Exploring the Mind of Man: Beyond emergent properties

[Royce]

The Mind of Man


There are many of us here at the Physics Forums who seem to think that the mind of man is nothing more than an emergent property of the electrochemical processes that go on in the physical brain; that any computer of sufficient size and complexity would develop consciousness, self awareness and a mind; that there is not something more to the mind and that it solely resided in the physical brain and has no real existence of its own.
I have thought about this, read about this for some time now and at first did not really know what I thought of this topic. I have reached an opinion if not a conclusion that all of the above is wrong. It does not reflect reality as I see it and makes no sense in light of what I do know, have experienced, read, heard and seen. The following, in part, is what has led me to the belief that I now hold.
The mammalian brain has been around for some 130 million years, the physical brain of lesser animals for much longer. All of these brains work on the same principle of electrochemical interconnections and interactions. Mammals have emotions and some can at least recognize themselves in mirrors and pictures . They can reason to a degree and solve problems. They make and use tools. They change their immediate environment by building and digging houses, nests, dens, dams, hives, mounds etc. and have been doing so for millions of years. Yet none but one has ever advanced beyond these relatively simple capabilities.
Homo Sapiens have been around for what 40-50 thousand years? I was told by an anthropology instructor at collage that humans are the only animals that have no instincts, innate complex behavior patterns, when they are born. Ants and bees, who live in complex societies also, behaviors are almost all instinct. Humans are therefore forced to think from the moment of birth, if not before. We have to learn everything including learning how to learn as well as think and reason. We have no instincts to fall back on.
We have yet to decide exactly what it is about humans that make them different from the other animals. What is it that makes us humans? I say it is our mind. Our mind is that something else that is different, something else or more that is the difference between humans and the rest of the animals. Our mind along with our spirit and soul is what makes us different, human. I don’t necessarily mean supernatural, mystical or metaphysical spirit and soul, but, the spirit or soul of man that makes us creative and inventive, that makes us builders and explorers, that make us searchers and wonderers. Most animals are curious, but none are driven like Man to discover the Universe, how and why it works as it does, how and why we work.
I think that this is far more than just an emergent property or reaching a threshold of complexity. There is a quantum leap between Man and animal that cannot be explained by simply adding more of the same until some magical unexplained plateau is reached and Walla we suddenly have Mankind withal of his abilities, talents and creativeness. It is possible that a thousand monkeys with a thousand typewriters would within a thousand year type out Hamlet but how long would it take one chimpanzee to intentionally sit down and write by hand just one Shakespearean sonnet.
None of the above proves nothing nor does it make our minds different from our brain processes. I was at a loss to understand why I believed that our minds were something more than just the electrochemical processes of our brains until I came across two verifiable documented case of out of body experiences. I know that this is controversial and a number of you will dismiss it as so much hog wash. I also know that I have written of this before. One case I saw on TV, the Discovery Channel, I think.

1. A little girl was hurt in an accident and was being prepared for surgery in the emergency room of a hospital. She had already been anesthetized and was unconscious. A surgical nurse came down to check on her to see if see was ready to go to surgery and what needed to be done. The surgical teams wore red hats and were the only one in the hospital who did so. The little girls got through the surgery fine and was recovering well. The surgical nurse in her street clothes stopped by do see how she was doing and say hi. The little girls said; “I know you. You’re the woman in the red hat.”

2. This was told to me by a friend and coworker that I had know for years. He had injured his knee in high school and it would go out on him occasionally. A few years after graduating from high school he had another accident and injured his knee again this time very badly. He was being prepared for surgery in the emergency room and had been knocked out with drugs as he was in severe pain. After surgery and he had become conscious again his parents began to tell him what the doctor had said what they were going to do and how long it would take to heal along with the prognosis. My friend interrupted them and told them everything that the doctor had said as well as what questions they had asked and what they had said. He told me that it was as if he were floating above the scene in the corner of the room looking down on his parents, the doctor and his body below. He was conscious and aware and knew that he was seeing his own body. He could hear and see everything going on it the room and remember everything after waking up.

While the above are controversial, I know, and are not scientific evidence as such, it shows that the mind is more then just the physical brain and it’s processes and that the mind and brain, while they are interactive and both effect the other, they are capable of separating and the mind can still function, retain consciousness, identity and awareness even while the brain is unconscious.
I know that the two examples above are not isolated incidences that have never been duplicated elsewhere. While uncommon it is not rare. I can only accept these as true and real and therefore conclude that there is indeed something more to the Mind of Man than just a bunch of chemical doing the same thing that they have been doing for millions of years in every animals brain since the physical brain came into being.

 

[PIT2]

Perhaps u will find this interesting:
http://www.nidsci.org/articles/mitchell_hologram.php

Btw i agree with u. I have read many near-death-experiences and OBEs and i also believe many are true.
There is some evidence that suggest these NDEs have a trancendental cause:
http://profezie3m.altervista.org/archivio/TheLancet_NDE.htm

 

[merak]

Royce: I'm still sitting on the fence on this one/.
I want to believe like you do.. it could even have implications
of life after death..the real question is does the mind live on outside the body after death in some form or another...
at first glance the answer is no!..
at a 2nd glance ,well maybe..you and I will know, sooner than later..
we will die way before science can know for sure..
there will either something or nothing..
its my great hope,that I will go on to another great adventure.
just like this life has given me..

 

[Huckleberry]

I'm not sure this is a case where absolutes can be argued. The brain is an electrochemical machine. It does create emotions and is responsible for memories. This is a science forum and science relies on the observable. More people here will believe what there senses can tell them then you will find in other places.

I'm not convinced that NDE cannot be reasonably explained by science. I thought that NDE were only possible with a brain dead patient. (one who registers no brain activity) The cases that you describe the persons are only unconscious. They can still hear and maybe see and could possibly retain those memories.

I think a large part of what separates man from animal is the metaphysical. The ability to make judgements on the unobservable. The ability to understand metaphor allows us to interpret things in a way that is meaningful to us. With a greater capacity for creative thought we also increase our understanding of the universe. As we begin to understand, the mystical becomes the scientific. The process involves more than just the senses.

I'm also not sure that human beings have no instincts. For example, children have a certain period of their growth where they are programmed to learn language. If they miss this period, as in the case of feral children, then they will have difficulty in learning any language. Human instincts are not based on how well we can hunt and survive in the wild like an animal. They are based on survival in a human environment, which often have more basic animal counterparts.

