Can ghosts be proven to exist or not?

[ibcnunabit]

Not really. In principle the person making the claim is merely providing a report. If I report a robbery, am I liable to explain who did it, or how? My wife and I had some unsual experiences, but that doesn't mean that I know what it was or how to explain it. There is a difference between reporting an observation and claiming to have an explanation for it. Likewise, a claim of an observation or experience only counts as anecdotal evidence for whatever is claimed.

No, you could report a description of what you saw, but labeling the phenomenon a ghost is drawing a conclusion about it, which goes to interpretation, not reporting.

 

[ibcnunabit]

as the role of a "soul" is ruled out,how can there be an escaped soul roaming out??
so "ghosts" do not exist!

This is my own idea! may be or may not be right! but I believe in this theory(of mine)!

Well, as stated it might not meet the criteria for being a formal theory, but I do think the general gist of what your saying is absolutely correct! Probably any non-religious scientist would consider it absolutely non-controversial, except for the particular way you described the evolution happening. But in this context that's just details.

 

[ibcnunabit]

P.S. What you say doesn't RULE OUT a soul, but it does provide a more realistic description of life/death as opposed to the soul leaving the body. What it does do, however, is point to the concept of soul and ask for that to be demonstrated. Until it can be determined that a "soul" exists, the question of ghosts being escaped souls is moot. The onus is on those who claim that it exists to provide evidence, not for those who don't to provide evidence that it doesn't.

 

[ibcnunabit]

First of all, you are assuming that alleged ghosts are the souls of dead people. Who says that they are?

Secondly, simply explaining a biological process does not rule out that souls could still exist.

True, but nothing rules out the existence of fairies, unicorns, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster, either. But most of us accept these as fantasy until evidence is provided that they do exist.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

True, but nothing rules out the existence of fairies, unicorns, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster, either. But most of us accept these as fantasy until evidence is provided that they do exist.

I am not aware of many fairy, unicorn, or flying spaghetti monster reports. In order to understand a phenomenon, or even a class of claims, first one has to make a little effort to keep things in perspective. There are at least millions of people alive today who claim to have experienced unusual and seemingly inexplicable phenomena. One cannot take examples for which there is little to no anecdotal evidence, and put that on the same level as something claimed to be true - through personal experience - by millions of people.

Also, not only is it true that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, it is also true that transient phenomena are often difficult to document.

Again I ask, what specific evidence for ghosts would you find acceptable? Aside from Casper appearing in a lab and sticking around, I'm not sure what could constitute proof of these sorts of claims - those associated with ghostly encounters.

 

[ibcnunabit]

I am not aware of many fairy, unicorn, or flying spaghetti monster reports. In order to understand a phenomenon, or even a class of claims, first one has to make a little effort to keep things in perspective.

If only it weren't so; here are some websites dedicated to the belief that fairies really exist:

http://www.suite101.com/blog/nepenthette/fairy_sightings

http://www.fairygardens.com/sightings/

http://www.ilovefairies.com/fairy_sightings.html

And there used to be one called: http://www.faeriebelievers.com, but it seems to be down.

 

[sganesh88]

^^
No references for Unicorns and FSM?
Jokes apart; you just can't substantiate your claim simply by quoting a few websites. Hosting sites and loading them with **** isn't that difficult. Even wikipedia is not a completely trustworthy source.

 

[sganesh88]

Oh! PF automatically asterisks the so-called foul words? :O

 

[DaveC426913]

Oh! PF automatically asterisks the so-called foul words? :O

Yes, for those who are unable to censor themselves...

 

[sganesh88]

i first thought it was the work of ghosts residing in the PF server. Lol.

 

[mikelepore]

Would people here think that I'm saying this right? You cannot prove the nonexistence of undetectable things. If things are detectable, and the region for searching is finite, you may be able to prove that something doesn't exist. For example, are there any elephants in my living room? Certainly not. But if something is undetectable, its nonexistence cannot be proven. Are there are any invisible, inaudible, and otherwise undetectable elephants in the room? As a matter of principle I cannot prove that the answer is no, and not only for all space, but also for the ordinarily-easier problem of a finite space in which to search.

(I think the popular phrase "you can't prove a negative" is incorrect, so I tried to fix it.)

This is the problem with the ghost question. They're not _always_ visible fluffy white blobs, therefore I think it's necessary to apply my above generalization about all undetectable things.

 

[CEL]

^^
No references for Unicorns and FSM?
Jokes apart; you just can't substantiate your claim simply by quoting a few websites. Hosting sites and loading them with **** isn't that difficult. Even wikipedia is not a completely trustworthy source.

