." In short I would say your "belief in telepathy" (and its implication that there is no such
> thing as the atomized individual) is a sort of ongoing process of communication minus the experience
> of communicating.
Well, the key is consciousness, for which science has no uncontentious explanation. But if it be
a quantum phenomenon, then the kind of 'broadcast / reception radio-wave model' which you
describe here is not the way to envisage what goes on.
Specialists in spiritual training have known how to adjust their levels of consciousness, so as to
facilitate 'ESP' , etc, for millennia.Because Western science has concentrated upon other,
predominately intellectual, pursuits, they do have the direct practical experience of such things.
> Now this may not seem as implausible as first appearance. There seems evidence that people
> suffering certain neurological trauma can suffer from "blind sight" - they have the physical capacity to
> receive visual inputs and act on them without having any visual experiences, i.e., they do not have the
> phenomenology of seeing that normally sighted persons have in seeing. Now I assume that you are
> claiming something equivalent for humans with respect to telepathy - we actually do it but do not
> experience doing it. Nevertheless we act on this ongoing telepathy. For example, say if someone, Y,
> were to hear X say "I promise to meet you (Y) tomorrow here at 2" but X thinks to him/herself, {I don't
> want to see Y again}, that some discordance is introduced. Even though Y is not able to articulate the
> source of this discordance, because Y has no experience of receiving the contrary thought, Y
> nevertheless sums up the contradiction and expresses to her/himself [I don't trust that person].
Yes, roughly, but I think it is rather more complicated than that.
The CIA have done a lot of research on the matter.They analyse it using a crude Freudian
model, and seek to explain it, roughly, as if the somatic body can communicate somehow with
another somatic body. So it's as if the muscles and bones of an individual can transmit / receive
information which can be perceived by the muscles and bones of another, and all this
subliminally, i.e. below the threshold of normal conscious awareness.
Personally, I think that their model is wrong. There are far more sophisticated models in the
oriental esoteric traditions.
> Is this the sort of thing you are suggesting? If so, then it would appear that we are receiving
> ambiguous rather than unambiguous mental inputs via these experienced and unexperienced forms of
> communication - without really knowing the source of this ambiguity. Very interesting, but, so what?
> There is no doubt that we have all noted that someone's promise is probably false and if asked why, we
> cannot really articulate the reasons for our scepticism except to say "I have the feeling that I cannot
> trust him." But, in fact, it may be that the reasons are right there and you have used them and with
> assistance you can learn that you were implicitly drawing on your past experience with that person,
> knowledge of that person's busy schedule, questionable motives that you know of about that person,
> the situation the person is in, the facial expressions and aural expressions did not correspond so that
> he "looked" like he was lying, and so on. That is, we are continually using many "signs" as part of our
> background for assessing the honesty and "truthfulness" of a person without explicitly articulating
> these or our awareness of them. In a sense we have no articulate experience of the signs.
"So what ?", you say. Well, in the above, you are still conceiving of yourself and others as the
discrete independent units that I refered to earlier. It may be that the evidence will show that
we have to shift that conceptual framework, and take on a picture of all humans being
embedded in one Mind. Perhaps that is what the scientific evidence is pointing towards.
> In short, telepathy is simply adding one more possible source of information that allows the
> discrete agent to judge the personal sincerety of the other's assertions, promises, etc. But this may
> simply be a claim about a source of sign-information that is, in principle, no different from facial
> gestures, stance, and so on - as listed above. That is, this "blind telepathy" still deals in signs that we
> interpret. And these unheard and unseen but transmitted signs are the same sort of signs that we do
> hear and see because they are simply the same mental signs that, instead of being transmitted via
> unexperienced telepathy, are spoken. But in this case they are unsaid - and those who are "unsaying"
> them may, of course, be doing so without experiencing the fact that they are doing so. That is, if "blind
> telepathy" is what we are talking about, then a person could be "telepathizing" the opposite of what
> she/he is consciously thinking while realizing this thinking in speaking.
>
> But what does all this amount to such that we are not "discrete individual beings?" How does such
> telepathy make this "basic assumption" false since the "discrete individual being" who is "telepathic"
> is still being as discrete as ever. That is, telepathy of which we are unaware makes no difference that I
> can see.
Well I think it does.What you're saying is akin to saying, 'So the Earth goes around the Sun,
instead of the other way around. So what ?'. Well, the practical world is unchanged, sure. But
the intellectual, cosmological, philosophical and scientific landscape is changed.
<snipped interesting bit on signs, for brevity.>
Here is some detail re the telepathy research:
> A particularly striking example of transpersonal contact and communication
> has been the work of Jacobo Grinberg- Zylberbaum at the National University
> of Mexico.In more than fifty experiments performed over five years,
> Grinberg- Zylberbaum paired his subjects inside sound- and electro- magnetic
> radiation- proof "Faraday cages." He asked them to meditate together for
> twenty minutes. Then he placed the subjects in separate Faraday cages where
> one of them was stimulated and the other not. The stimulated subject
> received stimuli at random intervals in such a way that neither he or she,
> nor the experimenter, knew when they were applied. The non- stimulated
> subject remained relaxed, with eyes closed, instructed to feel the presence
> of the partner without knowing anything about his or her stimulation.