 

[Royce]

PIT2 and Huckleberry, I'm not talking about near death experiences, though I have no doubt that they are real and a true indication of life after body death on Earth. While neither you nor I have experienced it, so could not have observed it, others have and many report nearly the same experiences. I am not prepared to label them all as liars and hoaxers as many are sincere honest people with nothing to gain and quite a bit to lose. Science cannot explain consciousness how could it possible explain NDE's.
What I was talking about is out of body experiences which is simular in that the identity, consciousness, sense perceptions and memories occur outside the body often with the subject looking down at their own unconscious body and recognizing it and other people, hearing and seeing everything going on within the room and remembering it clearly later. This is not the same as NDE.
There is no explanation for it other than the consciousness leaves the body as a person at that level of deep induced unconsciousness is usually not aware of anything and remembers nothing. Some say that they can do it at will and call it astral journeying. I am not sure that I accept all that they say but again I am not prepared to say that they are liars.

merak, in so much as the mind is ourselves, our identity, possibly our soul and/or spirit I have to say that I firmly believe that we, something of us, live on after our bodies die. It is more than faith. It is a conviction but like you I will not know until it happens or I will know nothing and be nothing.

 

[PIT2]

What I was talking about is out of body experiences which is simular in that the identity, consciousness, sense perceptions and memories occur outside the body often with the subject looking down at their own unconscious body and recognizing it and other people, hearing and seeing everything going on within the room and remembering it clearly later. This is not the same as NDE.

I know NDE is not the same as OBE, but in many Near Death Experiences, people do have an OBE.
An NDE typically starts as an OBE, as the person experiences popping out of his body.
Next they can observe the room their body is in, or even remote locations.
After awhile they see a light, enter another realm and have that part of their experience.
Then they return and see the real world from an OBE perspective again.


Some NDErs have even been able to witness events (from an out-of-body perspective)that occurred during their period of clinical braindeath. These observations were subsequently verified to match reality. This even happened to blind people.

These persons arent just unconscious, they are clinically braindead!

 

[hypnagogue]

What I was talking about is out of body experiences which is simular in that the identity, consciousness, sense perceptions and memories occur outside the body often with the subject looking down at their own unconscious body and recognizing it and other people, hearing and seeing everything going on within the room and remembering it clearly later. This is not the same as NDE.

There is no explanation for it other than the consciousness leaves the body as a person at that level of deep induced unconsciousness is usually not aware of anything and remembers nothing.

Your argument seems to be relying on an outdated notion of naive realism-- i.e., that we directly perceive what is really out there in the world. But this view is no longer tenable under mountains of contrary evidence from the cognitive sciences. We directly perceive a model of the world constructed by the brain; we do not directly perceive the world itself. At best, we perceive the external world indirectly, by means of this cognitive model.

For instance, consider our normal, waking conscious experience. That our minds seem to occupy a region in space right behind our eyes and in our heads is not due to the fact that our brain physically lies behind our eyes and in our heads; rather, it is due to the fact that the brain constructs a model of the world from sensory data in such a way as to create this sense of embodiment. When you look down, the body you see is a perceptual model created by your brain, not your actual, physical body. Suitable modulation of brain activity can systematically alter this sense of embodiment, sometimes quite radically, which can only mean that brain activity is the thing subserving it in the first place.

Consider the experience of dreaming. In dreams, we find ourselves experiencing strange, illogical, alien worlds. Sometimes we do not even occupy the dream space per se, and just experience it from a disembodied point of view. Is the only explanation for dreaming experience that our consciousness actually does wander off and visit strange worlds? Hardly! The best explanation is just that brain activity during sleep occurs in such a way as to construct a perceptual space-- the same general sort of activity that subserves the construction of the perceptual space experienced in waking consciousness.

From here it is a small step to offer an alternate explanation for the phenomena you present in this thread. We certainly do not have to conclude that the mind really does distend from the physical brain/body. The more rational explanation is just that there is some sort of unusual modulation in the normal, perceptual space-constructing brain activity, in such a way as to create a percpetual space where the locus of consciousness does not seem to inhabit the perceptual model of the body.

As for the recognition and recollection of facts presented during periods of unconsciousness-- if such reports really are accurate, they can be explained by noting that the unconscious mind is not completely dead to the world. Sensory information continues to be processed by the brain even during periods where a person is unresponsive. For example, the case where the person could recall a conversation held while he was anesthetized is not so different from the common phenomenon whereby a sleeping person incorporates sounds from his physical environment into his dreaming experience.

 

[El Hombre Invisible]

Royce, I don't get your OP. You started off my listing all the animals than can do some of the things we humans can do (create, use tools, plan, etc) and then seemed in awe of the fact that we can do the same things (our inventiveness and creativity). Can you narrow down exactly what it is that humans can do that causes you to think there is a non-chemical explanation?

Also, if we are born without instinct, why can newborn babies swim, cry, breathe, etc?

 

[Royce]

I know NDE is not the same as OBE, but in many Near Death Experiences, people do have an OBE.
An NDE typically starts as an OBE, as the person experiences popping out of his body.
Next they can observe the room their body is in, or even remote locations.
After awhile they see a light, enter another realm and have that part of their experience.
Then they return and see the real world from an OBE perspective again.


Some NDErs have even been able to witness events (from an out-of-body perspective)that occurred during their period of clinical braindeath. These observations were subsequently verified to match reality. This even happened to blind people.

These persons arent just unconscious, they are clinically braindead!

I personally know of only the two that I referred to as being verifiable. I don't remember reading or hearing of any NDE that started out and ended as OBE's.
Thanks for the information and additional support. Unfortunately it doesn't mean a thing as it has all been accounted for and rationalized in the post after your by Hypnagogue. It seems even dead brain can still function, perceive and store memories. Oh well, I said that it is controversial.

 

[Royce]

Royce, I don't get your OP. You started off my listing all the animals than can do some of the things we humans can do (create, use tools, plan, etc) and then seemed in awe of the fact that we can do the same things (our inventiveness and creativity). Can you narrow down exactly what it is that humans can do that causes you to think there is a non-chemical explanation?

My point was that animals do not create, are not creative yet do so many things that were at one time attributed to humans alone as the difference between humans and animals. Animals have not progressed or developed beyond that point where as humans have gone so much further and done and accomplished so much more. For example chimpanzee's DNA is 95% the same as ours and their brains are nearly as big and complex as ours yet the have never developed beyond the Stick Age. This is why I say that there must be something more.

Also, if we are born without instinct, why can newborn babies swim, cry, breathe, etc?

I questioned that statement too but was reminded that there is a big difference between reflexive actions and complex instinctive behavior.

 

[Royce]

Your argument seems to be relying on an outdated notion of naive realism-- i.e., that we directly perceive what is really out there in the world. But this view is no longer tenable under mountains of contrary evidence from the cognitive sciences. We directly perceive a model of the world constructed by the brain; we do not directly perceive the world itself. At best, we perceive the external world indirectly, by means of this cognitive model.