If you want a trustworthy source, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle believed that the Cotingley Fairies were real.

 

[sganesh88]

This is the problem with the ghost question. They're not _always_ visible fluffy white blobs, therefore I think it's necessary to apply my above generalization about all undetectable things.

How could you say for sure some x is undetectable? Truth always reveals itself to the intent seeker.

 

[CEL]

Would people here think that I'm saying this right? You cannot prove the nonexistence of undetectable things. If things are detectable, and the region for searching is finite, you may be able to prove that something doesn't exist. For example, are there any elephants in my living room? Certainly not. But if something is undetectable, its nonexistence cannot be proven. Are there are any invisible, inaudible, and otherwise undetectable elephants in the room? As a matter of principle I cannot prove that the answer is no, and not only for all space, but also for the ordinarily-easier problem of a finite space in which to search.

(I think the popular phrase "you can't prove a negative" is incorrect, so I tried to fix it.)

In reality, the phrase is "You cannot prove a universal negative."
You can prove that there are no elephants in your living room, but you cannot prove that elephants don't exist.

This is the problem with the ghost question. They're not _always_ visible fluffy white blobs, therefore I think it's necessary to apply my above generalization about all undetectable things.

That is the difference between science and pseudo-science. Science tries to explain detectable phenomena. Pseudo-science tries to detect unexplainable phenomena.

 

[DaveC426913]

How could you say for sure some x is undetectable?

If it's fictional...

 

[StandardsGuy]

If someone reports seeing "something", that's fine. If someone reports seeing "a ghost", then they are responsible for proving that claim.

In this hypothetical discussion of a hypothetical report of seeing a ghost, you have made it abundantly clear that you would not believe it. Why then would anybody make such a report knowing they would be severely criticized and told they would have to prove it?

 

[AUMathTutor]

Very few things can actually be proved in this world. I don't think the existence of non-existence of ghosts is one of those things.

 

[DaveC426913]

In this hypothetical discussion of a hypothetical report of seeing a ghost, you have made it abundantly clear that you would not believe it. Why then would anybody make such a report knowing they would be severely criticized and told they would have to prove it?

Which is just fine since that same 'anybody' wouldn't want someone to burst their bubble by making a dispassionate judgement on their pet ghost story anyway. "If you don't want it shot at, don't stick it out there." the key element there being 'don't want it shot at'.

Only those hoping for some truth are going to make reports.

 

[sganesh88]

In this hypothetical discussion of a hypothetical report of seeing a ghost, you have made it abundantly clear that you would not believe it. Why then would anybody make such a report knowing they would be severely criticized and told they would have to prove it?

Just because i would be criticized and asked to prove what i claim, i can't and wouldn't refrain from claiming something which i believe wholeheartedly, level-headedly to be true. Think about SR and the non-absolute nature of length and time that it proposed. Ghosts if proved would have a milder effect, i suppose.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

That is the difference between science and pseudo-science. Science tries to explain detectable phenomena. Pseudo-science tries to detect unexplainable phenomena.

That is absolutely false.

The difference between science and pseudoscience is in the method, not the subject. One can make a scientific study of something like earthquakes, but one can study the same by using pseudoscience, meaning that the methods for collecting or evaluating evidence are fallacious or unfounded. What's more, one cannot say what is or is not explainable unless one already has proof of existence.

The problem is that many seemingly inexplicable claims are investigated using pseudoscience, so the subjects tend to become asssociated with the methods of evaluating those claims. The claims are also associated with interpretations of personal experiences, rather than the essential [alleged] facts related to a claim.

"Ghosts" are not pseudoscience, however, claimed events that are interpreted to be encounters with ghosts are often investigated by using pseudoscientific methodology. In the most extreme cases where people literally claim a direct encounter with the soul or the "life force" of a dead person - as in "my dead brother Bob sat and talked with me" - we have a claim, not science or pseudoscience; with the caveat that it is really a claim of an encounter with something. Even if the claim were essentially true, we don't know it was Bob.

 

[CEL]

That is absolutely false.

The difference between science and pseudoscience is in the method, not the subject. One can make a scientific study of something like earthquakes, but one can study the same by using pseudoscience, meaning that the methods for collecting or evaluating evidence are fallacious or unfounded. What's more, one cannot say what is or is not explainable unless one already has proof of existence.

The problem is that many seemingly inexplicable claims are investigated using pseudoscience, so the subjects tend to become asssociated with the methods of evaluating those claims. The claims are also associated with interpretations of personal experiences, rather than the essential [alleged] facts related to a claim.