>
> In general, a series of one hundred stimuli were applied flashes of light,
> sounds, or short, intense but not painful electric shocks to the index and
> ring fingers of the right hand. The EEG of both subjects was then
> synchronized and examined for "normal" potentials evoked in the stimulated
> subject and "transferred" potentials in the non- stimulated subject.
> Transferred potentials were not found in control situations where there was
> either no stimulated subject; or when a screen prevented the stimulated
> subject from perceiving the stimuli (such as light flashes); or else when
> the paired subjects did not previously interact. However, in experimental
> situations with stimulated subjects and with interaction, the transferred
> potentials appeared consistently in some 25 percent of the cases. A
> particularly poignant example was furnished by a young couple, deeply in
> love. Their EEG patterns remained closely synchronized throughout the
> experiment, testifying to their report of feeling a deep oneness.
>
> In a limited way, Grinberg- Zylberbaum could also replicate his results.
> When a subject exhibited the transferred potentials in one experiment, he or
> she usually exhibited them in subsequent experiments as well.
>
> A related experiment investigated the degree of harmonization of the left
> and right hemispheres of the subject's neocortex. In ordinary waking
> consciousness the two hemispheres the language- oriented, linearly
> thinking rational "left brain" and the gestalt- perceiving intuitive "right
> brain" exhibit uncoordinated, randomly diverging wavepatterns in the
> electroencelograph. When the subject enters a meditative state of conscious-
> ness, these patterns become synchronized, and in deep meditation the two
> hemispheres fall into a nearly identical pattern. In deep meditation not
> only the left and right brains of one and the same subject, also the left
> and right brains of different subjects manifest identical patterns.
> Experiments with up to twelve subjects simultaneously showed an astonishing
> synchronization of the brain- waves of the entire group.
>
> In the past few years experiments such as these have been matched by
> hundreds of others. They provide significant evidence that identifiable and
> consistent electrical signals occur in the brain of one person when a second
> person, especially if he or she is closely related or emotionally linked, is
> either meditating, or provided with sensory stimulation, or attempts to
> communicate with the subject intentionally.
>
> Interpersonal connection beyond the sensory range can also occur outside the
> laboratory; it is particularly frequent among identical twins. In many cases
> one twin feels the pain suffered by the other, and is aware of traumas and
> crises even if he or she is halfway around the world. Besides "twin pain,"
> the sensitivity of mothers and lovers is equally noteworthy: countless
> stories are recounted of mothers having known when their son or daugther was
> in grave danger, or was actually involved in an accident.
>
> Interpersonal connection is not limited to twins, mothers and lovers: the
> kind of closeness that a therapeutic relationship creates between therapist
> and patient seems also to suffice. A number of psychotherapists have noted
> that, during a session, they experience memories, feelings, attitudes, and
> associations that are outside the normal scope of their experience and
> personality. At the time these strange items are experienced they are
> indistinguishable from the memories, feelings and related sentiments of the
> therapists themselves; it is only later, on reflection, that they come to
> realize that the anomalous items stem not from their own life and
> experience, but from their patient.
>
> It appears that in the course of the therapeutic relationship some aspect of
> the patient's psyche is projected into the mind of the therapist. In that
> location, at least for a limited time, it integrates with the therapist's
> own psyche and produces an awareness of some of the patient's memories,
> feeling, and associations. Known as "projective identification," the
> transference can be useful in the context of therapy: it can permit the
> patient to view what was previously a painful element in his or her personal
> consciousness more objectively, as if it belonged to somebody else.
>
> Actual bodily effects seem also capable of being transmitted from one
> individual to another. Transmissions of this kind came to be known as
> "telesomatic": they consist of physiological changes that are triggered in
> the targeted person by the mental processes of another. The distance
> between the individuals involved seems to make little or no difference.
> William Braud and Marilyn Schlitz carried out hundreds of trials regarding
> the impact of the mental imagery of senders on the physiology of receivers
> the latter were distant, and unaware that such imagery was being directed to
> them. They claim that the mental images of the sender can "reach out" over
> space and cause changes in the physiology of the distant receiver effects
> comparable to those one's own mental processes produce in one's own body.
> People who attempt to influence their own bodily functions are only slightly
> more effective than those who attempt to influence the physiology of others
> from a distance. Over several cases involving a large number of individuals,
> the difference between remote influence and self- influence was almost
> insignificant: "telesomatic" influence by a distant person proved to be
> nearly as effective as "psychosomatic" influence by the same person.
Chris.
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