As reluctant as I am to question a bunch of Phd's building their empires or at least niches under the publish or parish mandate, I am being forced to do so. First it is their physicalist paradigm that the mind does not exist but is only a property of the physical brain function that makes them try with this convoluted theory to make the relatively simple processor responsible for human mentality and consciousness. Yes they are describing the functioning of the brain and how it physically processes data input from our senses. They have yet to discover how the physical brain brings all of these processes together to form the concept of a chair that is universal to all chairs regardless of shape, size color and type. Maybe this is where Plato's forms come in.
I, really hate to bust their so carefully constructed bubble but what we perceive is reality after our brains have processed all of the sensory data and passed the information on to the mind. If our perceptions were not reality but an inaccurate model then what we have discovered, learned, and know of the physical world scientifically would not be nearly so accurate, verifiable or useful. Nor would one discovery lead to even more theories and discoveries.
It seems to me that they are over complicating the issue and throwing in a bunch of extra steps just so they can rationalize and justify it to fit the physicalist view point. Where is Occam's Razor when you need it. As they say; "If you hear hoof beats in the American West don't go looking for zebras."

For instance, consider our normal, waking conscious experience. That our minds seem to occupy a region in space right behind our eyes and in our heads is not due to the fact that our brain physically lies behind our eyes and in our heads; rather, it is due to the fact that the brain constructs a model of the world from sensory data in such a way as to create this sense of embodiment. When you look down, the body you see is a perceptual model created by your brain, not your actual, physical body. Suitable modulation of brain activity can systematically alter this sense of embodiment, sometimes quite radically, which can only mean that brain activity is the thing subserving it in the first place.

What I see are photons reflected off of my body into my eyes. My brain processes that data and my mind perceives my body and verifies it with other sensory inputs such as feeling and location awareness of my body again using processed data from my brain. I brain may create a model of sensory inputs but it has to create many such models and tie them in with its awareness of location and feeling and some where in my brain or mind I perceive the reality of my body. My body and brain interact and one effects the other just as my mind and brain interact and one effects the other. I can of my own mental volition change the condition and position of my body. My mind can make my body healthy sick or even die. My body's condition effects both my brain and my mind yet my mind can continue to perceive, be aware and remember even when my brain and body are deeply anesthetized, unconscious or even clinically dead according to EHI's post.

Consider the experience of dreaming. In dreams, we find ourselves experiencing strange, illogical, alien worlds. Sometimes we do not even occupy the dream space per se, and just experience it from a disembodied point of view. Is the only explanation for dreaming experience that our consciousness actually does wander off and visit strange worlds? Hardly! The best explanation is just that brain activity during sleep occurs in such a way as to construct a perceptual space-- the same general sort of activity that subserves the construction of the perceptual space experienced in waking consciousness.

So far as I know, I am always aware that I am asleep and dreaming. I also usually know when I am awake and my perceptions are real or not real because of optical illusions or sensory distortions. This comes from experience and my personal experiences are my ultimate test for reality.

From here it is a small step to offer an alternate explanation for the phenomena you present in this thread. We certainly do not have to conclude that the mind really does distend from the physical brain/body. The more rational explanation is just that there is some sort of unusual modulation in the normal, perceptual space-constructing brain activity, in such a way as to create a percpetual space where the locus of consciousness does not seem to inhabit the perceptual model of the body.

"some sort of unusual modulation..." is more rational than acceptance of experienced perception. My locus of consciousness does not lie in a perceptual model of the body. It is usually in my head behind my forehead but I can at times move it, not outside my body but to various location within my body.

As for the recognition and recollection of facts presented during periods of unconsciousness-- if such reports really are accurate, they can be explained by noting that the unconscious mind is not completely dead to the world. Sensory information continues to be processed by the brain even during periods where a person is unresponsive. For example, the case where the person could recall a conversation held while he was anesthetized is not so different from the common phenomenon whereby a sleeping person incorporates sounds from his physical environment into his dreaming experience.

Such reports are accurate and verifiable. Now you question the veracity of me and people you know nothing about because it doesn't fit your preconceived model of the physical brain. This is scientific? Throw out or place in doubt any data that doesn't fit your theory or twist it to make it fit?
Deeply anesthetized unconscious or clinically dead people are not asleep. Memory of anything that happened or any awareness is highly unusual and usually indicates that the patient is not anesthetized deep enough or coming around.

I know that I sound harsh and aggravated here. I am not upset just emphatic.
I knew that this challenge was coming and I've been here before. I also know the futility of arguing with a physicalist view point. I am a realist and I don't believe that it is naive. It is the physicalistic view point that ignores so much data, experience and information because it doesn't fit the physicalist paradigm.
I have said it so many times before and will keep right on saying it until even I won't listen any more. There is so much more to reality than merely the physical and the physical cause and effect. You/they say ideas are not physical but are only the effect of physical processes. How then can anyone come up with a new idea, create something never seen, nor heard, nor read before or a new theory of a reality that he cannot and does not perceive but just some cause and effect subjective model created electrochemically in his physical brain cells?
If the universe is deterministic and all is physical cause and effect how can anything new be thought of or created? Just like Materialism, Physicalism contains its own contradiction making it illogical and not reasonable. It is as much a leap of faith, faith in the strictly physical processes, as fundamental religionism's faith in the biblical God.

There I've vented and feel much better now. Sorry it had to be you, hypnagogue, my friend, that I dumped on.

 

[El Hombre Invisible]

My point was that animals do not create, are not creative yet do so many things that were at one time attributed to humans alone as the difference between humans and animals. Animals have not progressed or developed beyond that point where as humans have gone so much further and done and accomplished so much more. For example chimpanzee's DNA is 95% the same as ours and their brains are nearly as big and complex as ours yet the have never developed beyond the Stick Age. This is why I say that there must be something more.

But DNA and brain size are not the be all and end all of evolution. Our brains are very different to a chimpanzee's; our species' history is very different too. If our ancestors had not climbed down from the trees and moved out, would we have developed beyond the Stick Age? So there is something more, and should that not be ruled out before moving onto other theories.

The feeling that the human species is somehow special and imbued with something other animals are not gives us delusions of grandeur. The mind of any mammal is extraordinary. If you compare the mind of a great ape to that of a sheep... that's a quantum leap. Must the great ape have some non-biochemical, supernatural conscious essence to be able to do this? Or would you put it down simply to biological and environmental difference? If the former, then that doesn't make the human soul or whatever you want to call it anything special. If the latter, why would it be any different comparing humans to any other animal? If you accept that the brain and evolutionary history of the human is different to that of, say, the chimpanzee, and you ascribe the differences in behaviour of a chimpanzee to, say, a sloth to biochemical and environmental causes, why would you not make the same assumption in your comparison of the human to the chimp?

 

[El Hombre Invisible]

On the anaesthetic thing, and this is an aside, my girlfriend works at a hospital and says that it is quite common for people to either claim to recall excrutiating pain or suffer severe mental breakdowns following intensive surgery on general anesthetic. There is the suspicion that many anesthetics paralyse the body and may block the formation of new long term memories, but do not actually make the person unconscious. Many of these people simply never recover emotinally, but have no memory of what made them this way. Apparently others can recall completely their experiences under anesthetic. What a nightmare that would be.

 

[PIT2]

I personally know of only the two that I referred to as being verifiable. I don't remember reading or hearing of any NDE that started out and ended as OBE's.