"Ghosts" are not pseudoscience, however, claimed events that are interpreted to be encounters with ghosts are often investigated by using pseudoscientific methodology. In the most extreme cases where people literally claim a direct encounter with the soul or the "life force" of a dead person - as in "my dead brother Bob sat and talked with me" - we have a claim, not science or pseudoscience; with the caveat that it is really a claim of an encounter with something. Even if the claim were essentially true, we don't know it was Bob.

The subject is neither science nor pseudoscience. In this we agree.
Neither ghosts, nor fairies or the flying spaghetti monster are pseudoscience. They are entities that have scant or null evidence of existence.
I have never heard of a reputable scientist investigating those entities. So their study, if existent fall in the domain of pseudoscience.

 

[Anticitizen]

The subject is neither science nor pseudoscience. In this we agree.
Neither ghosts, nor fairies or the flying spaghetti monster are pseudoscience. They are entities that have scant or null evidence of existence.
I have never heard of a reputable scientist investigating those entities. So their study, if existent fall in the domain of pseudoscience.

What do you mean by 'investigating those entities'? If you're talking about investigating their existence, there's the James Randi foundation, which does apply legitimate scientific study to claims of paranormal phenomena.

 

[CEL]

What do you mean by 'investigating those entities'? If you're talking about investigating their existence, there's the James Randi foundation, which does apply legitimate scientific study to claims of paranormal phenomena.

No, the James Randi foundation does not study those phenomena. They offer a million dollar prize to anyone that can demonstrate, under controlled conditions, the existence of such phenomena.

 

[Anticitizen]

Sure, but they put effort into evaluating and debunking the claims, which is a key part of the 'rigors of science'.

 

[LawrenceM]

Unfortunately, it's impossible to prove that ghosts do not exist without providing evidence that demonstrates how their existence is not possible. Lacking that evidence, we can only prove that phenomenon used as evidence of the existence of specific paranormal activity can be reattributed to something natural. In other words, the lack of evidence that proves Ghosts can exist, in general, makes it impossible to prove the contrary.

 

[mabs239]

Why all "of" are in red. Hope it isn't the mischief of a ghost ;)

 

[DaveC426913]

Why all "of" are in red. Hope it isn't the mischief of a ghost ;)

You alone are seeing that. It is caused by the fact that you have arrived at this page by a search in which one of your keywords was "of".

 

[wittgenstein]

In reality, the phrase is "You cannot prove a universal negative."
You can prove that there are no elephants in your living room, but you cannot prove that elephants don't exist.

I agree. But what about this universal negative? All ravens are not white?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raven_paradox

 

[DaveC426913]

In reality, the phrase is "You cannot prove a universal negative."
You can prove that there are no elephants in your living room, but you cannot prove that elephants don't exist.

I agree. But what about this universal negative? All ravens are not white?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raven_paradox

Can you clarify how this applies? You cannot prove that there are no white ravens.

 

[fillindablank]

Seems to me the Ghost Hunters TV show is all the proof you need that they don't exist.

 

[ideasrule]

I don't consider it all that unlikely that consciousness can exist outside of a body. I know this point has been discussed before, but nobody has the faintest clue what consciousness is. Nobody can say that if a system fulfills criteria A, B, and C, then it is conscious; otherwise, it is not. Put another way, what specifically causes consciousness? Is it a chemical in the brain? If so, I should be able to synthesize the chemical, pour it onto a table, and make the table conscious. Is it the system of connections between neurons? If so, could I make several billion wooden blocks, connect them with string to simulate these connections, and have the blocks gain self-awareness. Is it the electrical signals that the neurons send each other? If that's the case, why isn't my computer, which also uses signals, conscious?

Whether the underlying reason for consciousness is chemical, physical, or something else entirely, it's possible that existing non-living objects fulfill the necessary and sufficient criteria for consciousness, whatever they may be, and are therefore self-aware.

 

[fillindablank]

... Put another way, what specifically causes consciousness? Is it a chemical in the brain? If so, I should be able to synthesize the chemical, pour it onto a table, and make the table conscious. Is it the system of connections between neurons? If so, could I make several billion wooden blocks, connect them with string to simulate these connections, and have the blocks gain self-awareness. Is it the electrical signals that the neurons send each other? If that's the case, why isn't my computer, which also uses signals, conscious? ...

This post seems to me to be flawed on several levels. By analogy: I have a car that is traveling at 120mph. What makes it do that? Is it gasoline? If so I should be able to pour it on a table and make the table go 120mph. Is it the motor? I should be able to make pistons out of wood put them in a box on the table, pour gasoline on it and make the table go 120mph. Is it the gasoline burning? Now we are getting somewhere, all I have to do is light a match to the gasoline on the wooden box of pistons on the table and it will go 120mph. Hmmm, it still isn't moving.

 

[ideasrule]

This post seems to me to be flawed on several levels. By analogy: I have a car that is traveling at 120mph. What makes it do that? Is it gasoline? If so I should be able to pour it on a table and make the table go 120mph. Is it the motor? I should be able to make pistons out of wood put them in a box on the table, pour gasoline on it and make the table go 120mph. Is it the gasoline burning? Now we are getting somewhere, all I have to do is light a match to the gasoline on the wooden box of pistons on the table and it will go 120mph. Hmmm, it still isn't moving.

In the case of your car, the necessary & sufficient criteria for movement is a sophisticated system consisting of the engine, the gasoline, the spark plug, the transmission, the wheels, etc. However, it's clear that you can take the radio, the hood, the sunroof, and even much of the frame off without disabling the car.

The difference between a car and a brain is that it's possible, at least in principle, to spell out exactly what arrangements of components are sufficient to get a car moving. (In reality, there are in infinite number of possibilities, but we can easily figure out whether a certain one will work or not.) For a brain, nobody can come close to explaining what arrangements of chemicals can and will cause consciousness. How can we be sure that it isn't something simple, like a single chemical?

 

[cosmo123]

This post seems to me to be flawed on several levels. By analogy: I have a car that is traveling at 120mph. What makes it do that? Is it gasoline? If so I should be able to pour it on a table and make the table go 120mph. Is it the motor? I should be able to make pistons out of wood put them in a box on the table, pour gasoline on it and make the table go 120mph. Is it the gasoline burning? Now we are getting somewhere, all I have to do is light a match to the gasoline on the wooden box of pistons on the table and it will go 120mph. Hmmm, it still isn't moving.

I think what ideasrule getting at is that what causes self awareness is not understood. He's just 'throwing ideas out there'. Testing ideas to see if they work- if they don't, try something else- if they do, learn from it. Toddlers do it, as do scientists.

 

[DaveC426913]

I don't consider it all that unlikely that consciousness can exist outside of a body. I know this point has been discussed before, but nobody has the faintest clue what consciousness is. Nobody can say that if a system fulfills criteria A, B, and C, then it is conscious; otherwise, it is not. Put another way, what specifically causes consciousness? Is it a chemical in the brain? If so, I should be able to synthesize the chemical, pour it onto a table, and make the table conscious. Is it the system of connections between neurons? If so, could I make several billion wooden blocks, connect them with string to simulate these connections, and have the blocks gain self-awareness. Is it the electrical signals that the neurons send each other? If that's the case, why isn't my computer, which also uses signals, conscious?

Whether the underlying reason for consciousness is chemical, physical, or something else entirely, it's possible that existing non-living objects fulfill the necessary and sufficient criteria for consciousness, whatever they may be, and are therefore self-aware.

I don't see the answer to this as any mystery.

Consciousness arises from the sum of all these connections.

The blocks do not gain self-awareness, but if your billion block-and-string contraption is able to gather and store input from around it, and in particular modify its own connections in constructive ways, then yes it would be conscious.

 

[Freeman Dyson]

Interesting thread. I just want to add a few things. It seems that most people here agree that consciousness is a product of natural selection. That isn't proven. Very plausible but not proven. We don't even know if language was naturally selected. The leading linguist in the world, Chomsky, actually thinks language is a spandrel. If such a high cognitive process as language can be a spandrel than just about anything can.

"Spandrel is a term used in evolutionary biology to describe a phenotypic characteristic that is a byproduct of the evolution of some other character, rather than a direct product of adaptive selection. The term was coined by the Harvard paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould and population geneticist Richard Lewontin in their influential paper "The Spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian Paradigm: A Critique of the Adaptationist Programme" (1979). In this paper Gould and Lewontin employed the analogy of spandrels in Renaissance architecture: curved areas of masonry between arches supporting a dome that arise as a consequence of decisions about the shape of the arches and the base of the dome, rather than being designed for the artistic purposes for which they were often employed."

Could it be a saltation?"In biology, saltation (from Latin, saltus, "leap") is a sudden change from one generation to the next, that is large, or very large, in comparison with the usual variation of an organism. The term is used for occasionally hypothesized, nongradual changes (especially single-step speciation) that are atypical of, or violate, standard concepts - gradualism - involved in neo-Darwinian evolution."

I read something interesting by a neuroscientist who first proved lucid dreaming. He written extensively on near death experiences and out of body experiences. Both of which he says are totally explained by biology and are hallucinations and not supernatural. So he knows a thing or two about the tricks the mind and body can play. He was asked if his work had given him any insight into the afterlife:

"DJB: What do you think happens after biological death and has your experience with lucid dreaming influenced your thoughts in this area and about the nature of God?