Maybe u haven't read many NDEs then, because there are hardly any NDEs without an OBE.

Here are some quotes from the 13-year NDE study i posted earlier:

Several theories have been proposed to explain NDE. We did not show that psychological, neurophysiological, or physiological factors caused these experiences after cardiac arrest. Sabom22 mentions a young American woman who had complications during brain surgery for a cerebral aneurysm. The EEG of her cortex and brainstem had become totally flat. After the operation, which was eventually successful, this patient proved to have had a very deep NDE, including an out-of-body experience, with subsequently verified observations during the period of the flat EEG.

These induced experiences can consist of unconsciousness, out-of-body experiences, and perception of light or flashes of recollection from the past. These recollections, however, consist of fragmented and random memories unlike the panoramic life-review that can occur in NDE. Further, transformational processes with changing life-insight and disappearance of fear of death are rarely reported after induced experiences.

Thus, induced experiences are not identical to NDE, and so, besides age, an unknown mechanism causes NDE by stimulation of neurophysiological and neurohumoral processes at a subcellular level in the brain in only a few cases during a critical situation such as clinical death. These processes might also determine whether the experience reaches consciousness and can be recollected.

With lack of evidence for any other theories for NDE, the thus far assumed, but never proven, concept that consciousness and memories are localised in the brain should be discussed. How could a clear consciousness outside one's body be experienced at the moment that the brain no longer functions during a period of clinical death with flat EEG?22 Also, in cardiac arrest the EEG usually becomes flat in most cases within about 10 s from onset of syncope.29,30 Furthermore, blind people have described veridical perception during out-of-body experiences at the time of this experience.31 NDE pushes at the limits of medical ideas about the range of human consciousness and the mind-brain relation.

Research should be concentrated on the effort to explain scientifically the occurrence and content of NDE. Research should be focused on certain specific elements of NDE, such as out-of-body experiences and other verifiable aspects. Finally, the theory and background of transcendence should be included as a part of an explanatory framework for these experiences.

source: http://profezie3m.altervista.org/archivio/TheLancet_NDE.htm

 

[neurocomp2003]

lesion pieces of peoples brains and see what they do...
Because most of such experiments are considered unethical neuropsychologists/surgeons are limited to how much they can
explore the human brain.

Also one of the defining factors of the human brain is the enlarge PFC which is apart of decision making and imagery(along with the parietal regions i think 7A and LIP) two important qualities in NDE and OBE.

 

[Huckleberry]

When I dream does imaginary light enter my eyes? If no light enters my eyes and yet I can still perceive objects then how can I possibly know if what I see when I am awake is not a figment of my imagination? All the senses can be fooled into reporting imaginary information that appears very real to the the mind.

I believe that I am awake right now, but if I were to suddenly wake up from this state and enter a state that felt more real then would I have to assume that my life was a dream? There have been many times that I have woken up from a dream only to discover that I was still dreaming when I awoke for a second time, or a third.

I don't think hypnagogue was invalidating the experience of the two people you know that had unconscious memories of real events. Because they are unconscious does not mean that their senses have stopped registering information. This information is a part of the world that people agree to be real and is incorporated into the personal reality of the unconscious person. The only difference here is that upon awakening the person does no have a sense that what they experienced is less real than what they are experiencing now. They assume it is reality, and it may very well be accurate.

What I am skeptical of is true NDE with OBE that are realistically accurate. All the sites that I've seen on this seem slanted towards the opinion that this is fact without offering much evidence. It doesn't make it not real. It just makes it a matter of faith. I am curious to learn more about it.

I have said it so many times before and will keep right on saying it until even I won't listen any more.

If you were expecting this reaction then why would you create the thread? It seems you are already convinced of your beliefs. Is it important that you convince others? Why?

Anyway, I agree with you that there is more to the world than the physical for exactly the reason I've listed here. We can perceive things as real that may not be real, and we can not be certain that what we perceive as real is just a perception. This leaves the door wide open for the metaphysical. But seeing as that it would be difficult to live in a society where nobody could agree on what is real we should at least attempt to find a way to communicate reality to each other. That's why there is logic, and why science relies on the observable, not the metaphysical.

 

[Royce]

But DNA and brain size are not the be all and end all of evolution. Our brains are very different to a chimpanzee's; our species' history is very different too. If our ancestors had not climbed down from the trees and moved out, would we have developed beyond the Stick Age? So there is something more, and should that not be ruled out before moving onto other theories.

You have a point. There is also the fact that chimp and gorilla's DNA differ by 16% showing that humans and chimps are closer related than chimps and gorillas yet their behavior is by far more similar than chimps and humans.
However, there are many things, behavior patters, between humans and chimps that are very similar such as hunting monkeys raiding other clans and murder. My point is that we are so similar and so closely related yet so different in or technical and creative abilities. I don't think that this can all be explained away by evolutionary or environmental differences. After all mankind is supposed to be out of the same Africa where chimps are now.

The feeling that the human species is somehow special and imbued with something other animals are not gives us delusions of grandeur.

I don't think that it is a delusion. I think that it is real. Our science, art music and buildings, our technology and continuing advancement in every field we undertake is rather Grand don't you think. Of course that is the work of the best of us but all of us are capable of understand and appreciating what we have accomplished as a species.

The mind of any mammal is extraordinary. If you compare the mind of a great ape to that of a sheep... that's a quantum leap. Must the great ape have some non-biochemical, supernatural conscious essence to be able to do this? Or would you put it down simply to biological and environmental difference?

Again you prove my point. Sheep - chimp - Mankind Which quantum leap is the greater with the least differences. Why does it have to be a supernatural consciousness rather than a natural consciousness, the mind of man, that makes the difference. If you use "supernatural" to mean beyond and above nature as in spiritual or mystical then I disagree. If you use "supernatural" the same way we use super structure, above the main deck on a ship or roadway on a bridge, and mean above the main body but still part of nature then I agree. I do not think the mind is biochemical or physical but mental and is interactive with the biochemical physical brain and body.

If the former, then that doesn't make the human soul or whatever you want to call it anything special. If the latter, why would it be any different comparing humans to any other animal? If you accept that the brain and evolutionary history of the human is different to that of, say, the chimpanzee, and you ascribe the differences in behavior of a chimpanzee to, say, a sloth to biochemical and environmental causes, why would you not make the same assumption in your comparison of the human to the chimp?

Because as I said the evolutionary and DNA difference between a sloth and chimp are far greater than the differences between Man and chimp yet the chimps are still animals as is a sloth but mankind are humans.

 

[Royce]

Thanks again, PIT2. You support my position better than I do. No I haven't read a lot about NDE. What I have read and seen on TV is fascinating and goes to support my spiritual beliefs. I find nothing unbelievable about them and my usual remark is; "Of course, what else would you expect?"

 

[Royce]

If you were expecting this reaction then why would you create the thread? It seems you are already convinced of your beliefs. Is it important that you convince others? Why?

Hypnagogue and I go back a few years and we have discussed, debated, argued over a number of different topics. It has always been in good faith and though we seldom agree we both enjoyed very much, for this reason I consider him a friend.
I used these two examples in another thread a year or so ago to illustrate a similar point, and got much the same reaction. Some interested even fascinated, some true believers, and some who all but called me and the people reporting it liars and hoaxes. Others just contend that there are natural reasonable explanations for all of it. This last is stretching the point and ignoring things like PIT2 pointed out that even brain dead flat liners have report similar experiences.
I may have over reacted and if I did I apologize.

Anyway, I agree with you that there is more to the world than the physical for exactly the reason I've listed here. We can perceive things as real that may not be real, and we can not be certain that what we perceive as real is just a perception. This leaves the door wide open for the metaphysical. But seeing as that it would be difficult to live in a society where nobody could agree on what is real we should at least attempt to find a way to communicate reality to each other. That's why there is logic, and why science relies on the observable, not the metaphysical.

My only question remains, why does science ignore the verifiable duplicable experiences of sincere honest people, question their reliability, veracity and motives? There is a wealth of anecdotal information out there about every metaphysical topic yet it does not exist and is not evidence to scientist.
Sure there is a lot of misinformation and hoaxers out there, even con artists, but then science's reputation and record is not pristine or spotless either.

 

[Huckleberry]

I don't think science ignores the metaphysical. There is much to be said about its psychological and philosophical effects. There just isn't much that can be done with it in the physical sciences because as you mentioned, the evidence is mostly anecdotal. Rigid thinking on both sides of the issue is probably another major difficulty.

 

[loseyourname]

It's worth noting that there are better examples of OBEs than what you've presented here, Royce. Given that these people experienced nothing outside of the room their bodies were in, hypnagogue is correct to say that their memories can easily be explained without invoking anything immaterial. The necessary conditions for an OBE to be considered worth investigating include:

1. The experience must have taken place at a far enough distance from the body to rule out normal perceptual input.
2. Memories of the experience must be verified by a third party. For instance, if you claim that your consciousness traveled to Denver while you were asleep and you saw your friend brushing her hair, she must confirm that was indeed doing exactly what you remember at that time.
3. Although not a necessary condition, it is often the case that the person(s) being viewed by the out-of-body observer sees images of that observer's face, especially if the two know each other well.

If these conditions are met, then nothing in our current science can explain what happened. The situations you described can be explained.


Edit: By the way, to say that a property of the mind is truly emergent is to say that it is not a property of the electrochemical processes that constitute the lower natural levels of the brain. This is precisely why physicists will generally claim there is no such thing as a truly emergent property. They'd like to believe that everything can be reduced to physics.

 

[loseyourname]

My only question remains, why does science ignore the verifiable duplicable experiences of sincere honest people, question their reliability, veracity and motives? There is a wealth of anecdotal information out there about every metaphysical topic yet it does not exist and is not evidence to scientist. Sure there is a lot of misinformation and hoaxers out there, even con artists, but then science's reputation and record is not pristine or spotless either.

Science does not ignore these things, Royce. Notable universities that have parapsychology research centers or programs include Duke, Cornell, Stanford, the University of Virginia Medical School, Edinbugh University, and plenty of other respectable institutions. You shouldn't get the impression that the physicists and chemists that dominate these forums represent all there is to science. Some good information is contained here:

http://twm.co.nz/FAQpara3.htm

 

[Dayle Record]

I had an obe, during surgery. I did some shouting, rearing up in the surgeon's face, saying owie! owie! owie!, at the same time I was watching myself do this, thinking how much I look like my youngest child while shouting in that fashion. I remembered the nurse coming over with a syringe, and injecting it into a peripheral line. I asked about the incident later, and one of the residents, would not discuss what else I said.

The obe was during meditation, I was doing raja yoga, in combination with studying the works of Castaneda. I lay back after a meditation, and I felt my self lift out of my body, I was suddenly in a cocktail party, somewhere in the Chicago area, in real time I was in the early morning, in dream time I was in the evening. I watched a stranger make innocuous conversation, while alternately watching my hands and watching her. It took a supreme effort to remain there and watch her, talk about shopping, and so forth. I finally gave up, and fell back, somewhat into my body, and reared up, laughing what the heck? Why would I exert this extreme, seemingly electrical effort, to watch a vapid, middle aged stranger, discuss pedestrian matters? This was 1974.

 

[Royce]

Science does not ignore these things, Royce. Notable universities that have parapsychology research centers or programs include Duke, Cornell, Stanford, the University of Virginia Medical School, Edinbugh University, and plenty of other respectable institutions. You shouldn't get the impression that the physicists and chemists that dominate these forums represent all there is to science. Some good information is contained here:

http://twm.co.nz/FAQpara3.htm

Well it is not only here that I get that impression. I've watched a number of TV shows about OBE and NDE mainly on TLC and Discovery. They always have a "scientist" on that refutes the evidence and attempts to show that there are perfectly normal reasonable explanations for all of it, much like Hypnagogue did that are not reasonable or normal. I realize that it is contrived and they feel that they have to give equal time to the other side.
I am surprised that so many of you have accepted my examples and even given better examples that support my point that the mind is more than just a result of the physical processes going on in the brain. Exactly what its relationship is, Where it is located or how it does what it does are of course still mysteries to me as well as everybody else. I just know there is more to it than physicalist will admit or allow.
Thanks again to all of you. These examples were much better accepted and added to now than they were a couple of years ago when I first used them in another thread.

 

[El Hombre Invisible]

Because as I said the evolutionary and DNA difference between a sloth and chimp are far greater than the differences between Man and chimp yet the chimps are still animals as is a sloth but mankind are humans.

This paragraph explains everything about why you can't abide the notion that human and other mammalian minds aren't different in ways other than biochemical. If you start with the notion that humans aren't animals, it will, in a rather self-fulfilling way, lead you to the conclusion that we have something non-physical that they don't. There's simply no arguing this because it's practically religious.

 

[PIT2]

Heres an example of a successful OBE in a lab situation.

http://www.paradigm-sys.com/display/ctt_articles2.cfm?ID=50

On the first three laboratory nights Miss Z reported that in spite of occasionally being “out,” she had not been able to control her experiences enough to be in position to see the target number (which was different each night). On the fourth night, at 5:57am, there was a seven minute period of somewhat ambiguous EEG activity, sometimes looking like stage 1, sometimes like brief wakings. Then Miss Z awakened and called out over the intercom that the target number was 25132, which I wrote on the EEG recording. After she slept a few more minutes I woke her so she could go to work and she reported on the previous awakening that:

"I woke up; it was stifling in the room. Awake for about five minutes. I kept waking up and drifting off, having floating feelings over and over. I needed to go higher because the number was lying down. Between 5:50 and 6:00 A.M. that did it. . . I wanted to go read the number in the next room, but I couldn’t leave the room, open the door, or float through the door. . .. I couldn’t turn on the air conditioner!"