Stephen: Let’s suppose I’m having a lucid dream. The first thing I think is, "Oh this is a dream, here I am." Now the "I" here is who I think Stephen is. Now what’s happening in fact is that Stephen is asleep in bed somewhere, not in this world at all, and he’s having a dream that he’s in this room talking to you. With a little bit of lucidity I’d say, "this is a dream, and you’re all in my dream." A little more lucidity and I’d know you’re a dream figure and this is a dream-table, and this must be a dream-shirt and a dream-watch and what’s this? It’s got to be a dream-hand and well, so what’s this? It’s a dream-Stephen! So a moment ago I thought this is who I am and now I know that it’s just a mental model of who I am. So reasoning along those lines, I thought, I’d like to have a sense of what my deepest identity is, what’s my highest potential, which level is the realest in a sense? With that in mind at the beginning of a lucid dream, I was driving in my sports car down through the green, Spring countryside. I see an attractive hitchhiker at the side of the road, thought of picking her up but said, "No, I’ve already had that dream, I want this to be a representation of my highest potential. So the moment I had that thought and decided to forgo the immediate pleasure, the car started to fly into the air and the car disappeared and my body, also. There were symbols of traditional religions in the clouds, the Star of David and the cross and the steeple and near-eastern symbols. As I passed through that realm, higher beyond the clouds, I entered into a vast emptiness of space that was infinite and it was filled with potential and love. And the feeling I had was-- this is home! This is where I’m from and I’d forgotten that it was here. I was overwhelmed with joy about the fact that this source of being was immediately present, that it was always here, and I had not been seeing it because of what was in my way. So I started singing for joy with a voice that spanned three or four octaves and resonated with the cosmos with words like, "I Praise Thee, O Lord!" There wasn’t any I, there was no thee, no Lord, no duality somehow but sort of, ‘Praise Be’ was the feeling of it. My belief is that the experience I had of this void, that’s what you get if you take away the brain. When I thought about the meaning of that, I recognized that the deepest identity I had there was the source of being, the all and nothing that was here right now, that was what I was too, in addition to being Stephen. So the analogy that I use for understanding this is that we have these separate snowflake identities. Every snowflake is different in the same sense that each one of us is, in fact, distinct. So here is death, and here’s the snowflake and we’re falling into the infinite ocean. So what do we fear? We fear that we’re going to lose our identity, we’ll be melted, dissolved in that ocean and we’ll be gone; but what may happen is that the snowflake hits the ocean and feels an infinite expansion of identity and realizes, what I was in essence, was water! So we’re each one of these little frozen droplets and we feel only our individuality, but not our substance, but our essential substance is common to everything in that sense, so now God is the ocean. So we’re each a little droplet of that ocean, identifying only with the form of the droplet and not with the majesty and the unity."

 

[CosmicCrunch]

instead of chopping up someones elses post why don't you try making an intellegent one to to argus his

 

[DaveC426913]

Stephen: Let’s suppose I’m having a lucid dream. The first thing I think is, "Oh this is a dream, here I am." Now the "I" here is who I think Stephen is. Now what’s happening in fact is that Stephen is asleep in bed somewhere, not in this world at all, and he’s having a dream that he’s in this room talking to you. With a little bit of lucidity I’d say, "this is a dream, and you’re all in my dream." A little more lucidity and I’d know you’re a dream figure and this is a dream-table, and this must be a dream-shirt and a dream-watch and what’s this? It’s got to be a dream-hand and well, so what’s this? It’s a dream-Stephen! So a moment ago I thought this is who I am and now I know that it’s just a mental model of who I am. So reasoning along those lines, I thought, I’d like to have a sense of what my deepest identity is, what’s my highest potential, which level is the realest in a sense? With that in mind at the beginning of a lucid dream, I was driving in my sports car down through the green, Spring countryside. I see an attractive hitchhiker at the side of the road, thought of picking her up but said, "No, I’ve already had that dream, I want this to be a representation of my highest potential. So the moment I had that thought and decided to forgo the immediate pleasure, the car started to fly into the air and the car disappeared and my body, also. There were symbols of traditional religions in the clouds, the Star of David and the cross and the steeple and near-eastern symbols. As I passed through that realm, higher beyond the clouds, I entered into a vast emptiness of space that was infinite and it was filled with potential and love. And the feeling I had was-- this is home! This is where I’m from and I’d forgotten that it was here. I was overwhelmed with joy about the fact that this source of being was immediately present, that it was always here, and I had not been seeing it because of what was in my way. So I started singing for joy with a voice that spanned three or four octaves and resonated with the cosmos with words like, "I Praise Thee, O Lord!" There wasn’t any I, there was no thee, no Lord, no duality somehow but sort of, ‘Praise Be’ was the feeling of it. My belief is that the experience I had of this void, that’s what you get if you take away the brain. When I thought about the meaning of that, I recognized that the deepest identity I had there was the source of being, the all and nothing that was here right now, that was what I was too, in addition to being Stephen. So the analogy that I use for understanding this is that we have these separate snowflake identities. Every snowflake is different in the same sense that each one of us is, in fact, distinct. So here is death, and here’s the snowflake and we’re falling into the infinite ocean. So what do we fear? We fear that we’re going to lose our identity, we’ll be melted, dissolved in that ocean and we’ll be gone; but what may happen is that the snowflake hits the ocean and feels an infinite expansion of identity and realizes, what I was in essence, was water! So we’re each one of these little frozen droplets and we feel only our individuality, but not our substance, but our essential substance is common to everything in that sense, so now God is the ocean. So we’re each a little droplet of that ocean, identifying only with the form of the droplet and not with the majesty and the unity."