The number 25132 was indeed the correct target number. I had learned something about designing experiments since my first OBE experiment and precise evaluation was possible here. The odds against guessing a 5digit number by chance alone are 100,000 to 1, so this is a remarkable event! Note also that Miss Z had apparently expected me to have propped the target number up against the wall behind the shelf, but she correctly reported that it was lying flat.

 

[Royce]

Facinating. I would say it proves our point. Thanks again as I said your doing a better job at supporting this than I am.

 

[neurocomp2003]

heh for those of you who like to think about the brain vs metaphysics...how many of you have studied the structures inside the brain?

 

[Faustus]

Well it is not only here that I get that impression. I've watched a number of TV shows about OBE and NDE mainly on TLC and Discovery. They always have a "scientist" on that refutes the evidence and attempts to show that there are perfectly normal reasonable explanations for all of it, much like Hypnagogue did that are not reasonable or normal.

I think we, as a society, suffer from a case of acute rationalism, which causes people to believe everything must be explained, if possible, or rejected, if impossible to explain. Notice that the compulsion to explain NDEs on a scientific basis, as Hypnagogue did, is essentially no different from the compulsion to explain it on any basis. I have read quite a bit about NDEs and I can conclude, with nearly absolute certainty, that nobody knows what is going on. Neither scientists nor the experiencers themselves have a clue to what is going on, although both sides like to claim they do.

That said, any person can verify for themselves that the following are indisputable facts about near-death experiences (I know of no sensible explanation for these facts, but that doesn't make them less factual):

- They feel extremely real, "more real than ordinary reality" as experiencers often describe it. If you had an NDE, the chance you would be fully convinced the experience was real is higher than 90%; that is a statistical fact.

- Experiencers do acquire information by means other than their senses. The claim that people who are unconscious can hear and remember things does not explain how near-death experiencers see things during their experiences. There are reports, which have been verified by reliable sources, that NDEers often see things they couldn't possibly see even if they were not unconscious.

- It is also a fact that people sometimes receive information, which they could not otherwise have known about, from recently deceased people; that usually happens during dreams or in the hypnopompic state (when people are about to wake up)

All those things are facts but, as I said, one must verify them for themselves. You don't need science to know that the Red Sox won the World Series last year; why pay attention to stuffy academics on a subject they know as much about as the next person?

 

[PIT2]

Heres a study, which demonstrates some of Faustus points:

http://www.scientificexploration.org/jse/articles/pdf/12.3_cook_greyson_stevenson.pdf

An even more important kind of NDE for suggesting that NDEs are not simply subjective hallucinations or imagination are those in which experiencers report perceiving events that occurred beyond the normal range of the physical senses, events that they could not have perceived normally even if they had been conscious.

Hart (1954) identified 288 published cases in which a person claimed to have perceived events at some distant location at a time when he or she seemed to be out of the physical body. (Ninety-nine of these met Hart’ s criteria for evidentiality, in that the events seen were later verified and had also been reported to someone by the experient before that verification took place.)

Nevertheless, there has been one notable attempt to determine whether theOBEs reported in connection with NDEs are solely the product of subjectiveimagery or whether they sometimes include objective, out-of-body perceptions.Michael Sabom, a cardiologist, compared the accuracy of the descriptions by near-death experiencers of their resuscitations with the descriptions of cardiac patients who did not report an NDE but who were asked to imaginewhat a resuscitation looked like. He concluded that the near-death experiencers seemed to be describing actual observations rather than imagined events (Sabom, 1982).

And here is another bit about an OBE experiment:

In an attempt to address this problem, Osis and McCormick (1980) designed a visual target that could be identified only if viewed from one particular visual perspective, and they recruited as the subject for their experiments a person skilled at inducing OBEs in himself. The success of this person in identifying the target led Osis and McCormick to conclude that he had done so by viewing it while out of his physical body, rather than by clairvoyance while inside his physical body.

 

[Royce]

My father died a number of years ago. All three of us, my two sisters and I, on the day that he died, had a sense of well being, that everything was fine and as it should and was expected to be. I said that my feeling was a free and easy feeling. It was remarkable only because it was unusual and we all "knew" it was Dad giving this to us, saying good bye.
We miss him but none of us mourn his passing. Just thought that I'd add this bit. You can make of it what you will. It was real to me, to us and I'll never forget it. By the way I was here in Atlanta, GA and my father and sisters
live(d) in California.

 

[hypnagogue]

First it is their physicalist paradigm that the mind does not exist but is only a property of the physical brain function that makes them try with this convoluted theory to make the relatively simple processor responsible for human mentality and consciousness.

I find it ironic that you are accusing me of physicalist dogma when you should know I'm an anti-physicalist! Of course the mind exists, and no, I do not believe that everything about the mind is reducible to physical facts. In particular, I believe that physicalism can only account for structural and functional facts, and that subjective experience cannot be reduced to structural and functional facts alone.

But the mind modulo subjective experience is nothing but a set of structures and functions, and so a physical perspective does not face the same kind of in-principle difficulties in accounting for these aspects of the mind. Now, in principle, it could nonetheless be the case that not all of the structural and functional facts about mind could be accounted for by a physicalist perspective-- in particular, if the sort of OBEs described by loseyourname really do exist, we will have another dilemma for physicalism. But scientifically ascertaining the existence of this sort of non-local information transfer in human minds has been notoriously elusive, and science is our best epistemological tool for investigating objective phenomena. (Acquisition of information about the world by means of OBEs would constitute an objective phenomenon.) If our best epistemological tool cannot readily confirm the existence of a phenomenon whose alleged character flies in the face of everything we otherwise know about the objective world, we must retain significant doubts as to its true nature.

They have yet to discover how the physical brain brings all of these processes together to form the concept of a chair that is universal to all chairs regardless of shape, size color and type. Maybe this is where Plato's forms come in.

There is as of yet no definitive and meticulously detailed account of how the brain forms concepts, but we already have identified the general mechanism. Concepts are sets of fuzzy categories with rich patterns of interrelations and overlaps, and just this sort of thing can be modeled on a computer using computational neural networks. Computational neural networks, of course, are just computational models of how neurons in the brain function and interact. There is not as much of a mystery here as you would like to believe.

If our perceptions were not reality but an inaccurate model then what we have discovered, learned, and know of the physical world scientifically would not be nearly so accurate, verifiable or useful. Nor would one discovery lead to even more theories and discoveries.

I only claimed that our perceptions are a model of the world, not the world itself; I said nothing about their accuracy. Our perceptual models of the world must be accurate at least to the extent that they allow us to thrive (in the sense of survival and reproduction) in a competetive and unforgiving environment. But at the same time, our perceptual mechanisms are easily given over to illusions, inaccurate representations of things as they actually are. This is a plain fact, and I hope I do not have to ennumerate the many ways in which this can happen. That our perceptual mechanisms can be easily fooled in the proper circumstances in no way implies that we should not have the capacity to do good science.

It seems to me that they are over complicating the issue and throwing in a bunch of extra steps just so they can rationalize and justify it to fit the physicalist view point. Where is Occam's Razor when you need it. As they say; "If you hear hoof beats in the American West don't go looking for zebras."

This is not about Occam's Razor at all. It's about consistency with the evidence. You might say that quantum physics is only a needless complication of Newtonian physics, but the simple fact is that those complications are required if we are to honor the experimental evidence we have. Likewise, naive realism is plainly inconsistent with the evidence from the cognitive sciences, and so it must be rejected and replaced with a more complicated view that accommodates all the evidence.

So far as I know, I am always aware that I am asleep and dreaming. I also usually know when I am awake and my perceptions are real or not real because of optical illusions or sensory distortions. This comes from experience and my personal experiences are my ultimate test for reality.

If you're having a dreaming experience and you're aware you're dreaming, that does not change the fact that you are inhabiting a rich perceptual space that is more or less distended from the influence of your environment. The point is that we can find ourselves experiencing perceptual spaces in a large variety of conditions, only a subset of which correspond to the objective world. The simplest explanation is just that it's our brain activity which constructs these perceptual worlds.

My locus of consciousness does not lie in a perceptual model of the body. It is usually in my head behind my forehead but I can at times move it, not outside my body but to various location within my body.

Your locus of consciousness lies in your perceptual model of your head, behind your perceptual model of your forehead. You're again espousing naive realism here, which is a view as plainly untenable as the view that the Earth is flat, due to its inability to accommodate known facts. For further arguments, see here and here.

Such reports are accurate and verifiable. Now you question the veracity of me and people you know nothing about because it doesn't fit your preconceived model of the physical brain.

I did not categorically deny the veracity of the reports in your initial post. I said that even if they were true, they could find explanations consistent with what we know about how the world works. This point was contrary to your claim that these reports could find no explanation other than the one you offered.

The veracity of stronger cases of OBE phenomena, like the kind loseyourname described, is a stickier issue. If such cases are so readily verifiable, why do we consistently find conflicting results from scientific studies? The failure of such phenomena to be readily verified by science is not necessarily a death knell-- perhaps their occurence depends on conditions that we do not understand and hence cannot control for-- but it certainly is grounds for retaining a healthy skepticism. Susan Blackmore's account of her thirty-year history of researching paranormal phenomena, and her eventual rejection of them, seems telling here.

I knew that this challenge was coming and I've been here before. I also know the futility of arguing with a physicalist view point. I am a realist and I don't believe that it is naive. It is the physicalistic view point that ignores so much data, experience and information because it doesn't fit the physicalist paradigm.

Again, the tack I'm taking here is not a physicalist one. I am not a physicalist, but I am completely comfortable offering the line of argument I've presented here.

As for your view, it quite simply is the view that is called "naive realism" in philosophy. It has acquired that pejorative name for a reason.

As for the issue of data-- nothing is being ignored here. I'm not covering my ears shouting "la la la!" What I'm doing is considering possible explanations for the phenomena you're talking about. That's not ignoring data, it's interpreting it.

I have said it so many times before and will keep right on saying it until even I won't listen any more. There is so much more to reality than merely the physical and the physical cause and effect. You/they say ideas are not physical but are only the effect of physical processes. How then can anyone come up with a new idea, create something never seen, nor heard, nor read before or a new theory of a reality that he cannot and does not perceive but just some cause and effect subjective model created electrochemically in his physical brain cells?

Simple-- the computational dynamics of the neurons of the brain. We have internal models of the world that we build through experience, and we have faculties of reasoning and intuition-- both conscious and unconscious-- that continuously draws from and operates upon those models. The general schema is not unlike a system of axioms (the model of the world) operated upon by a set of rules of inference (reasoning/intuition) in order to generate novel propositions. There is nothing fundamentally mysterious here.

 

[hypnagogue]

Now, in principle, it could nonetheless be the case that not all of the structural and functional facts about mind could be accounted for by a physicalist perspective-- in particular, if the sort of OBEs described by loseyourname really do exist, we will have another dilemma for physicalism.

I should say that this would be a dilemma for physics, rather than physicalism-- a much deeper dilemma that could only be resolved by reformulating our physical models of the world accordingly. Having done that, physicalism could be preserved, but only at the cost of re-writing physics itself.

 

[Faustus]

My father died a number of years ago. All three of us, my two sisters and I, on the day that he died, had a sense of well being, that everything was fine and as it should and was expected to be. I said that my feeling was a free and easy feeling. It was remarkable only because it was unusual and we all "knew" it was Dad giving this to us, saying good bye.
We miss him but none of us mourn his passing. Just thought that I'd add this bit. You can make of it what you will.

These things have always happened, but only in our scientific-materialistic society have we come to classify them as delusions, superstition, lies, just because it makes the scientific-materialistic types uncomfortable. I say, that is their problem!

A couple of months ago my mother had the strangest experience. She was half-asleep in bed when she heard someone enter the door and walk in her direction. It was late at night so she became very upset thinking it could be a robber, but she couldn't move a limb. She was there, lying in bed, terrified of the intruder, who entered her room and sat beside her in the bed! She could not see the man, but she could feel his presence and his weight on the matress. Then she woke up and realized it was a dream, although a very real and frightening one.

The next day she told a friend about it and the friend said she had a very, very similar experience, at about the same time. The coincidence was strange enough, but she was really flabbergasted when, later on, she learned a close mutual friend of both of them had died the night before... at about the same time both had the experience!

Now this was my mother and she's a skeptic, she didn't know what to make of it. I don't know if it means the spirit of their friend came to say good-bye, but something really happened which cannot be dismissed as a coincidence or a fantasy. Clearly we still don't know what is going on in the world, and the old religious beliefs about souls and afterlife may not be entirely true, but they do have a basis in people's experiences. And the scientific-materialistic world view may not be entirely false, but it cannot possibly be the final truth about the mind and consciousness.

 

[Royce]

I find it ironic that you are accusing me of physicalist dogma when you should know I'm an anti-physicalist! Of course the mind exists, and no, I do not believe that everything about the mind is reducible to physical facts. In particular, I believe that physicalism can only account for structural and functional facts, and that subjective experience cannot be reduced to structural and functional facts alone.

I was not referring to you as a physicalist but the cognitive scientist. If you got that impression, I am sorry it was not my intention. I know your writing well enough to know that you are not a physicalist but you can and do argue their point very well at times.