I would like to read your post but it is one giant block of text. No paragraphs to break up your thoughts.

 

[Freeman Dyson]

I would like to read your post but it is one giant block of text. No paragraphs to break up your thoughts.

Sorry, but that's exactly how it was transcribed in the interview. He's kind of saying that God is all of us united. Not just humans. But everything. We return to what we really are at death.

He is the guy who first proved lucid dreaming. That block of text is his answer to to the question about whether his lucid dreams gave him any insight into biological death and the afterlife. Basically it is his opinion on what happens at biological death.

He explains how he can make his dreams more lucid, more real, at will. So what is his identity in the realest sense? What is the truest model?

 

[sganesh88]

There wasn’t any I, there was no thee, no Lord, no duality somehow but sort of, ‘Praise Be’ was the feeling of it. My belief is that the experience I had of this void, that’s what you get if you take away the brain. When I thought about the meaning of that, I recognized that the deepest identity I had there was the source of being, the all and nothing that was here right now, that was what I was too, in addition to being Stephen.

So the analogy that I use for understanding this is that we have these separate snowflake identities. Every snowflake is different in the same sense that each one of us is, in fact, distinct. So here is death, and here’s the snowflake and we’re falling into the infinite ocean. So what do we fear? We fear that we’re going to lose our identity, we’ll be melted, dissolved in that ocean and we’ll be gone; but what may happen is that the snowflake hits the ocean and feels an infinite expansion of identity and realizes, what I was in essence, was water!

So we’re each one of these little frozen droplets and we feel only our individuality, but not our substance, but our essential substance is common to everything in that sense, so now God is the ocean. So we’re each a little droplet of that ocean, identifying only with the form of the droplet and not with the majesty and the unity."

If that neuroscientist Stephen felt this independently without the influence of any book or philosophy, then i'll be damned. This is precisely what Advaita Vedanta says though using different terminology. Advaita itself means A-Dvaita, Not two. Just one. The snow flakes of stephen is named "Atman" here and the Infinite Ocean as "Brahman". The explanation is exactly the same.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ātman_(Hinduism)

But i am not fully convinced by this Advaita-snowflake philosophy though i hope it's true.. Still too immature to accept mortality.

 

[DaveC426913]

He is the guy who first proved lucid dreaming. That block of text is his answer to to the question about whether his lucid dreams gave him any insight into biological death and the afterlife. Basically it is his opinion on what happens at biological death.

"Proved"?

 

[Freeman Dyson]

"Proved"?

His technique of signalling to a collaborator monitoring his EEG with agreed-upon eye movements during REM became the first published, scientifically-verified signal from a dreamer's mind to the outside world.

Verified, I guess.

 

[rolerbe]

How could one go about proving that ghosts do not exist?

Apply standard scientific method:

1. Null hypothesis: Ghosts do exist
2. Seek confirming evidence of the null hypothesis using controlled methods
3. If or when no null confirming evidence is found within an environment controlled to some epsilon, determine the statistical degree to which the null is rejected.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Sorry, but that's exactly how it was transcribed in the interview. He's kind of saying that God is all of us united. Not just humans. But everything. We return to what we really are at death.

For me his experience is explained by Jill Taylor's My Stroke of Insight. A burst AVM incapacitated most of her language capabilities and some other important left hemisphere functions which left her living in a nearly total right hemisphere world: a world of bliss and euphoria for the most part. Ego and identity are sustained by talking to ourselves about ourselves and when a person can't do that they default to an unworried existence where they can't well distinguish between themselves and the environment, nor things in the environment from each other: all is one.