But the mind modulo subjective experience is nothing but a set of structures and functions, and so a physical perspective does not face the same kind of in-principle difficulties in accounting for these aspects of the mind. Now, in principle, it could nonetheless be the case that not all of the structural and functional facts about mind could be accounted for by a physicalist perspective-- in particular, if the sort of OBEs described by loseyourname really do exist,

Statements like the one above; " if the sort of OBEs described by loseyourname really do exist," is what I talking about when I said that you question the veracity of me, loseyourname and others that you know nothing about. I realize that neither you nor I can take any individual statement as gospel carved in stone but we do have to consider the possibility of a number of such statements that claim verification and witnesses as existing and possibly true. It is your wording the rubbed me the wrong way. I was out of sorts Tuesday when I wrote and posted my initial reply. Even my boss said that I was being old (cranky). I think had you said that "if they are true indications of OBE's and NDE's" rather than saying "if they exist" it would have been much more agreeable to me. Again I think that I over reacted and for that I apologize.

we will have another dilemma for physicalism. But scientifically ascertaining the existence of this sort of non-local information transfer in human minds has been notoriously elusive, and science is our best epistemological tool for investigating objective phenomena. (Acquisition of information about the world by means of OBEs would constitute an objective phenomenon.) If our best epistemological tool cannot readily confirm the existence of a phenomenon whose alleged character flies in the face of everything we otherwise know about the objective world, we must retain significant doubts as to its true nature.

With this I agree completely. I have no idea how an out of body mind can perceive anything and retain an accurate memory of the event without a physical medium (brain) to store the information. It may be an indication that we are all part of and interconnected with the one consciousness talked about in another thread. It amazes, fascinates and baffles me yet I have to accept at least some of it as true and real. Something is obviously happening that is not explainable if physical terms.

There is as of yet no definitive and meticulously detailed account of how the brain forms concepts, but we already have identified the general mechanism. Concepts are sets of fuzzy categories with rich patterns of interrelations and overlaps, and just this sort of thing can be modeled on a computer using computational neural networks. Computational neural networks, of course, are just computational models of how neurons in the brain function and interact. There is not as much of a mystery here as you would like to believe.

As I have said in other threads as well as this one, I'm not really sure what I think about the mind/brain relationship. It is a work in progress. The way that I am beginning to see it is that the brain is the hardware and the mind is the software but this is really too simplistic. We receive date from our senses.
Our brain processes and correlates that data much like a computer. And, yes it builds corresponding models in our brains. I think of it more like an interface processor between the real physical world and our mind.

Our senses see a chair, an unusual chair the type of which we have never seen before. Our senses send the information to the brain and in one area the brain builds a model of shape, form and size, another detects and correlates the color and texture etc. Somewhere this model and color and texture etc are brought together and compared to previous data. There must be somewhere in our brain or mind a concept of a generic universal chair (Plato's forms?) to which we compare the data collected processed and correlated so that we instantly recognize the object as a chair and know its purpose and function.

I only claimed that our perceptions are a model of the world, not the world itself; I said nothing about their accuracy. Our perceptual models of the world must be accurate at least to the extent that they allow us to thrive (in the sense of survival and reproduction) in a competetive and unforgiving environment. But at the same time, our perceptual mechanisms are easily given over to illusions, inaccurate representations of things as they actually are. This is a plain fact, and I hope I do not have to ennumerate the many ways in which this can happen. That our perceptual mechanisms can be easily fooled in the proper circumstances in no way implies that we should not have the capacity to do good science.

You are, of course, correct here. We do not and cannot have the real world in our heads or minds and we have only our imperfect senses to give us information. We must create models and from those models form our perceptions of the world around us. I maintain that our perceptions are real, they exist subjectively and reflect reality (most of the time). Where these perceptions form and where they exist is IMHO in our minds which is different from but intertwined, interfaced and interactive with our brains. How they continue to functions outside of our bodies is a whole 'nother can of worms for which I have no answers or solutions only more questions. I do not doubt however that it happens and that it is real.

This is not about Occam's Razor at all. It's about consistency with the evidence. You might say that quantum physics is only a needless complication of Newtonian physics, but the simple fact is that those complications are required if we are to honor the experimental evidence we have. Likewise, naive realism is plainly inconsistent with the evidence from the cognitive sciences, and so it must be rejected and replaced with a more complicated view that accommodates all the evidence.

I have no problem with the evidence. The question in my mind is, is the evidence the cause or the effect. Are they seeing the process at work and assuming that it is the end result, the finished product?

If you're having a dreaming experience and you're aware you're dreaming, that does not change the fact that you are inhabiting a rich perceptual space that is more or less distended from the influence of your environment. The point is that we can find ourselves experiencing perceptual spaces in a large variety of conditions, only a subset of which correspond to the objective world. The simplest explanation is just that it's our brain activity which constructs these perceptual worlds.

Yes, it is our brain activity that constructs these perceptual worlds. It is our mind that perceives and evaluates and "lives" in these perceptual worlds.

I did not categorically deny the veracity of the reports in your initial post. I said that even if they were true, they could find explanations consistent with what we know about how the world works. This point was contrary to your claim that these reports could find no explanation other than the one you offered.

Again the words "even if they were true" connotates, that they are not true but if they were..., We can always rationalize and justify anything if we try hard enough. Why not accept them as fact or true phenomenon and go from there? They are evidence. Not just some made up imaginings of deluded people to be brushed aside and dismissed because they don't fit our preconceived paradigms. The reality of the current situation is that nobody knows what is going on or how or why it happens. So why dismiss part of the evidence that may lead to a better understanding of what is really going on.
We learn by solving hard problems not by just doing the easy ones that we already know how to solve. In my business of electronic service and repair we call that cherry picking.

As for your view, it quite simply is the view that is called "naive realism" in philosophy. It has acquired that pejorative name for a reason.

I looked up "naive realism" on the internet. While I am a realist in that our perceptions are accurate reflections of reality, I don't think that I am a naive realist. I still don't like that term, but that's my problem. I also believe that reality consists of all that we perceive, physical, mental and spiritual. Dreams may not be real in content (though some may contain some reality) they do exist and in that sense are real.

s for the issue of data-- nothing is being ignored here. I'm not covering my ears shouting "la la la!" What I'm doing is considering possible explanations for the phenomena you're talking about. That's not ignoring data, it's interpreting it.

I didn't think you were. Some,however, do. By interpreting data as something other than it is however is just as bad. Data is data and should stand alone on it's own merits. Interpreting data can and often leads to falsifying or twisting or dismissing crucial parts even unintentionally. If the data is real and true it does not need interpretation only integration.

Simple-- the computational dynamics of the neurons of the brain. We have internal models of the world that we build through experience, and we have faculties of reasoning and intuition-- both conscious and unconscious-- that continuously draws from and operates upon those models. The general schema is not unlike a system of axioms (the model of the world) operated upon by a set of rules of inference (reasoning/intuition) in order to generate novel propositions. There is nothing fundamentally mysterious here.

No, there's nothing mysterious except where does this reasoning, intuition, set of rules of inference and propositions come from and where do they reside. Is it the physical neurons with there analog electrochemical properties which is the physical brain or is it something else we call the mind but know very little about?

As always this is just my thinking and opinions. I have no proof nor do I attempt to prove anything nor claim any expertise or special knowledge.