At the time of writing she assessed herself as 100% recovered, but not the same person, having little incentive to revert to certain kinds of gratuitous and counterproductive worrying, and, despite being a neuroscientist, she now has a distinctly mystical proclivity in her thinking.

Anyway, the thing he experienced in his lucid dream was not what physical death represents, in my opinion, but death of the "ego".

Reading her book caused me to speculate whether autism might not represent the opposite deficit: some degree of right hemisphere malfunction that prevents the person from experiencing an automatic feeling of connectedness to other people and their environment. (Or it could be a left hemisphere deficit that renders the left hemisphere unable to process signals from the right.) In any event, her story has volumes of intriguing first hand reports about right hemisphere function.

 

[Freeman Dyson]

For me his experience is explained by Jill Taylor's My Stroke of Insight. A burst AVM incapacitated most of her language capabilities and some other important left hemisphere functions which left her living in a nearly total right hemisphere world: a world of bliss and euphoria for the most part. Ego and identity are sustained by talking to ourselves about ourselves and when a person can't do that they default to an unworried existence where they can't well distinguish between themselves and the environment, nor things in the environment from each other: all is one.

At the time of writing she assessed herself as 100% recovered, but not the same person, having little incentive to revert to certain kinds of gratuitous and counterproductive worrying, and, despite being a neuroscientist, she now has a distinctly mystical proclivity in her thinking.

Anyway, the thing he experienced in his lucid dream was not what physical death represents, in my opinion, but death of the "ego".

Reading her book caused me to speculate whether autism might not represent the opposite deficit: some degree of right hemisphere malfunction that prevents the person from experiencing an automatic feeling of connectedness to other people and their environment. (Or it could be a left hemisphere deficit that renders the left hemisphere unable to process signals from the right.) In any event, her story has volumes of intriguing first hand reports about right hemisphere function.

But this man consciously brought this state onto himself. He did it through a linear thought process. It was controlled. He said it represented his deepest indentity. And his deepest indentity is not physical. He has done extensive work on NDE and OBEs. All of which he thinks arent supernatural and totally explained by biology. So he knows a thing or two about the mind and the tricks it plays.

Ego is an interesting suggestion. I don't see ego as a very descriptive or useful term in general though. But it could apply here. Are you talking about it in the Freudian fashion? What is the ego? Almost seems like a suitcase term. So the ego is one model of us. Like the model that we usually see as represntative of ourself. It was the ego driving the car in the dream, about to pick up a pretty hitchhiker. But then he says, let's go beyond the ego. Let's go beyond the model that I think I am. Let's explore more. This is similar to religious/psychological experiences, you are right. You learn you are more than what you think you are. Like the old Jung quote, "Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens." Getting beyond the ego is the awakening. Or at least realizing it is not the only part of you. Maybe death could even be the shedding of the ego.

He also brings up some other interesting points about mind and dreaming.

RMN: There seems to be a correlation between psychedelic consciousness and lucid consciousness in the dream state.

Stephen: There’s a lot in common between the two states. In fact people can in the dream state, take a dream "psychedelic" and have it produce an effect.

DJB: Terence McKenna says that he smokes DMT in his dreams and then has the full experience.

Stephen: And what that shows is that what prevents us from having these experiences is not the chemical, it’s the mental framework. So in a way psychedelics can be a kind of guide in revealing some of the potential in the mind. I think they have limitations in terms of taking us to the visions they show us. One can take the mistaken path of saying, well since I had the taste of it with the substance, if I keep taking it I’ll eventually get the whole thing because more of the same should help. It doesn’t seem to work that way.

I have seen that video of Taylor on TED and I liked it.

 

[zoobyshoe]

But this man consciously brought this state onto himself. He did it through a linear thought process. It was controlled.

One thing I was thinking of including in my post was to point out that procedures for silencing the interior monolog are at the heart of every mystical religion. Jill Taylor had this forced on her by a freak stroke. It can certainly be achieved by voluntary practice to varying degrees. Voluntarily quieting the interior monolog is just about instantaneously reversable and it's quite frequent for periods of inner silence to be interrupted by verbal comments to ourselves. He got into this state by linear procedure, but not by thinking himself into it.

He said it represented his deepest indentity.

This is a left brain verbalization of a non-verbal right hemisphere experience intended to try and communicate something about that awesome experience to other people's left hemisphere's. It's one choice of words among a multitude of possible characterizations of that state: cosmic consciousness, Big Mind, Buddha Mind, Nirvana, and so on. A zen Buddhist would say all verbal descriptions are wrong, no matter how accurate, because the description is not the experience.

And his deepest indentity is not physical. He has done extensive work on NDE and OBEs. All of which he thinks arent supernatural and totally explained by biology. So he knows a thing or two about the mind and the tricks it plays.

He said "My belief is that the experience I had of this void, that’s what you get if you take away the brain." I'm saying that Jill Taylor's experience demonstrates this experience is what you get when you take away, not the whole brain, just the left hemisphere.

I don't see ego as a very descriptive or useful term in general though. But it could apply here. Are you talking about it in the Freudian fashion? What is the ego?

I just meant it in the everyday sense of the word.

I have seen that video of Taylor on TED and I liked it.

I haven't seen a video of her, but I'd recommend her book as almost certainly more comprehensive due to the inherent time constraints of a video.

 

[Freeman Dyson]

One thing I was thinking of including in my post was to point out that procedures for silencing the interior monolog are at the heart of every mystical religion. Jill Taylor had this forced on her by a freak stroke. It can certainly be achieved by voluntary practice to varying degrees. Voluntarily quieting the interior monolog is just about instantaneously reversable and it's quite frequent for periods of inner silence to be interrupted by verbal comments to ourselves. He got into this state by linear procedure, but not by thinking himself into it.

This is a left brain verbalization of a non-verbal right hemisphere experience intended to try and communicate something about that awesome experience to other people's left hemisphere's. It's one choice of words among a multitude of possible characterizations of that state: cosmic consciousness, Big Mind, Buddha Mind, Nirvana, and so on. A zen Buddhist would say all verbal descriptions are wrong, no matter how accurate, because the description is not the experience.


He said "My belief is that the experience I had of this void, that’s what you get if you take away the brain." I'm saying that Jill Taylor's experience demonstrates this experience is what you get when you take away, not the whole brain, just the left hemisphere.


I just meant it in the everyday sense of the word.


I haven't seen a video of her, but I'd recommend her book as almost certainly more comprehensive due to the inherent time constraints of a video.

I was thinking the same thing. Especially about eastern religion. Finding oneself. This is again what Jung talked about. Religion/faith is often the best defense against a religious experience. A religious experience like both of these neuroscientists had. Traditional religion puts up a wall to that experience. Religion is a fear of inner experience. A guardian of it. The guard gives you a generic one in its place. So it really isn't your inner experience, but one imposed on you. With religion, you can never really know who you are. You have to take te journey by yourself.

The hope for Jung lies in true religion. The freedom and autonomy of the individual depends on deep inner experience of a metaphysical nature. This is not "faith"; it is direct knowing.

But the dreamer was thinking his way into it. That was the exercise.

I'm not sure both neuroscientists had the same experience but they certainly sound very similar. And I think he did think his way into it. He made choices that he thought would make him end up in this kind of state. He can "tune" his lucidity. It is a progression from less real to more real. Like he says about entering that nirvana state:

Let’s suppose I’m having a lucid dream. The first thing I think is, "Oh this is a dream, here I am." Now the "I" here is who I think Stephen is. Now what’s happening in fact is that Stephen is asleep in bed somewhere, not in this world at all, and he’s having a dream that he’s in this room talking to you. With a little bit of lucidity I’d say, "this is a dream, and you’re all in my dream." A little more lucidity and I’d know you’re a dream figure and this is a dream-table, and this must be a dream-shirt and a dream-watch and what’s this? It’s got to be a dream-hand and well, so what’s this? It’s a dream-Stephen! So a moment ago I thought this is who I am and now I know that it’s just a mental model of who I am. So reasoning along those lines, I thought, I’d like to have a sense of what my deepest identity is, what’s my highest potential, which level is the realest in a sense?

He can think out steps to make things realer. And he thinks he got to the realest. Who knows though? I am not saying what he is saying is real or correct. There could be nothing after or death, or there could be something. There is no good reason to believe in an afterlife or ghosts from a scientific perspective at this time obviously.

 

[zoobyshoe]

But the dreamer was thinking his way into it.

He's certainly intending to convey the fact he was consciously controlling it, but I wouldn't take his saying "So then I thought..." too literally. He's narrating to a second party after the fact. I take him to be translating what were experienced as non-verbal impulses and expressions of will into verbal form.

 

[VooDooX]

i for one want to prove they do exist that means there's something after all this i figure if i ever see a ghost i won't be scared because if it does kill me then there's something I am going to :) rationalize it that way and you will never be scared of ghosts again trust me also the elevator in my apartments will sometimes open RIGHT BEFORE you go to push the button with no one inside has happened enough times that i don't think its a coincidence like RIGHT before you push it its strange my brothers reported the same thing